by Heidi Heilig
“What’s that?” I say as she draws the set of keys from her pockets.
Theodora pauses, glancing sidelong at me. “We work with chemicals here,” she says at last, fitting one of the keys into the gate to the garden. “I’ve learned it’s unwise to leave them lying about.”
Her tone is pointed—she must mean kerosene. The door is certainly thick enough to withstand explosives. It’s also locked, which makes sense after I’d sent her last workshop up in flames. Is the key on the set she uses to open the gate? After the disaster at La Rêve, I know better than to try to make plans when Leo and the Tiger have their own in motion. But it’s good information to keep hold of.
Leaving the keys dangling from the lock, I follow Theodora out to the wide stone plaza—a kitchen, once, exposed to the night air. Above, the clouds veil the stars, and the moon is a sickle for reaping. The shadows are deep, but I can make out the long stove against the wall closest to the temple. Leaves are turning to dirt in the corners, and animals have built and abandoned nests in the massive apertures once used for fuel.
On the opposite side, the wild garden grows close, as though reaching for the temple in hope of a blessing. I can see a few bold souls, drifting among the plants, and the fresh air feels like waking from a dream. I hadn’t realized how oppressive the workshop was—how ubiquitous the scent of oil and kerosene, how empty without the glow of the dead. I take deep breaths, invigorated. Here, where the spirits draw close, I am in my own territory. “You wanted souls?” I ask softly. “Come with me.”
There is a winding path leading toward the Ruby Palace, lit by electric lights strung on poles overhead. I follow it into the garden, with Theodora trailing just behind. If she is afraid of me, she does not show it. “What’s the nearest one?”
“There,” I say with a nod to the light, half swallowed by a rampant stand of bougainvillea. Living moths flutter around the glass bulb, as do the vana of those who got too close to the heat.
Theodora peers upward. “Where exactly? Can you point?”
Squinting, I glance at the spirits; they flutter erratically, out of reach. So I pick up a stick, using the tip to trace the path of a moth through the air. But when I come too near the bulb, Theodora grabs my wrist.
“Careful,” she says as I pull free. “If you smash the glass, the whole circuit will go out.”
“What does that mean?”
She makes a face. “It means you should show me a different spirit. Maybe one farther from the light.”
“You won’t be able to see them either way.”
“Please?”
I don’t bother protesting. Instead, I use the stick to point into the lush greenery. “There is the soul of an owl asleep in the tree. Mice there . . . and there . . . and there. There is a frog under those leaves, and a bird on that branch. . . .” I falter then. Is that a flash of blue deeper in the garden? I squint into the shadows . . . yes. A n’akela. Vengeful. Waiting. The sight of it chills me. The last one I’d seen had been one of Le Trépas’s disciples. Where had this one come from? It keeps its distance, at least. I glance at Theodora, wondering if I should continue. Her brow is furrowed as she peers into the trees, and her expression is so intent that doubt creeps in. “Can you see them?” I ask.
“No.” The smile she gives me is rueful; she shakes her head, curls bouncing. “I suppose I wondered if I might see . . . something. A disturbance in the air, or a faint gleam, if I only knew where to look.”
“Does it matter so much?”
“To catch a glimpse of something I’ve never seen before?” Theodora laughs. “Of course it does.” She opens the book, making another note before tucking it into her pocket. Then she looks up at the air—full of drifting sparks of soullight, though I know the only light she can see is the electric gleam of the glass bulb. “What do they look like?”
“Fire.” The answer seems inadequate to the yearning in her voice. “The vana are dull, like the embers that float upward when you poke at coals. The arvana . . . they’re like the flame itself. Orange and red. The akela are bright gold—the color of afternoon sun.”
“Mmm.” She watches the sky, as though trying to imagine it. “And n’akela?”
My eyes dart to the shadows in the garden, searching automatically for the hint of sapphire flame. “Blue as your eyes.”
“What about my father’s soul?” she asks then. The question, spoken so low, is a punch in the gut. I grit my teeth.
“Gold,” I say. But guilt is a weight I want to share. “The same color as my brother’s.”
“I see,” she says faintly.
I bristle. “Don’t ask a question if you don’t want the answer.”
“I always want the answer, Jetta. But tell me,” she adds, her eyes narrowing. “The official report says your brother survived.”
Too late, I realize my mistake. I take a breath, trying to come up with an excuse she will believe, but it has been a long day and I am tired, and La Fleur is much too smart for excuses. “He did.”
“But you saw his soul.” She stares at me, waiting for a reply that doesn’t come. “Le Trépas used to raise the corpses brought to the temple for burial. He turned them into revenants—walking dead. Is that what you did?”
“No!” I suppress a shudder, if not the memory: the dead man in the well. Bright blue eyes in pale bruised skin. The bloated tongue moving as he called me sister. I thank the gods that Akra is different, although I have no idea why. Does La Fleur?
“So he is alive? Jetta. Can you heal the dead?” Her eyes are bright with the thrill of discovery, but as the silence stretches, she clenches her jaw. “If I send the armée to find your brother, I can ask him in person.”
“If I take off my gloves, you can find out firsthand.” My threat is immediate—does she know it’s hollow? I do not know how Le Trépas killed, but I would do whatever it takes to keep my brother safe. Theodora folds her arms; we both glare at each other for a moment. I don’t want to hurt her—I don’t. Can she tell, or will she try to test the theory?
“It’s interesting,” she says at last, speaking with careful clarity. “If you truly brought your brother back from the dead, it would be the second difference I’ve noticed between you and Le Trépas.”
My heartbeat quickens at the thought. “What’s the first?”
She gives me a look. The silence stretches, but I want to know. Not just for me and Akra. But for the rebellion—or so I tell myself. After all, how can I offer my powers if I don’t even know what they are?
“My brother died in the temple,” I say at last, and the admission feels like a torn scab. “But I put his soul back and he . . . he’s alive. Not a revenant, not a corpse. And not the same as he was, either.”
“Let me guess,” she says, and the wonder on her face turns my stomach. “He doesn’t need to eat or drink or sleep. He obeys your orders, and he can’t be killed except by fire.”
I blink at her, startled. “How did you know?”
“He’s like your fantouches, I’m guessing.” She takes out her notebook again, flipping through as she mutters. “There are legends about this.”
“Legends?” My heart quickens. “I’ve never heard them.”
“Written on the temple walls in old Chakran,” she says. “I have a translator working on them.”
I stare at her journal as she scans the pages, wanting more than anything to rip it from her hands. “What do they say?”
“Quite a bit,” she says simply.
The answer infuriates me—I’ve been too free with my own information. “Will you tell me the other difference, at least?”
Theodora nods, as though accepting my offer in the tacit bargain. “Le Trépas claimed he can’t ensoul fabrications. The fantouches you create are something only you can do.”
The answer to my question is not half so shocking as the way she’d discovered it. “He . . . he claimed? To who?”
“The questioneurs.” The tremor in her voice is almost imperceptible. �
��They got very little out of him. Torture is a notoriously unreliable way to get information, and Le Trépas was a difficult subject, to say the least. But it seems he broke his silence around the time you entered the city. He asked for you by name. Offered to tell us what we wanted to know if we told him about you.”
“Me?” The world seems to tilt under my feet—it is a punishment for breaking Maman’s edict. Never show, never tell; you never knew who might be listening. But I knew who it was, didn’t I? The dead man in the well. He must have found a way to tell Le Trépas I was near. But . . . “Why?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? You were his only surviving child. He must have wanted to know what you were like.”
“And they told him?”
“There wasn’t much to tell,” she says, as though that would reassure me. “But what information they had was traded. As you and I did just now. Don’t look so horrified.” Her blue eyes gleam in the electric lights. “So much was destroyed after La Victoire, with the deaths of the monks and the burning of the scrolls. We’re only trying to get some of it back.”
I clench my fists; she makes it sound like the scrolls burned themselves. But worse is knowing the old monk has my secrets—even the smallest among them feels like a violation. What does Le Trépas know about me? And how much of his own knowledge had he shared with the armée in return? “What gives you Aquitans the right to have any of it?”
“Not a right. A responsibility.” Theodora raises an eyebrow. “This is my country too, Jetta.”
“It might have been, if your fiancé had sided with you instead of his own people!” The retort is cruel, and I want it to be. But La Fleur just looks annoyed.
“Raik was only ever on his own side.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She takes a breath, as though to respond, but then she passes a hand over her eyes. “We’re bickering now. It’s late, and we’re both tired. Let’s get some rest, don’t you think?”
Theodora turns back toward the temple, but I hesitate. Out here, in the garden, we are unguarded, alone, and the gloves are a slender barrier. I could have the book in a moment—I could take back all that stolen knowledge. The keys are even in the gate; it wouldn’t take long to figure out which one unlocks the closet. I could destroy her workshop, and her along with it.
Could I do it? Could I kill her? La Fleur, the armée scientist, the general’s daughter . . . and Leo’s sister. Her back is to me—she is weaponless, this maker of war machines. A threat, but not immediately. Not to me.
Folding my hands, I follow her back through the door of the temple. The keys chime like bells as she locks the door behind us.
* * *
—Reports of revenants describe them as walking corpses, but Jetta’s fantouches appear to act like living things.
—Can she raise men from the dead?
—Are the newspapers so wrong to claim we could resurrect the fallen to fill the armée ranks?
—The Maiden and the King. Is Jetta a nécromancien or something else?
—“What I create, I control.”
—Can she command a fantouche to obey someone else?
—Who controls the creature if someone else uses the blood?
* * *
Act 1,
Scene 8
The slum near the river. It is midnight or later. Rain has made a muddy stream of the crooked street. Through the gray, the wreck of the dragon boat looms over the rows of broken-down shacks. The air is thick with flies—not even the lingering smoke from the many cookfires can keep them away.
AKRA is standing on the riverbank, rain plastering his dark hair to his head. It has gotten longer in the weeks since his desertion, but if you look closely, you can tell he was an officer, once. There is the way he stands, as though ready to be called to attention. There are the calluses on his bare feet, where ill-fitted boots used to pinch.
And of course there are the scars.
He watches the sluggish current for a while—how long has he been out here? Suddenly, AKRA turns his head, though the only sound is the rush of rain and river, and the heavy, oppressive hum of the camp: hundreds of hearts struggling to beat.
AKRA: You’ve got a lot of nerve coming back to the scene of the crime, you moitié bastard.
LEO (offstage): Being a moitié bastard will cultivate nerve.
LEO steps into the scant moonlight on silent feet.
You’re up late.
AKRA: Hard to sleep with my sister missing. Speaking of which.
Theatrically, AKRA glances into the shadows behind LEO.
Where’s your brother lurking?
LEO: Likely back at the palace. Though it took me some time to shake the soldat he sent to follow me.
AKRA narrows his eyes.
AKRA: He doesn’t trust you either? Smart man.
LEO: Especially considering what I’m here to ask.
AKRA: A favor? (He laughs.) Don’t bother. I wouldn’t even forgive you if you asked it.
LEO: It’s not for me.
AKRA (cynically): For Jetta?
LEO: And the rebellion.
AKRA takes a breath then, suddenly uncertain.
AKRA: What do you mean?
LEO: You must know she wrote to the Tiger. She wanted to help.
AKRA: So you hauled her off to your sister’s workshop?
LEO: With a plan in place to get her out again. There’s a flying machine in there we need her help to steal, and someone else we need to rescue with it. But it’s harder to tell her all that than I thought it would be.
AKRA: Why should I believe a word you say?
LEO: What’s the alternative? Sit here and wait for her to come back?
AKRA: I could feed you to the crocodiles to pass the time.
LEO: You didn’t take a bullet for me in Hell’s Court just to kill me tonight.
AKRA: It wasn’t for you.
LEO (an echo of AKRA’s earlier question): For Jetta?
AKRA: Yes.
LEO: You’re more tenderhearted than you seem, Akra.
AKRA: It wasn’t because she’s foolish enough to care about you. It was to give her a chance to kill your father. We can both imagine what would happen if she’d fallen into the general’s hands. She would have been a pawn at best. A weapon at worst. Just like all of us Chakrans in the armée.
A long silence between them.
LEO: What was it like?
AKRA: Serving under your father?
LEO: Dying at Hell’s Court.
AKRA’s eyes widen.
AKRA: What makes you say that?
LEO: I was there, Akra. No one loses so much blood and lives. And I’ve never seen that look on Jetta’s face. You died, didn’t you?
AKRA hesitates, his jaw working.
AKRA: I did.
He laughs then, but there is no humor in it.
After everything I did in the armée, I knew I’d have to pay in my next life. I just didn’t know how much.
LEO: Surely this is better than the alternative.
AKRA: It might have been nice to forget.
LEO: Forget dying?
AKRA: Forget being a Chakran in the armée.
LEO: You could join the rebellion instead.
AKRA: I’m done following orders.
LEO: Except for Jetta’s?
AKRA stares at LEO.
AKRA: Jetta isn’t here.
LEO: To be honest, it’s your other powers we’re more interested in. The fact you can’t die without walking into fire. Or the way you can talk to her, no matter where she is. Will you give her a message for me?
Another silence. On AKRA’s face, bitterness turns to confusion.
AKRA: What are you talking about?
LEO: Haven’t you seen her talk to her other fantouches? It’s only because their souls are from animals that they can’t reply. She needs your help, Akra. We need your help.
AKRA: I may have to listen to her, but I don’t have to listen to you.
LEO: Did you want something in exchange? I’m good at making deals. It’s what I do best.
AKRA: What could you possibly have to offer me?
LEO takes a deep breath, considering. What does AKRA want?
LEO: The chance to stop the armée. Because until we get both of our targets out of Hell’s Court, the armée has the power to make almost anyone a pawn.
A long pause.
AKRA: I’m listening.
Chapter Nine
By the time I fall into bed, it is so late it is early. Still, half-formed questions circle like mosquitoes. What had the questioneurs asked Le Trépas? What had he said? What is he like—this man who thought he was a god? Is there anything of him in me? His eyes . . . his build . . . his mind? Is he mad like I am? He must be. Delusions of grandeur are a symptom I’ve experienced myself.
Sleep, when it comes, is fitful. In my dreams, he is a demon with a tongue like a snake and eyes like a goat and hands like the hooked claws of a bat. But when he opens his mouth, his voice is my brother’s, and he is saying my name. I wake a dozen times, though to judge by the color of the sunlight filtering into my room, it is nearly noon by the time I struggle free of the knotted sheets. With the echo of Akra’s voice in my head, the first thing I do is down my daily dose of elixir. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but there is a new tray with breakfast on the little table. Although the tea is already cold, I’m ravenous, so I strip off my gloves and dig in.
It is armée food, as Theodora had warned me: the egg must have been boiled in unsalted water, and what I think is a rice bun turns out to be a roll so crusty it feels like chewing on bark. But although I regret not eating more shrimp cakes last night, this is not much worse than I got in the slums.