“Just a couple of weeks now,” Kate said cheerfully.
“I always knew you’d make a lovely mother.” He chuckled. “I imagined slightly different circumstances, of course.” His eyes flicked to me, noticing me for the first time. I was puffing, my vision slowly darkening.
“Oh!” Kate said. “I forgot to introduce you. Dedrick, this is my friend Emilie. Emilie, this is Lord Dedrick Corvalis. My—”
“Friend,” Dedrick said, bowing politely. “And former fiancé.” He winked, then straightened up. He said, “Katherine, your friend doesn’t look well. Maybe we should—”
That was when my legs gave out.
* * *
“Lay her here, on this chaise.”
Dedrick did as he was told and gently set me down, while Kate fluttered around me nervously, feeling the temperature of my forehead and prying my eyelids open to check the dilation of my pupils. I tried to swat her away. “Stop fussing. I’m fine. It was just a little dizzy spell, that’s all.”
“When was the last time you ate, my dear?” Dedrick asked with parent-like concern in his voice. He was even handsomer up close, with glossy brown hair, a smooth smile, and the barest hint of a dimple in his chin. He patted my bare hand with his gloved one.
“I’m fine,” I insisted.
“I’ll make sure she’s cared for,” Kate said. “And you’ll have your costume by midafternoon tomorrow, on my honor.” She paused. “Dedrick, I know we haven’t spoken in person since . . . since . . .”
“Since you ran off with my right-hand man?” Dedrick gave a soft chuckle.
“Yes. That.”
“I realized long ago that if I’d taken care of you better, escorted you myself, maybe it would have turned out differently. But I can’t blame you for falling in love. I’ve done so myself. Hundreds of times.”
She laughed lightly. “I’ve little doubt. Your reputation is renowned. You’d probably have made a terrible husband.”
“Probably,” he said, laughing with her, “but you would have made an excellent wife.” I looked away as he fondly brushed her cheek. Kate’s smile waned, and Dedrick quickly pulled his hand away, clearing his throat. “Your mother will be thrilled to know I’ve seen you. Can I let her know your happy news?”
“Will you?” Kate asked, eyes shining. “I’d love to see her again, even if nobody else wants to see me. Maybe after the baby is born . . .”
“Your mother misses you desperately,” Dedrick said. “I’m sure that a reunion can be arranged.”
He’d donned his hat and was at the door to leave when it swung open and Nathaniel, coming in from the other side, froze with his hand on the knob. The atmosphere immediately chilled.
“Dedrick,” Nathaniel said, the word sounding more like an accusation than a salutation.
“Nathaniel,” Dedrick replied. “So good to see you.” He tipped his hat to Kate and looked around. “Lovely little house you’ve got here. Hope to see it again soon.”
Nathaniel, occupying the whole of the doorway, did not move for Dedrick to get by, and their shoulders hit against each other heavily as Dedrick pushed past him. Dedrick gave one last salute over his shoulder. “Good day to you both.”
When he was gone, Kate turned to her husband, seething. “What was that?” she demanded. “He was a guest—a client, actually. He came because he needed a seamstress for a costume; he didn’t know he’d find me. Could you not muster a speck of civility?”
Nathaniel’s voice was tight. “Do not let that man in my house again.” I lay still as a stone, hoping they’d forget I was in the room. In fact, it seemed they already had.
“Your house? This is our house, Nathaniel. I can let in whomever I want. What has gotten into you?”
“Don’t,” Nathaniel said again, dangerously calm. “Do not disobey me, Kate. My word on this is final.”
Kate opened her mouth and then closed it; I was certain that this was the first time Nathaniel had ever spoken to her in such a way. She might have cried, were she not so stunned.
Zan came in without so much as a knock. He marched across the room to slam a book open on the table, unaware of the tension he’d disrupted.
“I’ve done some more studying,” he said. “And I think I’ve pinpointed a way to get ahead of this. A way to discover, if not the perpetrator himself, the time and place of his next murder.”
Kate took a deep breath and smoothed out her dress, avoiding Nathaniel’s eyes. “And just how are you going to do that?”
He beckoned, and I got wearily to my feet to see what he had to show us. “Here. This is a volume on high magic. Back in the day, high mages lived and died by what they called the sight: visions from the Empyrea. Some were able to see pictures of the past; others, the present. And some—a very rare and special few—had the ability to see the future.”
“That doesn’t help us,” Kate said. “Emilie’s a blood mage.”
“True,” Zan said, “and blood magic doesn’t work the same way as high magic does—she could chart star formations or stare at tea leaves all day and she still couldn’t discern with any certainty what she might have for her next meal.” His excitement was rising at the same pace as my dread. “But given the right circumstances, blood mages can speak to the dead.”
For the second time that day, I saw stars dart across my vision, and I grabbed the edge of the table, wavering, desperate to keep from fainting again.
Zan’s expression changed, noticing something other than his book for the first time since his arrival. “What’s the matter with you?”
Kate pulled up a chair behind me and made me sit. “She’s not feeling well today.”
“No,” I said tiredly. “What you want me to do? The answer is no.”
“It might be our only option, Emilie. I don’t want to see anyone die.”
“Neither do I, so . . .”
“Think about it, Emilie.” He was in earnest now. “There’s at least one documented high mage whose ability was to see death before it happened. Aren.”
“Lot of good it did her,” Nathaniel muttered. “Wasn’t very good at seeing her own, was she?”
Zan pulled something from his pocket and laid it in the center fold of the magic book: a spring of bloodleaf vine. Droplets of red sap leaked from the cut stem, staining the pages it rested on. “We have a piece of Aren right here, do we not? We can use it to call her back from the spectral plane and let Emilie ask her who will be sacrificed as the maid. If we know who the girl is, we can get to her first. We may even be able to use her to lure him to us.”
“You want to use some poor girl as bait?” Kate asked, incredulous.
“Feel free to chime in if you have any better ideas.”
I sat in silence, considering. I’d broken whatever bond existed between myself and the Harbinger. I’d cast her away. And now Zan wanted me to call her back. To deliberately subject myself to one of her terrible visions. The thought turned my stomach.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” I said softly, tracing with my fingertip the pattern of ruby-colored veins in the leaf.
“I’m asking you to just . . . try.” He cocked his head. “You really don’t look well. Worse than when I first met you, if that’s even possible.”
“All the more reason for you to leave her alone. She needs to eat, to rest . . .” Kate had him by the shirtsleeve, dragging him toward the door. “This can wait.”
“No, he’s right,” I said, closing my eyes and thinking of Falada. “It can’t wait. I have to at least try.”
“Dim the lights,” Zan said, hurrying before I could change my mind. “Cover the windows.” He pulled every candle he could find from around the room and placed them into a haphazard collection at the center of the table. Then he struck a match, leaning in to touch it to each candlewick in turn. “Well, then,” he said as the matchstick burned down to his fingertips, “let’s get to it. Time to summon a queen.”
The instructions seemed pretty straigh
tforward. We were to all sit around the table, our hands clasped, while one of us—Zan—chalked the triquetra in the center of the table. “Each one of these points represents a plane from which mages draw their power.” He touched each point in turn. “The spiritual, material, and spectral planes. Over each of these planes rules a deified iteration of the human life cycle: the maid, the mother, and the crone.”
I looked up at him in surprise. I’d never heard this kind of lore; in Renalt the only deity we acknowledged was the Empyrea, ruler of the skies and souls. She would undoubtedly be the maidenly mascot of the spiritual plane, but what of the other two? I didn’t have time to ponder; Zan was already moving on to the next phase of the séance.
“It is to the spectral plane that we wish to speak,” he said, addressing the air. From across the table he gave me a nod.
I released Nathaniel and Kate’s hands and took up the bowl in front of me, the sprig of bloodleaf waiting at the bottom. With a quick flick, I drew the barest amount of blood. The temperature in the room dropped instantly.
Zan, Nathaniel, and Kate exchanged glances.
“You can feel that?” I asked. Kate nodded, her breath white in the air. My ears had started ringing, just like they had during the bloodcloth ceremony.
“The words,” Zan whispered. “You have to say them.”
I gulped and let my blood drip onto the leaves of the bloodleaf, which seemed to curl around the drops and cradle them for a moment before they disappeared into the veiny surface, completely absorbed. The ringing in my ears intensified.
I read the script Zan gave me, my words barely a whisper. “Oh Aren! Spirit of the spectral plane, queen in life, and favored of the Empyrea, we summon thee.” Then I repeated it in the old lang-uage: “O Aren! Spiritu Dei spectris planum, regina, in vita. Favorite de empyrea, ut vocarent te.”
Please, Aren, I silently begged as shadows began to collect in the corners and an unnerving, scratchy whisper began to crawl into my ears, come quickly. Then I lit the contents of the bowl on fire. The bloodleaf seemed to hiss as it burned.
The shapes were growing larger and larger, amalgamations of darkness that were not human, not animal, not grass or rock or tree . . . they did not feel like spirits that had lived and passed on. Nor did they feel like death—they felt like whatever it was that cowered in death’s darkest shadow.
“Emilie?” Zan was saying. “Are you doing this?”
The table was rocking violently beneath our clasped hands.
“Aren,” I said aloud, squeezing my eyes shut. “Please, Aren, please. Merciful Empyrea, anyone. Please make this stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.” When I received no answer, I reached for the magic set free when I drew my blood and struck out with it, wielding it like a weapon. “Stop.” It was not an exhortation this time but a command.
Suddenly the whispering in my ears fell silent. The table grew still. The temperature of the air, already frigid, sank lower. When I opened my eyes, the shadows had disappeared and Zan, Nathaniel, and Kate were all staring at me open-mouthed. The candles were smoking; their flames had gone out.
Behind them stood the Harbinger.
She didn’t look like she had before; she seemed more wan, more faded. The hollows in her eyes and beneath the bones of her cheeks were more pronounced, her hair more limp and snarled.
“She’s here,” I said softly. They stared at me; they couldn’t see her.
“Ask her,” Zan said. “Ask her our question. Who will become the first sacrifice of Forest Gate?”
Aren dragged herself closer and closer to me, reaching out those ice-cold fingers, creeping them into my hair, onto my cheek.
“Aren,” I whispered. “Please. Show me the next sacrifice. Show me the maid.”
She bent over and grabbed my face in both of her hands, wrenching it down until it was level with her own. The visions began in a chaotic tumult, rushing past in an incoherent, disorienting succession of flashes. I was a ship unmoored in a savage whirlpool, no place to go but into the depths.
“Tell us,” Zan said earnestly. “What is she showing you? What do you see?”
“A . . . a party, I think. There are lights. Movement . . . dancing. The girl is waiting for someone outside. I see her dress . . . it’s silver. No, white. A man is coming. It’s dark. He’s tall. It’s dark . . . I can’t see his face.” The images were coming faster and faster. “I . . . I don’t know. There’s a hand. Teeth. A knife. The chime of a clock. Fifteen minutes to midnight.” I gasped violently. “Blood on hands. Blood in hair. A crack in an eye. Red. Red. Red.”
“What does she look like? What is her name? Can you give us anything?”
I was wading through a nauseating avalanche of images and sounds. Music, screaming, blazing streaks of light, thousands of voices talking at the same time. I focused on the girl, separating her from the rest of the din. She’s waiting. She hears a sound. She’s turning.
Oh no.
I let out a wrenching cry, and the Harbinger released me, gone in the same instant. It was over.
Kate rose from her seat and began tearing open the curtains, drowning us in light, while Nathaniel furiously rubbed out the chalk triquetra. Zan knelt at my knee, trying to calm me with soft sh sh sh’s. It took several hiccupping breaths before I found my voice again.
“I saw her,” I said weakly. “I know who she is.”
“Who?” Zan asked, searching my face.
“It’s me. I’m the maid.”
22
They were trying not to disturb me, to let me rest, but I could see them silhouetted in the doorway. I could hear their whispers.
“Nothing has changed,” Nathaniel was saying. “In fact, we’re in a stronger position now than we could have possibly hoped for—Emilie knows what’s going on, she wants to help us, and we don’t have to convince some other poor, scared girl to risk her life. She’s capable, brave. Think of all of the things she’s already had to do—”
“Everything has changed,” Zan hissed. “Without her, we’ve got nothing.”
Kate asked, “Have you told the king about all this? Surely, if he understood the danger, he’d take action. Postpone the wedding and all these silly parties and traditions, maybe even start evacuations.”
“I tried to tell him,” Zan said, “and he laughed at me.” He ran his hand through his hair. “He made jokes about my intelligence and my ‘girlish inclination toward hysterics.’”
Nathaniel said, “We can’t dismiss the idea that he could be behind it himself . . .”
“He has no reason to bring down the wall; indeed, the King’s Gate seal requires his death. And despite his overfondness for poppy and port, he does not seem in any rush to die. Even if he found a way around that detail, the landholding lords outside the city are growing more influential and powerful each day. If it wasn’t for the protection of the wall, any number of them could simply decide they were tired of his leadership and launch an attempt for the throne. No, it is someone else. Likely someone with a grudge against the king.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Kate said dryly.
“There is one way,” Nathaniel said again. “Emilie could—”
“No.” Zan’s voice had gone flinty. “Out of the question.”
“I agree with Nathaniel,” I said from the doorway. “We cannot exempt ourselves from the consequences everyone else has to abide by.” It was a saying I’d learned from my father. That’s not leadership, he used to say. That’s despotism. “You wanted a girl to use as bait. Well, now you’ve got one.”
“And what happens if you die?”
“Then I die,” I said, shrugging in that same flippant way he had before the night on the wall.
“You are not expendable.”
“Everyone is expendable.” The rest I’d taken while they debated had almost erased the last remnants of Thackery’s condition and allowed me to come to terms with what I’d seen in Aren’s vision. I was feeling myself again—stubborn, d
etermined, and somehow perpetually annoyed at Zan. To Kate I said, “I’m going to need a costume for the ball.”
She looked at me wearily. “I’m not sure there’s time. I’ve got a few other orders, and to make a dress from scratch . . .”
“I saw the dress I wear, and I already have it. It’s one of mine. You don’t need to start from nothing.” I saw the ball again in my mind’s eye. “You just need to make it shine.”
* * *
An hour later I sat on the edge of Kate’s bed with a well-wrapped parcel on my lap, carefully pulling the ties while Kate watched with skeptical interest, one eyebrow up. She’d only ever seen me in plain homespun, not even nice enough to wear to pray at an Empyrean altar, let alone to attend Achleva’s grandest costume ball.
But then I pulled the parcel’s last tie, and the silken fabric spilled out and fanned all around me.
Kate gasped. “Stars above! Where did you get this?”
“It was supposed to be my wedding dress,” I said.
“Wedding dress? Are you getting married?”
“I’m not,” I said carefully. “Not anymore. I don’t think.”
She raised an eyebrow, but when I had nothing more to add, she said, “You certainly are full of mysteries, Emilie.” She turned back to the dress. “It does need some work.” She lifted it to spin it in a circle. “But I think I can do it. Just add something here, and take this up here . . .”
Nathaniel poked his head into the room. “There’s been a report of a prisoner escaping his gibbet,” he said. “Zan has asked me to go see what I can find out. I probably won’t be back until late.”
Kate’s gaze did not move from the dress, and she didn’t offer a reply. Nathaniel didn’t wait for one either. He left.
“Are you two all right?” I asked when he was gone.
“He doesn’t trust me, Emilie.” She looked away; she was still hurting. “He’s never talked like that to me before. Never.”
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