by Heidi Heilig
As I’m eating, one of the guards knocks awkwardly on the open door. “La Fleur’s waiting,” he says. “Hurry up.”
“Mmhmm,” I say, my mouth full of bread. Then I take another bite, chewing slowly. Despite waking late, I am exhausted from dreams and questions, and I want to savor a few more moments of blessed quiet.
When I’m done eating, I run the washcloth over my face, my arms, my feet, trying to take off the grime and the sweat of the last few weeks. Should I change my clothes? The coveralls that Leo had left for me are clean and well made, but I am still hesitant to close the door, even for privacy. Instead, I stand behind it, keeping the heavy teak between me and the soldiers as I step awkwardly into the legs of the trousers, pulling them up along with my sarong so that I remain covered. When I toss my old rags into the corner and emerge from behind the door, the guards look at me askance, but it’s no worse than any backstage costume change. And the smell of clean clothes is like heaven. As I slip my bottle of elixir into the pocket, my fingers meet something that crinkles.
A note.
My heart stops, then picks up again, faster than before. Leo had prepared the room for me—why hadn’t I searched it earlier? Casually, I turn away from the door, standing once again out of the soldier’s line of sight. Drawing out the paper, I unfold it slowly, so it doesn’t make a sound. Then I frown. It is not a note, but a flyer, and familiar too. One from the last show we’d meant to do, back in Luda. At the Fêtes des Ombres, before this whole mess began.
When it rustles in my hand, I catch my breath. There is a soul inside it—but which one? There it is on the bottom of the paper, beside the symbol in blood: hawk. The page had been torn from the book I’d made—the book of souls I’d saved. The book I’d left back at the rebel camp. Did Leo have it now?
Eagerly, I flip the sheet over, hoping for a message, but the back is blank. No—there is a drawing there, faintly done, in pencil, as though a mindless doodle. At first I think that someone has sketched the hawk that ensouls the scrap of paper, but on closer inspection, I realize the drawing is meant to be a flying machine. Like the one I’d stolen . . . or the one I’d seen in the workshop last night.
“Jetta? Are you awake yet?”
The voice makes me jump—so close, so familiar. My brother’s voice. Could he have crept onto the grounds and found my window? The guards have not moved—did they not hear him? I scramble onto the bed to whisper out the window. “Akra?”
“Jetta!” The response comes right in my ear, and I whirl. But I am alone in the room. Of course I am.
Taking a deep breath, I lower myself back to the bed. Disappointment is a heavy weight on my shoulders. This is not the first time I’ve hallucinated my brother’s voice. The elixir should be helping with that. But hadn’t Theodora said it would take a few days to build up in my blood?
“Jetta, can you hear me? Leo came to talk.”
I frown. That’s the last thing I would have expected my brother to say, especially a hallucination. “Akra?” I murmur, soft enough that even I barely hear it. “Where are you?”
“With Papa, by the river. It doesn’t matter—”
“How are you talking to me?”
“I . . .” He hesitates—in the silence, I can practically hear his discomfort. “It’s not important right now. Do you have the flyer?”
Startled, I glance at the page in my hand. “Yes, but—”
“Can the soul animate the flying machine in the workshop?”
“Yes, but—”
“We need it by tomorrow night—”
“Is this really you?” I blurt out, too loud.
“Who else would it be?” His voice echoes in my head, but it does not cover the sound of the guards talking outside. I crush the flyer in my fist as one of them bursts into the room.
“Kess keh say?” the soldier says in Aquitan. “What’s going on?”
“What does it look like?” I shoot back, gesturing with my free hand to the empty corner of the room. “I’m talking to my brother.”
He looks first at the corner, and then at me. His expression is one that I recognize: half pity, half fear—as though madness is catching. It cuts deeper than I expect it to. “La Fleur is still waiting,” he says at last.
“When I’m done,” I snap, and after a moment, he retreats back into the hall.
Akra’s voice comes again, fearful now. “What’s happening, lailee?”
The word makes my heart clench: sister. It’s been so long since he’s called me that. Since before Hell’s Court . . . if it is in fact him speaking. I want to believe, but isn’t that the trick of it? Of course my own mind would suspend disbelief for a play it’s putting on. In the quiet, I take a deep breath and whisper. “How can I be sure you aren’t just another voice in my head?”
There is a long silence, and despair is a lengthening shadow. I have never challenged a hallucination before. Is the lack of response evidence that I could no longer fool myself? But then, at last, Akra speaks again. “Do you often hear voices, Jetta?”
“Only sometimes.” The admission is difficult—new between us. I can almost feel his surprise, like it has a texture in the air. After all, my malheur had only gotten worse once he’d left to join the armée.
“I didn’t realize it was so bad,” he says.
I shrug, but he cannot see me. “It comes and goes.”
“When?” he says, and this time I hesitate. My first hallucination was a song he used to sing, when I knew he wasn’t there to sing it. But his wasn’t the only voice I’d ever heard. My heart beats faster at the memory: an abandoned temple, a wayward monk. Her question in my head: What are you?
I had thought it was a hallucination at the time, but now I’m not so sure.
“It’s not important,” I say, an echo of his own words. My embarrassment over my admission is twisting into something new: discovery, and the thrill that comes with it. But the next question is tender for both of us. “Your voice, the way you’re talking to me—does it have anything to do with what happened at Hell’s Court?”
Another long silence. “Yes.”
Slowly, I stand, almost without meaning to. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“I only just learned myself,” he says, his voice touched with bitterness. “I’m not the expert, am I?”
Frustration makes a knot in my chest. “Unfortunately, neither am I.”
“Just tell me,” he says. “Can you ready the flying machine at midnight tomorrow?”
I wet my lips, unsure. How will I get past the guards? “Maybe. It would be easier if I had the whole book.”
“Leo was worried the general would search the room,” he says. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
My heart beats faster. If Leo brings the book, it will be proof my brother’s voice was real. “And then?”
“Then we get out of the city and go to the rebel camp.”
“We?” I bite my lip—the last flying machine only had room for three. Was the new one any bigger? I can’t remember. “You, me, and Papa? What about Leo?”
“Papa isn’t well enough to travel. Leo’s made arrangements for someone to care for him in the capital.”
“So Leo’s coming with us?”
“Learn your part,” he snaps at me. “And let everyone else play theirs.”
The admonition is so familiar that I almost laugh. How many times had he told me so, as we elbowed each other backstage? But I smother the giggle—this is serious. “The flying machine. Midnight tomorrow.”
“See you then.”
“I hope so,” I say, but there is no response. In the quiet of my room, it’s easy to doubt he’d spoken at all. Taking a deep breath, I smooth the crumpled flyer and fold it neatly around the little book of armée matches—I’ll use them to free the soul when I need to. Then I tuck the bundle into my pocket, in case the soldiers decide to search the room after all.
When I appear in the doorway, the guards draw back a little, gripping their bayonet
s tighter. They weren’t half so afraid of a nécromancien as they are of a mad girl. I lift my chin, striding down the hall toward the sanctuary, the flask of elixir banging against my hip.
My footsteps slow. The bottle contains roughly two weeks’ worth. Is stealing more elixir part of the plan? I whisper my brother’s name, hoping to ask him, but no answer comes. The silence feeds my doubts, but whether or not my brother’s voice was only in my head, I can’t leave Hell’s Court without more elixir. Not when my malheur could put the rebellion at risk. But where will I find it in the sprawling workshop of Hell’s Court?
The answer comes with striking clarity—the locked room in the dining hall. Theodora had told me herself: the chemicals are stored inside. Might my elixir be there among the oil and kerosene? I have till midnight tomorrow to find out. But if the keys were back on Theodora’s desk among the shifting piles of paper, it wouldn’t be too difficult to spirit them away.
Confidence blooms as I continue down the hall, then dies on the vine when I enter the sanctuary. The room is overrun with Aquitan soldiers. My veins thrum like plucked strings at the sight of so many armée men, but they are too busy stacking crates on hand carts to look my way. There are two men supervising. One, an officer who holds a clipboard and a pen as though furious with both. The other is the Chakran boy—Camreon, Theodora had called him. The one designing machines to plant rice. To judge by his face, he’d rather be laboring in the fields than standing here.
They are arguing over the crates—or, rather, the officer is arguing. Camreon is only nodding, his head bowed, his eyes on his paperwork. The scene is uncomfortably familiar—why do the Aquitans always think that raised voices will change facts? But I do not want to make it worse by staring. Instead, I look at the boxes. There are so many of them. What do they contain? Bullets? Rifles? Bombs? My jaw tightens, but when Theodora looks up from the letter she is penning, I’m surprised to see frustration on her face as well.
“Jetta!” She beckons me over with one ink-stained hand. “I’ve been waiting for you all morning. I want to talk to you more about . . .” She glances over at the officer, hesitating. “About what we discussed yesterday. The quartier-maître is nearly done.”
Reluctantly I approach, but when the officer hears her voice, he turns away from Camreon mid-sentence. “I’ll be done as soon as you clear the discrepancy between the quantity of munitions listed and the quantity received,” he says through his teeth. “Cha doesn’t seem to understand the problem.”
At the slur, I look to the Chakran boy—I can’t help it. Apparently, neither can he. Our eyes meet for an instant before he glances away. Still, there is comfort in the glance—the shared connection of two strangers who, for a moment, have everything in common. La Fleur doesn’t even look up from her letter, though her own reply is sharp. “If you’d let me know you were coming, we could have sorted it out ahead of time. As it is, most of my staff is making room so we can accept my uncle’s delivery. Besides, it’s your list that has the discrepancy. Camreon cannot clear a problem he did not create.”
The Chakran boy keeps his expression carefully neutral, but the officer’s chest swells. To my surprise, he turns to me—does he recognize me as the nécromancien? Or only as another Chakran in the room? “What is more likely? That I’ve made a mistake? Or that things would go missing with cha underfoot?”
I know better than to answer. Theodora replies instead, with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Rumor has it you’re more comfortable with riflery than recordkeeping.”
“Take it up with your brother,” the soldier snaps at her. “He’s the one who put me behind a desk.”
“I don’t think he was wrong, Lieutenant Pique.” Theodora’s smile does not falter, but the name sends a chill through me—this is the man who razed the peaceful village of Dar Som. La Fleur sets aside her letter to take the clipboard from his hand. Then she crosses out the number there and writes her own, along with her initials. “Mistakes are easier to correct in ink than in blood.”
Pique takes the clipboard back, but his eyes stay on me. “Spilling ink won’t solve the problem.”
“Take it up with my brother,” Theodora says coolly, sitting back at her desk. “Your general. Now if you’ll excuse me. I’m writing to my uncle with an update on our progress here. I’ll send him your regards.”
The lieutenant clenches his jaw at the invocation of the Aquitan king; at last he stalks away, shouting at the men with their handcarts. The Chakran boy too disappears back into the temple. La Fleur does not watch as they clear out. I do, though. I want to know the lieutenant has left before I turn my back. It’s only once he follows his men out of the temple that my heart starts to slow. “Was it really him?”
“Pique? Unfortunately yes.”
“I thought he would have been . . .” My voice trails off. What had I thought? Imprisoned for the atrocities? Sent back to Aquitan in disgrace? “Punished.”
“For men like him, a desk is a demotion.” Theodora must see the expression on my face, because a faint blush comes to her pale cheeks. “He’s been an officer longer than I’ve been alive. Xavier can’t dismiss him without extreme measures.”
The rage flares in me, too hot to tamp out. “Dar Som was an extreme measure.”
“And nothing like it will happen with him behind a desk,” she says. I grit my teeth.
“He should be in a dungeon somewhere.”
“To Pique, a desk is worse.”
“Is it really?” My question hangs in the air, long enough for me to reconsider asking. Have I grown too bold? I am only Chakran, after all—more prisoner than peer. But Theodora pauses as she signs the letter.
“I prefer engineering to politics, Jetta, but it’s all gears and levers. And instead of steel, they’re made of loyalty and pride and distrust and resentment.” She tosses the pen down with a grimace; it rolls off the edge of a folded square of canvas—the carcan, picked up off the floor and subsumed in the pile. But is that the set of keys I see peeking out underneath? “If you want the truth, appointing him quartier-maître was already a stretch. Pique is the most experienced officer we have, and the men look up to him. Which is one reason he can be so bold. We may need him back in the field, and he knows it.”
The thought makes me cold all over. “You would do that?”
“Me?” Theodora scoffs. “No. Besides, it’s Xavier’s choice. But we’re doing things my way for now. To wit . . . where is my notebook?”
She searches through her papers, but her words ring in my ears. “Is that a threat?” I say. “The general will let Pique massacre a few more villages if I don’t cooperate with you?”
La Fleur’s hands still. She sighs. “Though you may not believe it, Xavier is a good man. But even good people can do terrible things when they have no other choice.”
Her look is pointed, and how can I argue? Besides, my real fight will be outside these walls, and I can only hope that Pique will be my first target. Theodora frowns at the disarray of her desk, still searching, but my eyes are on the keys, gleaming gold in the electric glow. How can I slip them into my pocket without her noticing?
The sound of soft footsteps interrupts my planning. Is it Leo? No . . . only Camreon, pushing a handcart with a box on it. “Miss Theodora.” He gives her an apologetic look, gesturing to his haul. “I’m so sorry. The lieutenant was right. I found this under one of the tables.”
I tense, expecting her to be angry, but La Fleur only gives him a rueful smile. “He’ll be insufferable next time. Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, no,” he says, to my disappointment. “You work too hard as it is. I’ll catch up with him and come right back. After all,” he adds then, his look turning hopeful. “I’m eager to see what your uncle sent.”
“Aren’t we all?” she says, and he makes another low bow before he goes. Does she watch him a little longer than she needs to? I press my lips together. The boy is handsome, to be sure, short and compact, with dark brown eyes an
d fine features and a soft voice that’s practically a purr. I can’t exactly blame her for staring. But his behavior offends me: his open admiration as he acts as her delivery boy. To Lieutenant Pique, no less!
Theodora turns then—have I made a sound? Color touches her cheeks, but she lifts her chin. “Do you have something to say?”
I take a breath. Have I embarrassed her? “I’m surprised to see a Chakran working here.”
“Camreon used to work at the palace,” she says. “We’ve known each other for years. He’s quite a brilliant thinker.”
Is that why he’s running her errands? I cannot ask. “I meant in Hell’s Court.”
“Ah. Well.” The pink in her cheeks deepens. “He’s brave too.”
I bite my lip. The boy strikes me as more shy than anything else, though of course I haven’t known him as long as La Fleur. Maybe it’s not what she knows, but what she feels. Am I the same way about Leo? Perhaps love is its own madness.
The thought spins through my mind before I can stop it. Horrified, I push it away. Not love. Not Leo. Still, I feel the flush creeping up my own neck. I take a breath—where was I? Before I can remember, more voices drift across the sanctuary. There is a disturbance among the guards at the door.
Almost gratefully, I turn to watch; the men shout and gesture at something at the base of the stairs. I stand, leaning out, and see a crate large enough to hold a horse sitting on a dolly. The argument unfolds in Aquitan, but I can make out most of it—the men delivering the box demanding help to haul it up the steps, the guards at their posts declining to stoop to such labor.
When Theodora goes to see what the trouble is, I see my chance. The noise of the argument covers the rustle of pages and the jingle of keys as I snatch the ring from the altar. “What’s this?” La Fleur says, and I jump, but she’s speaking to the soldiers.
The men all reply at once. She holds up a hand to stop them, then points at one of the guards. “We brought these up from the dock,” the soldier says. “But the crates are too heavy to get up the stairs without help.”
“Crates?” Theodora glances out through the wide doorway and gasps. When I follow her eyes, I do too. There must be two dozen of the boxes in the plaza, with more coming up the central path on wheeled carts, each pushed by four men. My stomach clenches—the supply ship has come in. How many weapons does this represent? La Fleur shakes her head, but her expression is resigned. “We’ll open them out here, then. I’ll have my staff help bring the supplies in piecemeal.”