by Audrey Grey
Taking my hand, he pulls me from my little enclave. “I need this to be clear, Everly.” I shiver at the sound of my new name from his lips. “I’m not a good person. I’ve done horrible things, and I don’t regret them. But I promise”—he guides my hand toward his chest, the hard muscle pressing into my fingertips; his heart thumps heavy and slow beneath my fingers—“I will keep you safe.”
Something deep inside me stirs.
Riser, I decide. Riser scares me the most. Because he possesses the one thing the Archduchess does not.
The ability to make me vulnerable.
To make me care.
Chapter Nineteen
The rendezvous point is deep inside Riverton, the Royalist city just outside the wall. We slip through a crumbled spot beneath the empty guard tower. Even though we haven’t spotted a Centurion or drone in hours, we stick to the tight alleyways between the shops. I hate what Nicolai did to the Mercs, but it has undoubtedly saved us.
The cobblestone streets are eerily quiet. Most of the town’s occupants, almost all Silvers, were probably evacuated long ago to their underground shelters below the mountains.
The storefront rests atop an enormous hill, ensconced between a bakery and tailor shop. Just like all the other buildings, the windows are blacked out. From the alleyway behind the shop drifts the smell of something long dead. We slip inside the back door.
A thin layer of dust shrouds the shop. The front heaps with Reformation-approved antiquities, but on the other side of the door lurks another, very different room. Firelight from the half-melted candles on the walls illuminates books, hundreds of them. Stacked in corners. Spilling from the walls. Real books. I am so busy staring I almost step on Flame. She’s curled fetal position on the floor, glittering with sweat and blood.
“Watch it, Princess!” she snarls through gritted teeth.
Brogue uses the distraction to pull the six-inch metal shrapnel from her hip. She moans, twisting her face into the floor as Cage pours alcohol over the gaping wound and sews her up.
Abruptly, all the tension leaves Flame’s body, and she melts into Cage’s long arms.
A weary sigh escapes Cage’s lips. “She’s passed out.”
“Did she struggle the whole way?” I ask.
Cage looks up as if just now seeing me. “Why, only when she was awake.”
Brogue hands me a chipped teacup full of tinted brown water, and I collapse onto a yellow lounger spotted with mold. The water tastes like piss, but I swallow it greedily. I can’t recall the last time I actually slept.
My eyes flit over her form. Arms like twigs. Delicate, child-like hands curled into tiny doll-fists. Her shoes must have fallen off, and her dark purple painted toes flutter. Like dynamite, you would never guess something so tiny could be so dangerous. “Will she recover?”
Brogue flashes his gold-capped teeth. “I certainly hope so. I have a few words for the little tart when she wakes up.”
That’s when I notice the circular, bluish-black bite marks plaguing his arms and neck.
Flame yells something in her sleep and frowns.
“Feisty for such a small thing, isn’t she?” I remark.
Brogue chuckles. “I’ve wrestled wild badgers tamer than her.”
I snort between laughs. “And . . . did you . . . hear her cursing the Dandies?”
Cage lets out a high-pitched cackle as he tries to mimic her words. “Get some . . . you . . . you . . .”
“Rotten-faced Dandies,” I screech.
We all burst into laughter. I laugh so hard tears pour from my eyes. I am crying too. Snorting and crying and choking out all the anger and frustration and fear over the last week.
Flame rolls over, hair plastered to one side, a gob of saliva trailing down her chin. “What? What’s so funny?”
There is a long pause. More hysterical cackling ensues. Brogue doubles over, slapping his leg, wheezing between barking guffaws, his face bright tomato-red. I practically fall off the lounger, giggling so hard I can’t breathe. Even Riser has tears streaming down his face.
Cage hands Flame a blood-splotched towel. Not in the mood for coddling, she smacks it from his hand and bares her teeth. Of course this only makes us shriek louder.
Flame struggles to her feet and stumbles off, breaking a few things on her way. As soon as the door shuts behind her, the light mood dissipates.
Cage rises, swiping at the blood and drool streaking his trousers. “I’ll go after her.”
“No.” Brogue has scrubbed any trace of humor from his voice. “Let me. You prepare them.”
Riser and I take turns washing in the small half-bath behind the stairs. I do the best I can with the flimsy washcloth and bucket of rust-colored water Cage provided, finger-combing my hair and pinching my cheeks in front of the cracked mirror. Rubbing circles of foundation over my freckles, I watch my cheeks become luminescent porcelain.
Finally passable, I traipse up the tiny enclosed stairwell, my dirty boots rustling up clouds of dust. Flame is waiting for me in an upstairs apartment. Despite the triangular smear of blood across her forehead, she looks well enough now to inflict mortal violence, so I pause in the doorway while she rifles through a closet. My heart sinks when I realize the ivory plume of fabric bursting from her arms is meant for me.
With the ensemble laid out on the bed, I realize it’s not as bad as I feared. It’s a travel frock with silk trousers hidden beneath a detachable skirt and a modified corset that makes sitting and breathing easier.
I’m now officially a Royalist.
Once dressed, I sit on the bed so Flame can fix my hair. My gaze travels the smooth hills of white fabric cascading around me. Because most Bronzes worked the factories where white was impractical, it’s a color associated with Silvers and above. I always imagined it would feel luxurious, but it doesn’t. It feels wrong somehow. “It’s rather creamy,” I mutter, fingering part of the ruffle trim, “but at least it doesn’t have bows.”
“Quiet, Princess,” Flame orders, a pick between her teeth, her comb wrenching pieces of my hair into whatever elaborate, braided concoction she has devised. I shut up and let her work on the off chance my silence will save my scalp.
Shoes next—a pair of sealskin boots a size too big.
After Flame deems me satisfactory, I kill time exploring the house. I am immediately drawn to the servant’s stairwell hidden in the back. There is an arched window enclave niched in the wall. Old, cracking black paint covers the windowpane, spears of light seeping through. A book rests on a faded pink pillow. I climb inside, my too-big boots smearing the layer of dust that coats the wood.
I peek through a crack of paint. Riser stands perfectly still in the middle of an overgrown garden thick with tall scorpion-weeds, hands in his pockets, his face tilted up to catch the sun. A few pink peonies flash through the brown weeds.
I feel myself smile as a warm feeling pulses through me. I can’t help it. He looks so silly, a sublime half-grin breaking through his usual masked expression.
Like the peonies breaking through the weeds. For the first time since I’ve known him, he looks unguarded.
Vulnerable.
Normal.
Again, something inside me stirs. I want to go to him. I want to . . . I don’t know.
Did you really just compare Pit Boy to flowers? The voice is Lady March’s. These are planted emotions, Everly, meant to weaken you.
All at once, the dark tide of shadow murk washes over Riser. My entire body tenses. Victoria’s words whisper inside my ear: In the shadow murk, you worms do horrible things to each other.
Point taken. I search for a distraction. The book. I have only touched one other book before, so I pick it up carefully, blowing off years of dust. The cover is peeling, and the title has long since been worn away. Looking over the book’s spine, I am surprised to see Cage is appraising me much the same.
And he doesn’t look entirely pleased with what he sees.
I pluck at my gown. “It’s the iv
ory. It doesn’t go with my complexion.”
Cage shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t. But the right shade of rouge and lip cream will help.”
He’s off and back before I can blink, clutching an array of pigments and a lighted candle. Squinting against the meager light, he applies the pigments sparingly, even though he informs me the ladies of court now find it fashionable to paint their faces with every color conceivable. “Like peacocks,” he murmurs, half his bottom lip caught inside his teeth as he works. “And this dress is glaringly out of fashion, but that can be attributed to your parents falling out of favor with the court.”
“And here I was thinking this hideous dress was Flame’s way of tormenting me.”
The brush Cage is holding pauses over my upper lip. Something flickers inside his eyes. “Worn by the woman that piece was made for, it was stunning, I promise you.”
“Oh.” I pucker my lips for Cage’s brush. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t.” Done with my lips, Cage dots concealer over my stubborn freckles. His eyes flick to the dark windowpane. “Anything of interest out there?”
I clear my throat. “Not really . . . no.”
“I bet he is still standing there, soaking up the shadows with that same intoxicated expression. Like a wee boy, that one.”
“Oh, believe me,” I say, batting my eyelashes as he swipes buttery-gold powder over my eyelids, “there is nothing innocent about that one.”
“Tsk, I didn’t say innocent.” He dabs a circular sponge over my cheeks and forehead until my face shimmers. “But interesting? Absolutely. It’s rare to find someone who is as comfortable in the light as they are in the dark.”
“Yep, that’s Pit Boy. Rare and interesting. How long until the interesting part wears off and the murderous one shows up?”
Cage lifts a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Oh, so he told you about his corrupted reconstruction, did he? Well, did he tell you why parts of it didn’t take?”
I shake my head.
“We were waiting for you near the docks the morning your pitiful little boat drifted to shore, but when we searched the boat, there was only you, half-drowned and half-dead.”
“Where was Riser?”
Cage’s lips twitch. “We found him dead in the sand a few yards down where the waves dropped him. After such an event, our cobbled together Reconstructors had very little effect past the physical.”
There’s a strange burning lump in my throat. Why did he lie to me? Desperate to change the subject, I finger my hair. “Anything you can do about this?”
Cage frowns, tracing one of the tight red braids torturing my scalp. “I would say yes, if the color wasn’t so perfect for you.”
“But—”
He silences me with an open palm. “Yes, yes. I know. You are supposed to have fair, sun kissed hair.”
“Exactly—”
“The court has no idea what you should look like because Lady March’s parents fell from court when she was a mewling, hairless creature.”
“You mean baby.”
“Creature.” Cage clamps the makeup lid shut.
My new reflection greets me inside the cloudy windowpane.
“Better,” I admit. I usually loathe makeup, but the dewy rose petal tint he has applied to my face and lips has somehow pulled everything together.
Cage gracefully hops from the alcove as if he’s done it a million times before.
“Wait . . . can I ask you something?”
Turning on his heel, he raises a stern eyebrow. “Lady March, I am an attendant. You may—and should—do whatever you like.”
Right. Must play the part. I hesitate. “Whose place did Riser take?”
Cage smiles cryptically. “There’s only one Riser Thornbrook.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shrugs, looking bored with the question. “Pit Boy is going as himself. Although I much prefer his official title of Dorian Riser Laevus, Royal Bastard Prince, half-brother to Prince Caspian Laevus.” My mouth hangs open as Cage elaborates further. “His mother, known at Court as the Marquess Amandine Croft, was Emperor Laevus III’s first love.”
My mind is spinning. “So . . . Riser is . . . ?”
“His son.”
“And the Emperor doesn’t know?”
“Kitten, he would be in the ground if he did. When Rand Laevus and the Marquess fell in love, he was the Crown Prince and she a suspected Fienian Sympathizer, along with her brother, the Marquis of Coventry. But—”
“Wait.” I suck in a breath. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Riser being the son of the Emperor, and now he’s the nephew of the dead Fienian Rebel leader, too? “So, his mother . . . Amandine, how did she . . . ?”
“End up in prison?” Cage chuckles dryly. “You don’t think Emperor Laevus II would have let the Crown Prince become besotted by a suspected sympathizer, do you? And jeopardize his vision? No, no, he had her secretly incarcerated in Rhine prison as Violet Thornbrook, and poor Prince Rand assumed she had simply left him.”
I feel a surge of pity for the Emperor. There’s no worse feeling in the world than being abandoned. “He didn’t know she was pregnant, then?”
Cage shakes his head. “No, and he eventually forgot about her. But her brother Ezra didn’t. He searched for years. By the time he found her, she was already dead.”
The pit happened to her. Riser’s words echo inside my head, and I feel an unwelcome stab of empathy for him, too. “The bombing? That was to avenge Ezra’s sister?”
“Ezra adored Amandine almost as much as he hated the Royalists. But after her death, he went from Fienian Sympathizer to the ruthless leader history loves to hate.”
I want to hate Ezra for the people he murdered, but it’s hard now, knowing why he did it. If Max had been falsely imprisoned and suffered the way Amandine did, wouldn’t I do the same?
Stretching my arms, I yawn. “And how does Riser feel knowing the man he’s supposed to assassinate is his father?”
Cage shrugs. “He got over it rather quickly.”
Of course he did. “One more thing, if you don’t mind.”
Cage eyes me through narrowed blue slits. “You have heard the story about curiosity and the cat?”
“Right.” I flash an apologetic smile. “It’s just some moments I’m Lady March. I’m strong and confident and really, really sure of myself. And then”—my hands twist at my dress—“I’m my old cowardly self again. Maia Graystone. Afraid of everything.”
“Your mind has to make a choice. Who do you want to be?”
“But I’ve already chosen—”
“No, you haven’t. But there will come a time when you will have to. Trust me.”
Chapter Twenty
With Cage gone, I settle back and distractedly thumb through the old, dusty book by the window. I am surprised to see the slim silhouette of inky ravens darkening some of the pages. One here. Three there. An entire page full of them, sitting, flapping their wings as if about to take flight. Others hover near the top, seeming ready to fly off the page.
Flame and Riser laugh from the room above, and the book slips from my fingers, pain lancing my sternum. Why should it bother me they are friends? Or that everyone but me knew Riser came from nobility. And not just any noble family. The only noble family that matters.
And maybe, just maybe, I feel bad for the way I’ve been treating Riser.
Maybe.
Needing a distraction, I find Brogue downstairs in front of the crumbling stone fireplace, poking at some books. They catch fire all at once, the orange flame peeling away the bound leather covers and turning the pages to cinder. It seems a waste, but I don’t mind once Brogue hands me the hot tea and warmed reconstituted beef patties on delicate gold-leafed china plates. Synthetic of course, not that I’m complaining.
And neither is Lady March, because she wolfs hers down without so much as a wrinkled nose.
Too soon, it is time to go. Riser jaunts down the s
tairs, an expensive ostrich-skinned travel bag slung over his shoulder and hair neatly pulled back. Admittedly, now that I know about his past, he looks different. Or maybe it’s just the way he wears his white one-buttoned tunic, replete with peaked lapels and a midnight-blue vest—as if he was born to wear it.
Flame and Cage have changed into clothing fit for Bronzes. No longer are they pierced and colored and marked. On Cage’s body hangs a dark morning coat over gray trousers. Flame, on the other hand, wears high-waisted men’s trousers the color of smoke. They swish as she walks and highlight her slender waist. She twists unhappily at the poufy sleeves of her pale Delphine blouse, the high collar unsuccessfully covering the bird tattoos winding up her thin neck. A charcoal-gray sunhat dwarfs her head, the hair underneath tamed into short black tresses tipped red.
Geez, that’ll go over well with the Censors.
Without the spikes and wild colors to distract me, I realize Flame is pretty. Really, really pretty, in a wild-eyed, pouty-lipped, porcelain skinned, spritely kind of way.
“Not so dangerous now, huh?” I tease, taking a small bit of pleasure in her obvious discomfort at the new look.
Without her contacts, her eyes are a pale gray. They cut sideways at me. She smiles the old Flame smile, retrieves something small and metallic from her high collar—a miniature, folding, triple-loading crossbow—and arms it with three sleek metal arrows plucked from the rim of her hat.
It is aimed inches from my nose, so close the tips of the arrows blur into one. “Don’t forget, Princess,” Flame purrs, “nothing is ever as it seems.”
Riser uses two fingers to aim the crossbow at the floor. “I think she gets the point, Flame.”
“And I think she needs more training on the subject.” Flame’s thick, dark eyebrows come together above a challenging glare.
“Actually,” I say, “I would love to continue our lesson.” I already know what I will do if the crossbow swings back up. How my left hand will swing wide, as if I am wiping a window, knocking the weapon from her hand, while my right palm smashes through her dimpled nose.