by Jodi Meadows
Immediately, servants were ordered to fetch an appropriately comfortable chair for her, and better wine.
The queen came farther into the room, out of the servants’ way, and in the doorway, two young men hovered: Tobiah and James. Escorting the queen, apparently.
Both boys looked as though they’d been up late, with bags under their eyes. But while James wore an expression of careful neutrality, Tobiah’s mouth was pinched and he appeared deeply unhappy as he noticed my presence next to his fiancée.
His expression almost persuaded me to spend as much time as possible with Meredith, just to annoy him.
“Lady Meredith. Good morning. You look radiant, as always.” He kissed her hand, an odd softness about him as he admired the work she was doing and praised her skill with the needle; she glowed with his attention. But his smile was stiff, overly formal as he greeted the rest of the ladies by name. Then he turned to me. “Lady Julianna, may I speak with you in the hall?”
All eyes turned toward me as I placed the spindle and wool on the chair, and followed the prince and his bodyguard. The queen’s eyebrow lifted as I passed her.
Tobiah left the door open for propriety’s sake, but motioned me down the hall a few paces, where we could speak without being overheard. “I was going to send you a note,” he said. “I think that might have been easier.”
And I would have had a sample of the prince’s handwriting. I tried not to let my disappointment show; he probably had a boring hand anyway.
“After the committee meeting the other day, several of the members approached me separately with concerns.”
I tilted my head and offered a quizzical look.
“They’re concerned that the meetings might be too difficult for you to continue attending. Because the majority of those in attendance carried identical misgivings, I’m afraid I must—”
“I understand.” It was rude to interrupt, and a duchess would never dare, but one nursing wounded pride might be that bold, so I risked it. I set my mouth in a line and directed a glare across the hall, on a framed mirror reflecting a portrait of some long-dead queen.
“Not because of your gender, I assure you, but because you’ve endured something incredibly traumatic. The gentlemen are simply concerned for your peace of mind. We all wish you nothing but healing.”
Beyond the prince, James stood with his hands behind his back, shoulders straight, and a slight frown on his face. When our eyes met, he shook his head just barely.
We both knew why the committee didn’t want me. Fortunately, I’d already learned everything I needed for the Ospreys. But what about the lake?
I’d simply have to continue my own research, and follow it wherever it took me.
“I understand,” I said again, and met the prince’s eyes. “I’m disappointed, of course. Though I appreciate the concern, I know I could be useful.”
The prince’s expression was unreadable. “I’m afraid the decision is final, but I will keep you apprised of any developments. I hope that will suffice.”
That sounded unlikely. “Thank you.” I put no effort into sounding genuine.
“Have a good morning with the ladies.” At that pointed dismissal, he turned and headed down the hall. James flashed an apologetic smile before following.
When I returned to the ladies’ solar, the women were already hard at work once more. The queen sat in a tall chair with half a dozen pillows squeezed in with her, and she worked right alongside the others. She spun on a spindle—a much finer one than I’d been given.
Meredith cocked an eyebrow as I took my seat. “Is everything all right? You look upset.”
I gave a prim smile and took up my spindle, keeping one eye on the queen as she spun. “I’m well enough. Thank you.” All eyes were on me, though, and perhaps there was an opportunity here. I allowed my chin to tremble and made my voice small, but trying to be strong. “Well, I’d wanted to join the wraith mitigation committee. I thought I might be able to help.”
Meredith nodded. “That’s quite brave of you.”
“Unfortunately, the majority of the committee believes I am unsuitable, thanks to the very thing I believe makes me valuable: my experience in the wraithland.”
A few of the ladies hissed, and several scowled. The queen simply focused on her work—or appeared to focus. Chey shook her head and met my eyes. “Women are constantly underestimated. Women can be just as cunning and clever as men, and oftentimes are. Our triumph is simply overlooked or unnoticed, because men do not expect it or know to look for it.” She offered a strange smile. “Use your perceived insignificance to your advantage. It’s what we all do.”
There was a small chorus of yeses and a ripple of nodding, making me wonder for the first time what they were hiding. All these ladies with their own lives, their own goals.
Perhaps I’d misjudged them earlier. Their inane chatter was a small theater, meant to disguise their true selves from me: an outsider.
The queen smiled gracefully as she wound yarn onto her spindle.
“Thank you for the advice,” I said after a moment. A strange sense of kinship welled up in me. We all wore disguises, and now I understood theirs.
Not that I trusted Chey—or Meredith or the queen or anyone else in this room—but that didn’t make her advice any less true. Maneuvering beneath notice was what I’d been doing since my arrival here.
This incident with Tobiah was a setback, but it wouldn’t keep me from my goals.
As soon as the ladies disbanded for the day, I set about haunting the halls around generals’ offices, and anywhere else I might find answers. But I found nothing.
There was no getting around it. I was going to the wraithland.
Days were getting shorter. By the time the clock tower chimed nineteen, the sun dipped below the western horizon and the city’s mirrors glowed with twilight until the sky faded to purple-black, and finally turned dark.
Melanie hadn’t returned to our apartments, and even if she’d been here, I wouldn’t have known what to say to her. Would we talk about last night with Patrick? Or pretend we didn’t know about Quinn and Ezra? Act like she hadn’t voted with Patrick, and now two of our friends were dead?
Black silk gleamed in the lamplight; the mask peeked out from beneath my mattress, where I’d shoved it this morning as I staggered in, exhausted.
I tugged it from the hiding place and turned it over in my hands, looking for hints of Black Knife’s identity. A piece of hair, a scent, or a seamstress’s embroidered mark. But there was nothing. The mask smelled like me now, and there was nothing to indicate it hadn’t been my mask all along.
Keep it, he’d said. You might need it again.
Earlier, the palace ladies had said there were more wraith beasts in the city. If that was true, Black Knife would be hunting them.
I changed my clothes and slipped my weapons from their hiding places. As exhausted as I was, I wasn’t ready to sleep, to think about my wretched life, or to question what I’d always known and believed.
Instead, I shoved Black Knife’s mask into my belt and made my way into the city.
Unsure exactly where I wanted to go, I roamed the market district, rooftop to rooftop, until I found myself above a small chapel with a bubbling fountain in its tiny courtyard. Half a dozen people knelt on the cobblestones, circling the splashing water. Quiet chanting rose into the night.
“They’re waiting to be healed.” Black Knife’s voice came from just behind me. “They were told to fast for a week, drinking only water from that fountain, and to pray ceaselessly. If they did that, they’d be healed of whatever ails them.”
“Has it ever worked?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t heard the good news yet, but I hope I will one day.”
“Huh.” He was optimistic, for a boy wearing a mask.
“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said.
I stood and slipped behind a chimney, out of the way of the mirrors. Black Knife followed, utterly silent i
n his movements.
“Or perhaps”—he pulled the mask from my belt and held it between two fingers—“you didn’t come to pray.”
Wind tugged at the mask, a banner of black shadow against his dark body. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“Not today. We have too much work to do.” He offered back the mask, and when I didn’t move, he said, “Unless you’d rather I arrested you.”
If he knew how I spent my days, disguised as a dead girl and snooping about the palace, no doubt he’d change his mind.
“Not today.” I took the mask just as an immense roar sounded from the chapel courtyard, followed by screams. “Like you said.”
SEVENTEEN
WE SPENT THE night together, fighting wraith beasts and capturing glowmen. When we were in danger of being spotted by passersby or victims, we traded off who revealed themselves so that no one would suspect there were two of us.
No, there was no us. He had an uncanny ability to find me, and I owed him for not turning me in to the Indigo Order when he discovered my magic. I hadn’t brought myself to ask why yet. He might still turn me in.
Nevertheless, we fought together, and we fought well. We followed leads painted on walls and fences, black knives with requests for help scrawled below. We found bounty posters that had been altered to alert him to the presence of a dangerous gang, and hints about where dealers were selling shine.
“That one.” Black Knife pointed at the street of linked houses below. All was dark and quiet. This neighborhood had no gas lamps, and the crescent moon had set below the horizon already.
“How can you tell?”
He folded the posters and slipped them into his pocket. “The smoke stains on the house. If there’d really been a fire here, other houses would have the damage as well. No, that’s a marker. It tells shine users that they can purchase here.”
Now that he’d pointed it out, I could see the smoke stains on the off-white walls. “Do you trust the information?”
“Yes.” He didn’t take his eyes off the house. “But I’m not going in until tomorrow night. There are a few more tools I need for this.”
I was glad we weren’t going in tonight. I’d already hidden a few yawns, and I had more work to do on my own before I could go to bed.
He stood and turned in the direction of Thornton. “Are you coming tomorrow?”
“Probably not.”
“Good. I’ll meet you right here at midnight.”
I pulled off my mask and tucked it back into my belt. “No promises.”
“Of course not.” He hopped across the gap between rooftops and faced me. “Oh, what would you like to be called?” If tones could be expressions, his would have been a cocky grin.
I narrowed my eyes.
“You should choose something you like. Eventually, someone will see the two of us together, and if you don’t choose a name, one might be chosen for you.”
“You’re assuming I’ll stick around.”
“I think you like the mask. It’s irresistible.”
I’d never met anyone so arrogant. “Is that how you ended up with Black Knife? From people who couldn’t tell the difference between a knife and a sword?”
He made a noise almost like a chuckle. “No. I actually did this to myself. But that’s a story for when we’re better friends.”
“We aren’t friends.”
“That’s why I’m waiting.” He performed a deep, graceful bow. “Until tomorrow, nameless girl.”
Then he was gone.
Of course I went back.
We took out the shine house easily enough, and then tracked down the supplier and manufacturer. Black Knife had an entire network of informants, signs people left on fences and windows—messages that looked like random scrawls to me, until he explained them.
During those hours of darkness, my thoughts cleared and I focused only on fighting and surviving. Black Knife was reckless when he fought, like he trusted me to keep him out of wraith beast jaws. Or maybe he’d always been like that.
Our only uncertainty came in the moments after killing a wraith beast, when a blast of mist rose up from the body, leaving both of us woozy and confused. But it always passed.
The lights of Skyvale silhouetted Black Knife as he cleaned the blood from his sword and sheathed it. “Usually, I can finish any wraith creatures within the first couple of nights after a storm. But not this time, even with your help. I think it will just get worse from here.”
“What do you think will happen when the wraith gets here?”
“Chaos,” he said. “Every refugee I’ve talked to has said so.”
He talked to refugees?
How interesting.
When we parted ways, I slipped through the Flags and over the city wall, well clear of the guard towers. Dawn was still hours away, but weariness tugged at my eyes and clouded the edges of my thoughts.
As I stepped into the dark camp of Liadian refugees, I shifted my stride to mimic Black Knife’s. I didn’t have his sword or gloves, but I doubted anyone would notice. I didn’t have his voice, either, but I could disguise mine. He was probably doing the same already.
Cool, sharp air twined through the tents and lean-tos. Within a circle of shelters, a small fire crackled, throwing a fractured glow among the handful of men guarding the camp. There were ten of them, all armed with clubs or other blunt objects. A few had short blades at their hips, and likely hidden within their clothes.
Sheep bleated at my passing, and one of the guards spun around to face me. “Who are you? Show yourself!” At his shout, the others snapped to attention, weapons raised.
My hands palm-up and out to my sides, I stepped into the light, and pitched my voice deeper. Raspier. “Who do you think I am?”
“Black Knife,” one breathed. The men all lowered their weapons.
“I’m chasing a rumor.”
The men gathered around, lowering their weapons. “What rumor?” A few narrowed their eyes as they took in my height. Tall for a girl, but not as tall as people expected Black Knife to be.
“A map in the palace shows a lake in Liadia marked with questions. What’s out there?”
The men exchanged glances. “No one at the palace believes,” said a boy not much younger than me. Small round scars dotted his face. “We were told not to speak of it.”
“I will believe you. Tell me.”
“It’s just a rumor,” said the boy. “I didn’t see it.”
“Take me to someone who did.”
The guards led me to a nearby tent with a goat tethered outside. One man darted inside, and I caught the edges of his whisper. “Black Knife is here. He’s going to stop the wraith. He’s going to save us all.”
I entered the small space, which was lit with a few candle stubs. Next to the guard who’d shown me in, a woman sat amid a mountain of blankets. Though she appeared young enough to be my mother, she was hunched, as if she’d hurt her back, or had carried heavy loads for many years. Her expression was grim, with traces of kindness. “Black Knife.”
I stepped away from the shelter’s door and assumed Black Knife’s posture. Shoulders back, feet hip-width apart, arms over my chest.
“You want to know what I saw.”
“Every detail.”
“I was forbidden from speaking of it.”
“By whom?”
“The Liadian king. His men.”
“They’re dead now. Tell me.”
She offered a slight bow. “Before the wraith hit, I was a maid in a lord’s country home. Everyone was talking about those barriers like they were the answer, but I knew the truth. The supposed alchemists the king hired to build the barriers were all flashers taken from their homes and put to work pouring magical energy into the walls. I was one of them. But”—she held up her hands, as though trying to appease me—“I don’t use magic now. What use is making myself float? I did only what my king ordered. I could not refuse.”
She could have refused, but he might have ha
d her killed for it.
“What happened then?” I asked.
She lowered her hands. “When the walls were finished, we were sent home. The magic barrier seemed to work for a time, but eventually, the wraith broke through. People were angry. Afraid. Many fled immediately, but some of us were trapped by the very barriers we’d helped create. From the house where I was trapped, I watched the wraith break through the walls. Pieces flew into the nearby lake. It was called Mirror Lake.”
There were probably a hundred lakes called that. It didn’t mean anything. “The lake with the pieces of the barrier is the source of the rumors?”
“Yes.” She slumped deeper into her blankets. “I saw the water erupt. It cleaned the wraith right out of the surrounding land. That’s everything I remember.”
The guard cleared his throat. “I heard that the light of another world shines through the lake now. Others have said the water boils all year around, or the water sucks in the wraith every night so the surrounding land is clean.”
“I see. Is that all?”
They plied me with a few more nonsense rumors before I left the tent and refugee camp. When I was sure no one was watching, I climbed over the city wall and made my way through the Flags.
By the time I reached Thornton, the eastern horizon had turned purple and the silhouettes of mountains were just visible. I had to hurry back to the palace, but first, I needed to grab a few supplies.
I stopped in quiet shops, lifting a sleeping roll and sturdy breeches and bags of dried travel rations. I was out of the area just as the clock tower chimed five and owners began making their way toward their businesses.
Hawksbill was trickier, with maids and servants awake to prepare for the day, but the deep gold rays of dawn left pockets of shadow. I stayed to those, ascending to my palace balcony just as light broke over it. I slipped into the room and let all my new belongings fall to the floor as I staggered into bed. Everything I’d learned tonight spun in my head, even as tension eased from my body and I fell closer to sleep.