“Apparently it never is.”
“Eat,” Amara said. “I … I need you to eat.”
Ruudde took her arm and led her back to her cell.
olan couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t go to school. His parents had been watching him, and he couldn’t prove he was getting better, and soon … Nolan didn’t think they’d fill the rest of the prescription. He’d heard them fight about it. Inside the house his parents usually talked in Spanish, with Dad throwing in what little Nahuatl he knew, and fights were no exception. This time they peppered their shouts with English words, which was how Nolan knew it was serious. They used whatever words came to mind.
Mom said Nolan was getting worse, not better, and that Grandma Pérez said they needed to be tougher on him. Dad said that unless Dr. Campbell agreed the pills were harmful, it was Nolan’s opinion that mattered most—if he said he felt better, they couldn’t force him to stop.
At the dining table on Friday, Nolan thought they’d agreed with each other. Apparently not.
“What’s going on with you?” Pat stood in the doorway to his bedroom. Her eyes spat fire, but the rest of her seemed reserved. The way she used to be around him.
Nolan had been screwed up for most of Pat’s life; he didn’t know when she’d first given up on him. He thought this might be the second time.
Pat held out his old notebook. “Explain. You’re not writing a book.”
“How would you know?” He put the notebook on his desk, next to the new one that lay open in front of him. He’d have to keep the last half of the old notebook empty; if he wrote anything new after already breaking in the other one, he’d mess up the order.
“You don’t even read,” Pat said. “And you would’ve told Mom and Dad. You know it’d make them happy.”
“I’m not writing a book,” he agreed.
Pat blinked as if she hadn’t expected that answer. “I asked Mom and Dad who Amara and Maart and those others were. They wouldn’t tell me.”
“Don’t—don’t say that name.” Nolan shook his head. “You know those hallucinations I used to have? Amara was in them.”
“So that means you’re still having those hallucinations?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“But what about the part where you write about how all of a sudden you can change things because of the pills? And where you’re talking about, oh, is this a hallucination or isn’t it? Your doctors always said the way you acted wasn’t right for seizures. And the pain? And walking off at dinner? Stop lying,” she pleaded.
“Should I say it’s real? You wouldn’t believe that.”
“No. You need to tell Mom and Dad you’re still seeing things.” She pointed at the notebook. “It’s not healthy. And now you’re acting like this and … in the journal you wrote … I’m worried, OK?”
“Do you think it’s real?”
“Of course not.” Her pointed finger went from the notebook to him, accusatory. “But I think you think it’s real. Don’t you?”
And just like that, tears burned in his eyes. His face flushed with heat. As if all of a sudden he couldn’t breathe.
“Nolan, I didn’t mean—”
He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. It didn’t help. “I really—” he said, and gasped in a breath, “I really wish I didn’t.”
“Didn’t believe it’s real, you mean?” Pat sounded quieter.
On the Saturday Amara had scratched her arm in that cell, Nolan had shakily tried to make himself breakfast. He’d dropped a cheap jar of peanut butter when the wood tore Amara’s skin. He’d screamed and squeezed his arm, whole and uninjured but hurting like hell.
He thought of Ruudde’s threats.
“It would be a lot easier if it wasn’t real,” he whispered—
—and when he closed his eyes the moment Pat left his room, Ruudde was there, standing outside the cell’s bars. His arms were crossed, obscuring part of his tattoo, which glowed so fiercely it pulsed.
“Oh, good,” Ruudde said. “Talking to Amara can be so exhausting. Why do you bother going home, anyway? I always thought the moment you learned control, you’d either stay on Earth or claim Amara permanently.”
If Nolan were in his own body, he’d narrow his eyes, clench his jaw.
Amara did it for him.
“Talk to me, kid.”
Amara was waiting for Nolan to take over. She expected him to push her to the back of her mind and step forward. He supposed he deserved that. He’d taken over at the farm in Roerte. He did it whenever he went to sleep or woke up, to warn her, like he’d promised, and he felt her despair every time. He’d felt it two days ago, in the form of wood stabbing her arms.
“This world has magic. It could destroy us if we’re not careful …” Ruudde extended his hands. Tiny lightning bolts twined between his fingers, creeping up his arms like electricity, and he kept them a fraction of an inch away from his skin, just barely touching, just barely safe. “But it’s magic. From bedtime stories and fairy tales. What’s so good in your own life that you refuse to accept this gift? We could time things better, if you want. If Amara sleeps while you’re awake, you’ll have both lives.”
It’s all right, Amara thought. Answer him.
“How did you keep Cilla alive right after she was cursed?” Nolan asked. He’d keep his movements to a minimum. In and out. The more Ruudde pushed him toward taking over, the less he wanted to. “You discovered Amara by accident, right? You must’ve seen her in the palace at some point and recognized my presence, or you saw her heal. When you realized she was still in control, not me, you had Jorn take us away.
“The thing is, to realize you needed Amara, you’d need to know about the curse, which meant it activated at least once before you found her. So how did you keep Cilla alive then? She was only a toddler. They injure easily. You either used magic to keep her alive—and you wouldn’t have risked that—or you used your own healing.”
Ruudde only watched him. Not a flicker of emotion.
“That’s what happened, isn’t it? One of you smeared her blood on yourself and endured whatever the curse threw at you, and you cowards decided, oh, that’s not what you came to this world for! Pain wasn’t part of the deal!”
His signs sped up. “So you find a little healing girl whose tongue you already cut and you hold her down and smear Cilla’s blood on her instead, and when she’s done screaming, you tell her that’s what life will be like from now on.”
Nolan lifted his chin. “Am I right?”
Ruudde smiled thinly. “Grow up, kid.” He turned to walk away. As he went, he called, “You’re running out of time.”
mara was getting used to people passing her cell. Marshals. Servants. Jorn. Ruudde. They glanced at her, checked on Cilla, and tried to talk sense into them both. Amara and Cilla kept their hands still and mouths shut as if waiting for something. Amara didn’t know what, though, and suspected Cilla didn’t, either.
She spent her days thinking of Maart, mostly.
When Lorres appeared outside her bars on the fourth day and said, “Let’s take a walk,” Amara allowed herself a flutter of hope. This might be what she’d been waiting for.
“Where?” she asked.
“Central Bedam.”
A marshal tied her hand to Lorres’s with rope that left barely enough leeway for them to sign. The marshal and a colleague stuck close as they left the palace, one leading, one following, and Amara’s hope dimmed step-by-step. Lorres might be an ally, but that didn’t mean he’d help her escape.
“I convinced Ruudde you needed some fresh air,” Lorres said finally. “I’m worried about you.”
They had to pass through a residential neighborhood to get to the heart of Bedam. The neighborhood had changed since she’d last seen it. The stout houses on either side looked brand-new—the bricks red and white, the shutters deep green, the rooftops gleaming. Even the canal walls were smooth and unbroken. The road they walked on stood out in comparison, the stones cracked and the earth
between them freshly stirred, as if the pavement had been hastily removed and put back in.
“Backlash?” Amara asked.
“Right in one. The repairs have been going on for months.”
“Cilla needs fresh air, too, you know. More than me.”
“The girl is …” Lorres hissed air through his teeth as he signed, but in a thoughtful way, not annoyed. “Ruudde wants her in that cell. No exceptions.”
They walked in silence. The canals grew wider, the residences taller and more stately, like proper gentlemansions. The scent of canals and the occasional flash of open sewer where workers were still repairing the pavement mixed with that of fish, sharp and penetrating, as fishers carted their haul through town.
“You’re not hungry, are you?” Lorres must’ve noticed her looking. “They’re feeding you? They’re looking after you?”
“They’re treating me fine.”
“If you want something to eat …” They passed stores closing for the night. A baker was folding his display table, the bread already inside, but he slowed when he saw them pass. Abruptly self-conscious, Amara lowered her hands. She wasn’t used to signing in public. She was used to stepping briskly behind Jorn, her head down, her tattoo covered, her hands close.
The baker caught Lorres’s eye. He smiled unconvincingly and gestured at his storefront.
“You want anything?” Lorres asked.
Amara shook her head.
“The respect would be better if they meant it, even a little.” Lorres passed the baker with a kind nod.
Amara wondered what Maart would’ve felt when he was finally treated like a bareneck. Annoyed, probably. He always wanted to be left alone. You and me, he’d said, away from them.
She wished she could’ve gotten to know that Maart, without their tattoos pushing them together and wedging between them at the same time. She wished she could’ve gotten to love that Maart.
“They won’t tell me what happened.” Lorres walked with measured steps, with a certainty rare to servants. “Or what they want of you. Or what’s going on with your friend.”
“I could tell you what I know,” she said, though she didn’t think he’d believe her. She wouldn’t have, either, if she hadn’t seen her own hands dance in front of her. Then there were the marshals—they might not even let her explain. The one in front of them kept looking back, and now he’d stopped walking entirely, watching their conversation.
Lorres kept moving, head held high, ignoring the marshals. He took a moment to grin appreciatively at a pair of Jélisse performers in a wagon play. “I’d rather you didn’t explain. If they don’t want me to know … well, they’re my employers. I do as I’m bid.”
Amara understood. Knowing what you weren’t supposed to could be dangerous.
Lorres tossed a coin at the performers, although, judging by their costume dyes and their wagon’s fine woodwork—had to be Alinean-crafted—they didn’t look as if they needed it. They spun across the stage in billowing skirts, their hands outstretched and fingers perfectly pointed, lashing out, parrying blows, avoiding faux stabs with dives and flourishes. Amara took her eyes off them only when Lorres raised his hands again.
“Life at the palace has gotten tougher since you’ve been gone. I don’t know why you’re in that cell, but you’re years from getting barenecked, and somehow they’re not reinstating you as a servant. Do you know how many servants would gladly take your place? What Ruudde wants of you—how bad is it?”
“It’s bad,” she said quietly.
Lorres turned away from the wagon to face her properly. “Ruudde keeps his promises, and he makes good deals. He’s helped me in a lot of ways, Amara.”
“It’s bad,” she repeated.
“If you’re a mage, they must want to employ you. Mages can demand respect.”
Someone shoved past Amara, and she recoiled at the stench of beer. “No,” she said. “No, I can’t, it’s not—” A tiny stab of pain. Her unbound hand shot to the side of her head. In the corner of her eye she saw a stone—barely the size of a fingernail—bounce off the pavement and into the canal. Her hand came back from her head flecked with blood.
Across the canal, children laughed and broke into mocking songs. Servants stood out in a neighborhood as posh as this one, where the spiral patterns of waves and clouds in the pavement weren’t painted on but were made of actual colored bricks. A shopkeeper stepped outside to reprimand the children, and they fled, their songs echoing in their wake.
Lorres gingerly touched Amara’s scalp. “It’s healed already,” he said out loud, and pulled back. “That’s amazing.”
“Listen to me.” Amara wiped her fingers clean of blood. “It’s. Bad.”
Lorres’s eyes flitted to the marshals as if to check with them.
Amara stepped back. “Ruudde sent you to talk to me.” She took another step back, until the rope binding their wrists bit at her skin. “You do as you’re bid. Right?”
“Amara, I just don’t want you to—”
All around them, the wagon play’s audience burst into applause.
“At least when you pried open my mouth, I knew you were doing it on their orders. Take me back.” She couldn’t sign well with the rope pulled so taut. “I’ll start to run. I’ll dive into that canal right now. I know the marshals will catch me. I also know Ruudde won’t be happy you let it come that far.”
“See? Demanding respect already.” Lorres smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile.
Amara wished there was even a trace of truth to those words.
“Let’s go,” Lorres said, and let her lead the way to her cell.
n Wednesday, Nolan skipped school again to go swimming. His parents couldn’t stop him, and he wanted—needed—to get away. Half a week in the palace was driving him mad.
The pool was quiet in the morning, and he crashed through the water with even strokes. He stared through his goggles at the starting blocks. By his side, the steps leading out of the pool flashed past. The lifeguards and Dr. Campbell agreed: he had to stick by the pool’s edge.
He tapped the wall, turned, kicked harder. They needed to know why the ministers needed Cilla alive. Nolan wanted to do something, move forward, to act now that he finally could—but if anyone could think this through, it should be him. Amara might be the planner, but Nolan had all the time in the world.
Could keeping a fake princess alive to kill her at a later time be a blow to the rebels’ morale? No. Too much setup, not enough payoff, and what was the role of the mages tracking her?
Maybe, once the ministers were too old, they’d need someone new to possess, and a fake princess could take over the Dunelands without suspicion? No. Lots of ministers, just one girl, and they’d want mage bodies, besides.
Nolan needed to stop thinking about the princess aspect. Ruudde had said that’d only been a ruse to keep Cilla safe and hidden, for whatever reason, and maybe he’d told the truth.
Nolan wasn’t used to thinking these things through without his notebook. He’d never been able to focus long enough. Now, despite the blinding lightness of the pool around him, all bleached blue and green, wet skin everywhere he looked, chlorine in his nose—yes, he could focus.
But it got him nowhere.
Start from scratch: if the ministers wanted to protect Cilla so badly, she had to be useful to them. (But how? She spent her days hiding in decrepit granaries.)
Look at it from the other side. Forget keeping her alive. What were the consequences to her death? If she died, the curse ended, and …
Nolan paused by the side of the pool. He clung to the edge with one hand. Maybe it wasn’t just the curse that would end. There could be a second spell. If Ruudde hadn’t been one of the mages to place the curse, and hadn’t had an anchor to track—Amara and Cilla had gotten rid of all their clothes and possessions on Olym’s boat—how had he found Cilla so quickly? He couldn’t have known she was coming, and she would have stayed out of sight. Yet somehow, he’d found her within minut
es.
If Ruudde and Jorn had cast a second spell, that could explain how they’d tracked her. It’d explain why they needed to keep her alive—to keep that other spell active. It’d explain why the knifewielder and other mages wanted her dead—not because she was the princess, but to end that other spell. It’d explain something else, too: Amara had always thought those mages had screwed up by casting a curse instead of a death spell. What if they hadn’t? What if they’d tried a death spell, and it had mixed with an existing spell, diluting it, warping it?
That worked. All of it worked. Cilla might not matter beyond being a host for their spell. Nolan itched to get out of the pool, dry off, and find his journals, but he made himself slow down. He was still missing one thing. What the hell was that second spell?
He wiped some water from his face. At least he had a theory. He ought to tell Amara. He’d been checking in every few minutes—
—and now she was pressing her face to the bars. Cold metal chilled her cheeks. A marshal was running her way, a gaunt woman with skin like birch wood, one of the few Elig Amara had seen in the palace. Keys clattered against the woman’s side.
“She hurt herself.” The marshal fumbled to get the key into the lock. “You need to get in there—”
—someone’s hand was on his shoulder. When Nolan turned, the lifeguard crouched nearby. “Are you all right?” she asked. Stray locks of hair drooped free from her ponytail. The lifeguards all knew about him. His seizures happened too often to take chances. “Do you need your crutches?”
“I’m good. Taking a breather.” Nolan offered an automatic smile, but— “Wait. I do need my crutches. Please.” While the lifeguard went to get them, Nolan pulled off his goggles and hoisted himself onto the edge—
—heard Cilla’s breathing rasp in and out.
Amara bolted after the marshal into Cilla’s cell. The walls swayed. Stones were shifting, reaching out. Cilla lay on the cot with her back to the bars. Her topscarf lay on the floor. It tangled under Amara’s feet, and she landed by Cilla’s mattress in a dive. She grabbed a bare shoulder and turned Cilla onto her back. The red caught her eye first: flecks on Cilla’s nails, hands, a line that stretched across her chest. Her tattoo pulsed faintly on both sides of that line.
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