“I went to the tower, after what happened to Falada, to be alone. When I saw a way to get in, my curiosity overcame me.” It wasn’t enough of an explanation, and I knew it. I cast about for a piece of truth to reshape into a credible lie. “When I was up there,” I said, “I saw the shape of the city—really saw it—for the first time. It was built in the shape of the Achlevan knot, with a gate at each of the points. It was beautiful. I . . . I climbed onto the battlement to get a better look.”
“A half-decent map could have revealed the same thing. You didn’t need—” He broke into a barking, rasping cough. I crouched next to him, ready to try the spell again, to transfer his suffering to myself, but he waved me off. When the coughing subsided, he said, “I never wanted you to see this.”
“See what?”
“My weakness.”
I paused, then went to the pot and began to stir it with violence before setting the ladle down with a sloppy clang. Then I clenched my fists and leaned against the table, unable to look at him.
“You’re angry,” he observed.
“What you have is an ailment. Not a weakness.”
“It feels the same to me.”
“When I think of weakness, I think of the weak-minded, the weak-willed, the cowardly. You are none of those things.”
“I am all of those things.”
“Stop,” I begged. “What I said this morning . . . I just . . .”
He left the cot and came to lean against the table beside me, in the casual, careless way I knew now to be only a façade. He said, “Don’t apologize. There is no part of this morning that I would wish to revisit, save for one thing. When you said you were done with me. Did you mean it?”
There was very little space between us.
“No,” I breathed.
“Emilie,” he said, “I should have died today, yet I am not dead. You did that, didn’t you? You saved me.”
“You saved me first,” I whispered.
“Your eyes,” he said, “they confound me. They’re like a storm—gray, and then blue, and then silver—and always changing. There’s something absolutely uncanny about them. About you.”
But like a blow, I was confronted again with his depiction of me on the wall, casting a blood spell in nightmarish majesty. I was an elemental force, strange and devastating, beautiful as a bolt of lightning, terrible as the crack of thunder. Uncanny, I was. Inhuman.
I turned brusquely away from him, all the warmth between us instantly banished by a cold gust of air.
“I’ve got the camphor,” Nathaniel said, banging through the doorway.
I dashed to take the jar from him and empty its contents into the pot over the fire, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the deep blush that had started in my chest and was sweeping up my neck and into my cheeks.
Nathaniel glanced at Zan. “I see you’re feeling better.”
“Yes,” Zan said, questioning eyes on me. “Much better, I think.”
20
That evening, when I was alone again, the first thing I did was crack open the copy of the Compendium Zan let me take from the library. The day had left my feelings in an unruly tangle; now, whenever my thoughts began to drift, they invariably made their way back to Zan. His insufferable smile. His maddening, uncaring demeanor. His quick wit, his sharp tongue. His eyes.
To distract myself, I threw all my energy into a single, straightforward task: the identification of the blood mage who murdered Falada.
Despite the questionable place from which my motivation sprang, the goal was a worthy one. Now that High Gate’s seal was broken, the clock for Forest Gate was ticking. If we didn’t act soon, a maid, a mother, and a crone would meet the same fate as Falada. Zan believed these three sacrifices would be attempted in the span between the waxing and waning gibbous moons, the full moon marking the middle, the apex of the month. Ten days in total, but the attacks could begin anytime. We could not afford any delay.
I scoured the book back to front but saw nothing that might help until I turned to a section about scrying. Farseeing, it said on the top of the page. Most easily practiced by feral or high mages. Blood magic is less precise and may return unsatisfactory results.
It was the best option I could find, but my hopes to attempt it died quickly; this spell required a small personal token. I could use it to see someone far away, someone I knew, but it would not help me identify a stranger. I closed the book, frustrated, only to immediately open it again.
I could use it to see someone far away, someone I knew. I could use it to see my mother.
I needed her. I wanted to tell her everything. The fear, the hurt, the triumphs . . . the unexpected and complicated connection with an intriguing, infuriating boy with green eyes.
Following the instruction of the spell, I filled a copper bowl to the brim with water and let it settle until the surface was as smooth as glass. Lay out the memento of the person you’re trying to reach, the book said. A lock of hair, a handwriting sample, or a painting of their visage.
I did have my wedding dress, sewn with my mother’s own hand, but it was packed away, and I didn’t want to be reminded that when all of this was over, if things went successfully, I’d still have to marry Zan’s cousin. No, I’d use the bloodcloth. Kneeling, I held the folded square in one hand while I nicked a finger on the other and let the blood drip into the bowl.
Concentrate, the book directed, and repeat the words: Indica mihi quem quaeritis. Show me the one I seek.
“‘Indica mihi quem quaeritis,’” I said as the droplets of my blood bloomed like roses in the water.
I clutched the bloodcloth and searched the water for some sign that it was working . . . anything . . .
When an image finally formed like an oily sheen on the surface, it was not my mother’s face I saw but a man’s. The spell had warned me that blood magic could return unsatisfactory results, but I was disappointed anyway. I squinted and leaned closer. It looked like . . .
I cried out in shock, knocking over the water bowl and breaking the vision.
The bowl had shown me the figure of a man, suspended in light, eyes closed, with wide green leaves dressing the wound on his naked torso where Toris had embedded his knife.
Trembling, I unfolded the bloodcloth.
After Kellan died, the circular drop of his blood had faded to almost nothing, but it had never totally disappeared. It was now almost as dark as the day he let it fall to tie his life to mine.
There were three bright drops of blood on the cloth. Three. Was it proof that somehow he’d toed the edge of death and come back from the brink?
Stars save me, I thought, astounded. Kellan is alive.
* * *
I had to get a message back home to Renalt. Not to my mother, trapped as she was in the Tribunal’s custody, but to the Greythorne estate. Kellan’s family. They’d been kind to me when I was a child, and they were loyal to my mother and the crown.
And what was more, they’d have the resources and the reasons to find Kellan, if he was truly still alive and not a conjuring of my wild imagination, and ensure his safe return home.
Bringing anybody else into the knowledge of my identity could endanger them. It would have to be a stranger. Someone who didn’t know me, someone who wouldn’t question what I needed them to do or why I was asking them to do it. Someone who wouldn’t think twice about going on a dangerous journey with nothing to go on besides my word.
In short, I needed to find someone who had nothing to lose.
I put on my blue cloak and swept the items on the table into my satchel before depositing a chunk of bread and a stoppered cruse of water alongside them. It was completely dark outside, but I found Zan’s hidden stairs with ease, climbed them all the way to the top of the wall, and made my way down the walk. Not north this time but south, toward the gibbets. I passed Forest Gate first, skirting the narrow walkway at the base of the statue of the three women. This was the nearest I’d been to them, and they were e
ven more stunning up close. The first was youthful and lithe, the second bore the soft curves and swelling stomach of a mother-to-be, and the last was knobby and bent with age, like a weathered tree.
The air was cool and clear now that the rain had finally stopped. Rainwater had collected in several places on the roads below, reflecting the waxing moon like scattered shards of a broken mirror. I was grateful for the damp smell left behind by the moisture; it covered up some of the stench of death that began to pervade the air as I came upon the gibbets.
The gibbets were spaced between High Gate and Forest Gate, hanging from hooked chains and spread every fifty feet. The first two housed men who were recently dead, men who’d probably been injured in the struggle to stick them in the gibbets. They’d bled out in their cages. The third gibbet held only bones and a hollow-eyed spirit that was slumped despondently among its remains. When it saw me, it threw itself against the bars, snarling and snapping its teeth, straining toward me with bony fingers. I shivered and passed it by.
At the fourth gibbet I slowed to a stop and leaned out over the notched battlement. I was greeted by the gaze of a living man. His mouth was still stuffed with the gag, but his eyes were bright. I tried to count how many days had gone by since Petitioner’s Day. Two? Three?
“Ray? Raymond Thackery?” I said into the dark, and he slowly nodded.
“I have food and water. Without it, you’ll die. You’ll have another few days if you’re lucky. Do you understand?”
A nod.
“I need a message delivered. To Renalt. It is of the utmost importance, and it requires absolute secrecy. There will be a great reward in it for you. A monetary reward as well as safety and asylum in Renalt. Do you understand the risks?”
A nod.
“Is this something you would be willing to do?”
Another nod.
“Good.” I went to the pulley and turned the crank wheel. It creaked stubbornly as I reeled the gibbet in inch by inch, straining every muscle and dragging on the wheel with all of my weight. The heart and lung complaints I’d absorbed from Zan had long since subsided, but by the time the gibbet finally came swinging over the top of the battlement, I was sweating and panting anyway. Two more cranks, and it was to where I could reach it.
There was a lock on the gate, and Thackery watched as I jammed my little knife into it and worked the latch until it gave and the door swung free. He was trembling as I helped hoist him down. He sank against the battlement
I untied his gag. “Here,” I said, unstopping the bottle of water to hand it to him. “Drink this. Careful, now. Careful.”
“They will . . . will kill you . . . if they know you helped me.” Thackery wheezed as he wiped the water from his mouth. “And it will be unpleasant. There’s a reason folks don’t just bust out every family member what gets hung up in a cage.”
“I’m not afraid of the king.”
Between gulps, he said, “The king is stupid, but he has a certain creativity when it comes to makin’ folk suffer. And there are plenty o’ people who exploit his stupidity and capitalize on his particular brand of creativity. Oughtta be afraid of them, too.”
“Consider me warned.” I gave him the bread next. “Eat slowly or you’ll be sick.”
Between large bites, he asked, “What message am I to carry, and to where?”
“Just this.” I took out a paper, folded and sealed and addressed to Lord Fredrick Greythorne, Kellan’s older brother. It recounted everything—what Toris had done in the woods, how Lisette was living in the castle under my name, how Conrad was unhurt but seemed to be going along with the charade. The last thing I included was my belief that Kellan had escaped, injured, and that he was probably recovering in one of the villages outside the Ebonwilde. I had signed it with my own name, marveling at how foreign it felt to use it.
If Fredrick could find Kellan, his story would corroborate my written account and provide proof of Toris’s treachery. Likely, we could link his efforts to insinuate himself into Achleva with the Tribunal’s takeover, and charge them all with treason. Mother could take back her crown, and then . . . they could come for Conrad and me. We’d be saved.
“You’ll need to take this to Lord Fredrick Greythorne. Deliver it to him and no one else, understand me? His land is in the western Renaltan province. You’ll save time if you go by boat and take port in Gaskin. From there it will be about four days’ walk.”
“One problem.” Thackery stopped his ravenous chewing. “How am I going to pay for boat fare? They robbed me of everything when they took me. And how will I eat, for that matter? A man’s got to eat.”
I pursed my lips, wondering if I should remind him that up until five minutes ago he was going to starve to death in a gibbet. But I thought better of it and said instead, “Here. This should buy you boat fare and a little bit of food besides.” It was the last of my treasures—the golden chain of my charm bracelet. Another piece of myself I was forced to surrender. “Don’t stop. Don’t dawdle. Time is of the essence. Now let’s get you off this wall,” I said. “Quickly, now, before anyone comes.” I tried to help him to his feet, but he was too weak to stand.
“I can’t help you . . . in the condition I’m in. I’d already be . . . dead if it wasn’t for the rain. Sucked it out of the gag.” He swallowed and said, “I’m useless to you, girl. Might as well put me back in the cage. Better that way. Gilroy would miss me too much, anyway.”
“Quiet,” I commanded. “I’ll do no such thing.”
I gave myself another little cut with the luneocite knife and then placed my hand in Thackery’s. “Give it to me,” I said, just like I had to Zan in the tower.
But with Zan I’d acted instinctively and emotionally. This was different. I did not know or care for this man. I could not make the same connection.
But I had to. Time was running out. This was my chance—probably my only chance—to undo some of what had been done to me. Anger and impatience bubbled inside. “Give it to me, damn it!”
It hit me like a blow. The nauseating hunger. The thirst. The weakness. I sucked in a hard breath and let go of him, breaking the connection.
“There,” I mumbled, doubled over.
He straightened up. “What did you just do?”
“I made it so you . . . can get out of here.” My voice was hoarse.
His eyes widened. “You’re a—”
“Shut . . . up and get . . . out of here.”
“What about—”
“I’ll be . . . I’m fine. Do as I’ve . . . told you and go. Now!” I barked.
He bolted away, springing like a rabbit down the curve of the wall that led past the docks and onto King’s Gate. I dragged myself to the battlements to try to watch him, but my vision was too affected; I lost track of him as soon as he passed High Gate. There was nothing more I could do; either he would make it to Renalt or he wouldn’t. Either he would deliver my message or he wouldn’t. There was no point in worrying now. It was done.
21
I didn’t make it home that night; I spent the hours between Thackery’s release and daybreak stumbling, dizzy and drained, from street to street, every step an effort. At least the last time I’d been half-starved it had come upon me bit by bit, instead of hitting me like a sack of bricks, square in the stomach. By midmorning I had gone only as far as the city square.
Thackery’s hunger was fading, but by now my own exhaustion was setting in. I was sagging against a pillar on the stoop of a textile shop to catch my breath when I heard an exclamation from behind me.
“Emilie?” Kate was exiting the shop, a basket full of cloth held in the crook of her elbow.
I turned and forced a smile. “Good morning,” I said as cheerfully as I could muster.
She threaded her arm through mine. “I’m glad I’ve run into you! With the royal wedding so close now, I’ve got a pile of new orders for engagement-ball costumes. One woman is going as an owl, another—you won’t believe this—as
a tree. A tree. And not a good one, either, like a spruce or a weeping willow. No, she’s going as a mulberry. Which I guess is pretty enough, with little berries and such, but we had a mulberry on our property when I was growing up, and it did the most unpleasant things to the birds who ate the berries . . .” She stopped. “Emilie, are you all right?”
I nodded weakly. “I’m fine,” I said.
She looked like she didn’t quite believe me, but continued, “Anyway, with the extra money from those commissions, I bought these”—she motioned to the fabric in her basket, delicate florals made of downy material—“so I can finally make a few things for the baby. Aren’t they lovely?” She stroked the cloth dreamily. “Can you imagine a little dressing gown out of this? She’ll look so sweet.”
My vision was blurring a little, but I tried to ignore it the best I could. “She?”
“Oh, yes,” Kate said, beaming at her belly. “She’s a girl. I can feel it. Don’t tell Nathaniel yet, but I want to name her Ella, after his mother.”
We were approaching the lane to Kate’s cottage now, and not a moment too soon; my strength was flagging. It was a struggle to comprehend what Kate was saying—I had to concentrate on each word.
At the end of the cottage walk, though, she came to a sudden halt. There was a man standing on her doorstep, fist raised as if to knock.
“Dedrick?”
The man whirled around, jaw dropping open. “Katherine? Is that really you?” Then he flew down the walk to sweep her into an enthusiastic hug.
“What are you doing here?” she asked with a broad smile. “It’s been so long since our last letters, I can’t believe you knew where to find me!”
“I was here for Petitioner’s Day, but since it is so close to the prince’s wedding date, I decided to extend my stay until after the engagement ball. That’s why I’m here, actually. I’ve been inquiring about where to go for the best costume and came up with this address. I never dreamed you were the seamstress they were talking about.” He took a step back. “Look at you. You’re an absolute vision. How long do you have left?”
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