“I do,” I say. But I pity him, too. I can’t hate him anymore.
He sighs and leans back against the wall. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes again. “Leave me alone, Tessa.”
I blow a breath out through my teeth and step forward, catching the edges of his jacket between my fingers.
He startles and jerks his hands down.
“Mind your mettle,” I say as I work the buttons.
He blinks. Scowls. “I told you—”
“You told me a lot of things. Maybe you could shut up for a minute and let me think.”
He shuts up, but I don’t think. Not really. I keep my eyes on my task until the last of the buttons slip free. “Take that off,” I say as I turn away to tug at the chains that will make the faucets run. The rush of water roars in the silence.
“Wash your hands and face,” I say. I plug the drain and dip my hand in the water to check the temperature. Flecks of blood and dirt had clung to my fingertips from where I touched him, but they swirl away into nothing. I start to turn back around. “I’ll see if I can find a wash—”
I stop short. The breath rushes out of my lungs.
He hasn’t just removed the jacket. He’s removed his shirt, too, leaving his upper body bare, his trousers hanging low on his hips. He doesn’t look like a blood-soaked villain anymore; he looks warm, somehow simultaneously vulnerable yet fierce. Muscle crawls across his shoulders and down his arms, revealing various scars, from what looks like a puncture wound in his abdomen to what must have been a knife or a dagger bisecting his bicep. My eyes lock on to the faint tracing of hair that starts below his navel and disappears under his waistband.
Corrick clears his throat, and I jerk my gaze up. My cheeks are on fire.
“Mind your mettle,” he says.
“I hate you.”
“Hmm. Not too much, it seems.” He steps into my space, and I nearly trip over my own feet to get out of his way, but he’s only moving to thrust his hands under the flow of water.
I’m such a fool. I can’t be lusting after him. Not now. Not ever.
My heart doesn’t care. Other parts of me don’t care. My whole body is a traitor.
“Didn’t you say you were going to find a washrag?” he says pointedly.
“Oh! Yes. Of course.” This time I do stumble over my feet. But I find a washrag and bring it back to him, trying not to look at the long slope of his back, or the way his waist narrows beneath his ribs, or the long jagged scar that’s partially hidden by his waistband.
“You have a lot of scars,” I say.
“Smugglers aren’t generally a very agreeable sort.” He bends over the basin, soaks the rag, and scrubs at his face. “Sometimes I try to ask questions and they have other ideas.”
Interesting.
But it gives my brain something to latch on to aside from wondering what his skin feels like. My cheeks are burning, but I keep my eyes locked ahead, on the far wall. “Did you get a chance to question the prisoners who escaped tonight?”
“No. I was busy reading maps with you and watching the sector go up in flames.”
“So none of them?”
He scrubs at his face with the rag again and turns to look at me. “No. Why?”
“Consul Sallister made a comment about ‘roughshod laborers.’ All the rumors said the smugglers from Steel City were young and disorganized.” I consider the explosions outside the window. “This seems really organized.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “They’re getting money from somewhere. These Benefactors must be well funded. There are many theories that the money is coming from inside the palace.” He ducks his head to splash more water on his face.
I think back to the conversations we had as Wes and Tessa, when he so adamantly declared that he wasn’t a smuggler and he wasn’t in this for personal gain. He’d looked haunted then, and I thought it was for the same reasons I was. Now I know the truth. “Did you question them? The prisoners from Steel City?”
“Yes. No one led me to believe they were part of some master plot.” He rakes his hands through his hair, which is now dripping water onto his chest. “They called for revolution and . . .” He shrugs. “You were there.”
The execution turned into a riot. Prisoners escaped.
I wonder how Corrick was planning to execute them. I’m scared to ask.
That tempers some of my flames.
He tugs at the chains to stop the flow of water, then turns around to lean back against the basin. “If there’s an underground network of smugglers funded by these Benefactors, they’re too well hidden. No one will admit anything to the night patrol. No one will speak to me, certainly.”
Funny how that happens when you kill everyone. The words sit on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say them. I don’t think he needs me to.
I don’t want to stare at him—well, my traitorous eyes do, but that’s not going anywhere good. I turn away and find a soft towel on a shelf, then turn to bring it back.
He’s standing right behind me.
I suck in a breath and shove it against his chest. “Here.”
“Thank you.” But he doesn’t move.
“What will Allisander do now?” I say.
Corrick shakes out the towel and drags it across his skin. “He vomited in the hallway of the Hold, so hopefully I was convincing that I’ll take a hard line on any further attacks.”
“Which means you think there will be more.”
“Yes.” He finally meets my eyes. “I think there will be more.” He pauses. “And I think, after today’s attacks, they will be more violent and even better planned. Word will spread quickly that this rescue mission was successful. The people will be emboldened. This isn’t just about funding rebels. If we have organized attacks on supply runs in addition to calls for rebellion in the streets, well . . .” His voice trails off.
“You think Allisander will stop supplying the Moonflower.”
“No. I think we’ll face a full-on revolution.”
What did Harristan say? It’s easy to love your king when everyone is well fed and healthy. A bit harder when everyone is not. He’s not wrong. But seeing things from this side makes it all so much more complicated. Revolution will mean more deaths—not just from violence, but from the fevers as well, as medicine becomes restricted.
I look into Corrick’s eyes and remember how I stood in the darkness with him and begged for revolution. I begged him to stand at the front with me—but I didn’t have a plan. I don’t have one now.
Now I understand what he was telling me that night. Rebellion won’t stop the fevers, Tessa.
A revolution might remove Harristan and Corrick from power, but it won’t stop the illnesses. It won’t force Allisander to provide more medicine. If anything, it’ll be harder to come by.
And if the king is busy fighting a revolution, he won’t be able to spare the expense to look for alternate ways to cure the fevers. Kandala will tear itself apart.
“Roydan and Arella have already begun to have secret meetings,” Corrick says. “It’s possible the other consuls have, too. Allisander and Lissa have a private army. If this comes to revolution, it might not just be the people against the throne.”
“It might be sector against sector,” I whisper. “It really is hopeless.”
Corrick nods.
“But if we stop the attacks—”
“It won’t stop a rebellion. Again, that’s a big if. I can hardly stop them now.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. And like he said earlier, if royal advisers haven’t been able to solve the problem, it’s unlikely we’re going to solve it in the dead of night in a washroom.
The blood is gone, and Corrick’s hair is slicked back, but the haunted look hasn’t left his face. I watched his eyes light up when he saw Rocco in the Hold. Was he hoping for Harristan? Is the king not involved in what Corrick is tasked with doing? Does he deliberately keep himself at a distance, or does Corrick try to shield him from it? I can’t decide which is
worse, but I watched his eyes fill a few moments ago, and I think both options are horrible.
“The night patrol will be more brutal now,” I say quietly.
He looks back at me for the longest moment, his expression inscrutable—then scrubs his hands over his face and makes a sound that’s half aggravation, half anguish. “I can’t call them off, Tessa. I can’t. Allisander would stop his shipments. Harristan would—”
“I know.”
“—never be able to back it. The rebels set fire to the sector—”
“I know.”
He breaks off, breathing heavily. “I don’t know how to stop it,” he says. “I can’t even figure out who’s funding these rebels—or why. Is this an attack on Harristan? Or is this a bid for medicine? Or both?”
So many questions—and as usual, no answers. I put a finger to my lip to think. A week ago, I might have been fighting on the side of the Benefactors. After seeing the destruction they’ve caused, I don’t know if that’s the right side either.
But Corrick is right: if he can’t stop the attacks, he has no leverage—and no way to stop the violence on either side. We need to find out who the Benefactors are.
As soon as I have the thought, I realize how to do it.
“People will talk,” I say suddenly.
“Of course,” he says. “Everyone talks.”
I shake my head quickly. “No—I mean you’ve been going about this the wrong way. You’ve been interrogating people as King’s Justice.”
“Shall I have Harristan do it?” He rolls his eyes and turns away. “I’m sure that will be much less threatening.”
“No.” I catch his arm, and he turns back to look at me. “Not Harristan.”
“Then who?”
“You and me.”
His expression turns skeptical, so I rush on. “Not as prince and . . . and apothecary.” I take a deep breath. “As outlaws.”
“As outlaws.”
“Yes.” I pause and stare up into his blue eyes, remembering the way they looked behind a mask. “We talk to people as Weston Lark and Tessa Cade.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Corrick
It’s nearly dawn by the time I crawl into bed, but that doesn’t stop the guards from rapping at my door at an hour past dawn, announcing that Consul Sallister has arrived.
“I believe we were to play chess, were we not?” Allisander calls.
I wish I could order his execution.
But we play in my quarters, the fire snapping in the hearth, a serving girl bringing us sugared pastries and boiled eggs and pouring cup after cup of black tea. I expect Allisander to be full of demands, seeking promises, but he’s oddly quiet. Tension hangs over the room, and I can’t tell if it’s between me and him, or if it’s all in my head. Every move we make on the chessboard feels like a precursor to battle.
I think of Tessa’s censorious eyes last night, and I have to shake off her judgment. As much as I hate Allisander, I need him. Kandala needs him.
For now.
The thought makes my heart pound. Harristan can’t undermine his consuls, but if we can stop the attacks and find out the source of funding—if we can ease some of the tensions in the sectors—then maybe we can formulate a new way to move forward.
But tensions are higher than ever, and the night patrol is on high alert. If Wes and Tessa return to the Wilds, the risk would be immense.
I look at the self-indulgent man in front of me. The risk is immense either way. The Benefactors have to be connected to someone from the Royal Sector—I just don’t know who else would have the silver to spend on revolution. But the consuls are all close to Harristan. I can’t imagine any of them paying citizens to revolt when any of them would have an opportunity to put a knife in my brother themselves. It would be cheaper. Simpler. Faster.
I think of that stack of letters Quint brought to Harristan on the day we were set to execute eight smugglers. Nearly two hundred letters—a lot of unhappy people crying for change.
Arella’s was among them. Her feelings about the executions have been made quite clear. She would never attack Harristan.
But she’s got a soft spot for the people, for those who are suffering.
And she’s been having secret meetings with Roydan.
They all ask for money when someone is denied funding. Allisander implicated Jonas Beeching—but Arella was pretty quick.
I’ve fallen so deep in thought that I’m startled when Allisander speaks into the silence. “I’m surprised you had time for a game, Corrick.”
“I made you a promise,” I say breezily.
“You make a lot of promises.”
My hand goes still on a chess piece. There’s a note in his voice I can’t quite figure out, and it draws my gaze up from the board. “I do my best to keep them all.”
“Indeed? To whom?”
He looks . . . smug. Or something close to it. He’s honestly a terrible chess player, but I’ve been letting him win for the last half an hour simply because I didn’t think it would be a good idea to poke at his pride.
Now feels like a good time to stop.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I move my rook in position to capture his king. “Check.”
He moves his king one square to the right. “I’ve looked into this girl of yours.”
My blood goes cold, but I shrug and study the board. “She is not mine.”
He leans in, his eyes seeking mine with vicious intensity. “She isn’t an apothecary. She works for a charlatan who peddles cheap skin remedies.”
I’m frozen in place. I don’t know what to say. I knew Tessa was her real name, but the shop where she works is outside the Wilds, well away from here. She never worried about anyone we were helping identifying her, surely.
Or maybe she never worried because she wouldn’t have been at risk the way I was.
I move my rook again. “Regardless of her employment, she has brought theories to Harristan. Theories that may—”
“The woman who owns the shop indicated that Tessa was distraught after the failed execution. She said that the girl told her friend she was pregnant with a smuggler’s baby.”
Of all the things he could have said, that’s the most unexpected. I almost burst out laughing. “Truly, Allisander? You believe she’s pregnant with a smuggler’s baby and she found herself in the palace for . . . what, exactly? Last night in the salon half the courtiers thought she was pregnant with Harristan’s baby, so perhaps we should make a wager—”
“I’m not a fool, Corrick.” His voice is level and cold.
I draw myself up and stare back at him. He’s too close to the truth. If it were about me, I’d laugh him right out of my quarters. But it’s not about me. It’s about Tessa.
“Arella and Roydan have made it very clear that they do not take issue with these smugglers,” Allisander says, his tone unchanged. “Consul Craft overheard them getting into a carriage together. They clearly believe the Crown has taken too harsh a stance on thievery and illegal dealings.”
“This is idle gossip, Allisander. Consul Cherry has made no secret of how she feels.”
He pushes his chess piece one space to the left, then brings his gaze to meet mine again. “After your behavior in the Hold, I suspect you have begun to think the same.”
He’s drawing the wrong conclusions in so many ways—but the worst part is that I can’t give him the right ones. My heart pounds against my ribs as I remember the way I slit those throats last night. I’m beginning to wonder if Allisander will never be satisfied until we’re executing anyone who dares to look at him askance. “You saw me in the Hold last night.”
“I did. You looked like you wanted to cry.”
“You looked like you wanted to vomit. Ah, forgive me. You did vom—”
He slams a hand on the chessboard, and the pieces rattle and topple. My king falls to the floor. He inhales fiercely.
But then he stops.
The anger in his gaze s
peaks volumes, however, and I hold my breath and wait. I’m not sure what he was going to say, but I hope it’s something so brutally treasonous that I could call a guard in here to run him through on the spot.
But he doesn’t. And I don’t. We sit there in frozen fury for the longest moment, until the guards rap at my door to announce Harristan.
I want to wither with relief. My brother could ask me to read every single document in the palace while standing on my head, and I’d do it willingly if it would get me out of this conversation with Consul Sallister.
Harristan doesn’t wait for a response; he just strides into my quarters before the guards have finished speaking.
Allisander rises to his feet and smooths his jacket, any hint of anger vanishing. “Harristan.”
I can’t read his voice. I don’t know if he’s glad my brother is here—or disappointed. But Harristan looks back at him, and his voice is even. “Consul.”
For one brief second, I think Allisander is going to needle him the way he was needling me. But he must still hold some respect for my brother, because he takes in Harristan’s curt response and cold demeanor, and he turns wicked eyes my way. “Thank you for the game, Corrick. We will pick it up at another time.”
I don’t know what to say, and he doesn’t wait for an answer. He exits through the door, and I’m alone with my brother.
I’m surprised to find the air between us is as prickly as it was with Allisander. It must be on my side: displeasure tinged with disappointment that my brother wasn’t the one to find me in the Hold. It’s ridiculous and foolish for me to have even hoped for such a thing—but I did, and I can’t seem to let it go.
Then my brother speaks.
“Rocco reported that he found you in a destroyed section of the Hold last night, with no guards. What were you doing?”
This is startling, and not at all what I expected him to say. I begin gathering the marble chess pieces to place them in their velvet and gold box. “Your guards gossip worse than mine do, Harristan.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I don’t know how to answer his question. We can’t afford to appear weak now, of all times. Each chess piece clinks into the box until Harristan steps over to the table and snaps the lid closed.
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