On Evander’s other side, Newt lay down almost soundlessly.
“We did pretty good tonight,” he said, his voice so soft that Evander wasn’t sure if he was talking to everyone or just to him.
“We did,” Evander said, turning his head slightly. He couldn’t tell how close Newt was in the dark, and it was disorienting. He had a strange, overwhelming desire to reach out and touch him, to see if Newt’s blond hair was as soft as he sometimes caught himself imagining. Evander had figured out he was bisexual around the same time he’d figured out what sex was. But Newt held a strange fascination for him, ever since their first chance meeting years ago. After his split with Cassa, Evander had found himself spending more and more time with Newt, and slowly that fascination had begun to evolve into something else entirely—something Evander was afraid to examine too closely when the rest of the world was falling apart around them.
“Dammit,” Cassa said suddenly, her voice so sharp that Evander sat upright, his blood surging.
“What?” He blinked uselessly in the dark.
“I left my pistol on Solan’s table.”
Alys let out a groan.
“Well, maybe you should go back and get it, and let the rest of us sleep in peace.”
“I would if I thought you could last the night without me.”
Alys let out another frustrated noise. Evander tried to think of a retort, but he was too tired. If Vesper were here, she wouldn’t have let the comment slide. He could always count on her to counterbalance Cassa’s exhausting overconfidence. Sometimes he felt like Cassa had counted on her for that too.
He remembered a time when they were all just kids trying to find their place in a city simmering with rebellion. His sister, who had somehow managed to work for the firebrands for months without him or their parents noticing, was the one to introduce him to Vesper and Cassa. There were a lot of secrets between him and Alys in those days, but fewer after he met her new friends. He hadn’t thought much of Cassa at first. She was short and loud and excessively rude. He’d changed his mind a few days later when she scaled the clock tower to paint the symbol of the firebrands in red on the bell. Her parents—the leaders of the rebellion—were furious with her and the risk she’d taken.
“She just did it to impress you, you know,” Vesper had told him, while they waited outside for the Valeras to finish castigating their daughter.
“Why would she want to do that?” he asked, a little pleased with the idea despite himself.
“Because she can’t stand for anyone not to be impressed by her.”
“You don’t seem impressed.”
“We’re best friends,” she said with a shrug. “I’m the only person who doesn’t have to be.”
Vesper and Cassa were inseparable back then. Vesper wasn’t officially a spy, but she brought news from the citadel to the Valeras. Her help, however small, was a major coup for the firebrands. Once whispers spread around the lower ward that the high chancellor’s own niece was on their side, their ranks began to swell. For maybe the first time since the rebellion’s first spark a century prior, there was real hope that it might succeed.
Not that it did them any good in the end. Only a month after that conversation with Vesper, all the rebels were dead, without even the symbol on the clock tower remaining to mark their empty sacrifice.
Evander lay back down and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come. His entire body ached for rest. He counted his breaths, in and out, but even after he lost count in the hundreds, his mind was still skipping across thoughts and memories, across the events of the night, and beyond that, to all the events that had led them here. Maybe for him it had all started when he watched Cassa climb that tower, secretly in awe. Maybe that was the real point there was no turning back.
After almost an hour, when he was sure that everyone else was asleep, Evander climbed to his feet. He felt his way around the edge of the room to the stairs that led to street level. They creaked deafeningly beneath his weight, and he had to wrench the warped door open, but no one stirred behind him. He stepped into the alley and shut the door as quietly as he could. The night felt cooler than he remembered, with a light breeze playing across his skin. He shivered.
He retraced their steps to the main road and the statue of the elder seer. The oxidized copper shone jade in the moonlight. For a brief moment, he wished that when he’d gone to see the Blacksmith he’d brought pure copper with him instead of silver. The statues were scattered throughout the entire city, large and solid enough that he’d probably be able to feel most of them no matter where he was. He couldn’t fathom the rush of all that copper pulsating in his veins, connected to every part of the city as if he were its beating heart.
Copper was all but worthless though. It was silver that Evander had needed to pull his family from the gutter. He didn’t have to depend on the pennies earned from fake divinations when people’s silver would slide freely from their pockets into his. From a crowd of five or ten, he could pull twenty coins easily without anyone ever noticing. It added up fast. Between his work in the upper echelon and Alys’s work with the rebels, their parents had been able to afford a new shop less than a year after his trip to the Blacksmith.
Of course, it was because of people like Evander that the high council was so selective about who was allowed to bloodbond with metal. Usually they allowed only talented craftsmen with skills useful to the council, and only those who might be strong enough to survive the process. Bloodbonding had been introduced in Teruvia only recently, brought here by a mysterious foreigner they called the Blacksmith. More people died than lived.
Evander had met only a few other people with bloodbonds in his life. The most recent was Captain Marsh, the captain of the citadel guard who had overseen their arrest. He was somewhat famous for his bloodbond with iron—one of the more difficult metals to bond with—and his skill with the iron chain he kept looped at his side like a whip. Fortunately, he hadn’t felt the need to exercise his skill on any of them.
Evander rounded the statue of the elder seer and headed west along the empty street. Even the sounds from the taverns had begun to die down. He couldn’t see the clock tower from where he was, but it had to be nearing dawn.
“Evander.” The voice startled him, and he whirled around. It was Alys.
Shit.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, though she kept her voice quiet. She was hugging herself against the chill air.
“They need to know we’re all right,” he said.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Alys, you know rumors have already started. Our parents probably think we’re dead. They don’t deserve that.” He half expected her not to buy in to his reasoning. He only barely believed it himself. Solan’s divination was still rattling in his head. Save his parents from what?
Alys regarded him in silence for a few seconds. In the thin, silvery moonlight, her features were soft and indistinct.
“Fine,” she said. “But only for a few minutes. We have to get back before Newt and Cassa wake up.”
Evander nodded and started west again. Alys fell into step beside him, limping a little. Begrudgingly, he slowed his gait. They walked in silence the rest of the way home.
THE DAY NEWT MET EVANDER
Summer. The air was thick with buzzing insects. Overhead, the sky was relentlessly blue, relentlessly bright. The world smelled like the color gold. There was no breeze, and Newt’s skin was damp with sweat, sticking to the dirt and grass beneath him. He could feel the prickle of flies on his bare arms and neck. There was a rock just beneath his shoulder blades, pressing insistently against bone. Salt trickled into his eye, and he blinked, but that was the only movement about him. He was just a part of the landscape, fading gently into periphery.
Then came the crashing of footsteps, labored panting, brush crackling, birds in flight. Newt was debating whether he should sit up and determine the source when the source tripped over his midsection and sprawled onto the ground
.
“Shit,” said the tangle of long limbs and shock of dark hair. “Shit.” With grunting effort, he rolled onto his back and sat up, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.
Warily, Newt pushed onto his elbows. The boy looked vaguely familiar, but Newt couldn’t place him. He was too distracted by the way the boy’s sweat-soaked shirt clung to his chest.
“Hey,” said the boy.
“Hey,” said Newt, meeting his eyes. He was glad that his face was already flushed from the heat, because he could feel a blush burning up his neck and cheeks.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Oh,” said Newt. “Well . . . I’m not.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I—”
“Hold that thought.” The boy was craning his neck, his eyes scanning the field around them.
Newt sat up the rest of the way and looked around as well, but he didn’t see anything except for the city in the distance, Merchants’ Bridge spanning the river, and to the south, the towering trees of Eldrin Wood.
“I don’t suppose you know any good places to hide around here?” asked the boy.
“Are you in trouble?” Newt asked.
“Only if Cassa finds me. We were exploring that cave over there, the one with the weird name, and I might have pushed her into a reservoir.”
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“She said she’d like to know how deep it ran.” He was grinning now, his eyes bright with mischief. “I’m Evander, by the way. Evander Sera.”
He stuck out his hand, and Newt took it self-consciously.
“Newt.”
“Shit.” Evander jumped suddenly to his feet. “Looks like my time is up. Tell my family I—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentiment because he was tackled quite effectively to the ground by a girl who was six inches shorter than him and soaking wet.
“Dammit, Cassa,” coughed Evander. “You could have broken something.”
He didn’t sound too upset though. Cassa was straddling him, her palms pressed into his shoulders.
“You’re lucky I don’t break a lot of somethings,” she said. “I only brought you along because you promised to behave.”
“Is that the only reason?” His lips curved into a smile.
“You’re the worst,” Cassa said, then leaned down and kissed him.
Newt, only a few feet away, couldn’t recall ever feeling this uncomfortable in his life, even including the time his father had insisted he spend the night in the crawl space under their house because hardship bred courage and courage bred strength. He started to stand up. Evander made a sound against Cassa’s mouth and broke from the kiss.
“We’re being rude,” he told her, struggling onto his elbows. “Newt, this is Cassa.”
Cassa sighed and slid off Evander to sit next to him. She eyed Newt, somehow managing to keep her disdain to a minimum.
“We’ve met,” she said.
Newt’s face burned hotter. Even if they hadn’t met, it wasn’t as if Cassandra Valera needed an introduction. Her parents were bastions of the rebellion. They had given their lives trying to free imprisoned firebrands from the citadel. His father’s infamy was of a different sort. Betraying fellow rebels in exchange for clemency was the kind of cowardice that people didn’t forget or forgive.
“Great,” said Evander, looking between them curiously.
“I should go,” Newt said.
“No, wait,” Evander said. “We’re the ones who interrupted your—whatever you were doing out here.”
“I wasn’t doing anything,” Newt said, suddenly feeling defensive. “I was just about to head back to the city.”
“We’ll walk with you.” Evander jumped to his feet, pulling Cassa up beside him. “We have to get Cassa dried off. She has a delicate constitution.”
Cassa snorted and punched his arm, but there was unmistakable affection in the way she looked at him. Evander extended a hand toward Newt. There was a residual smile on his face, slightly lopsided. Newt had never known anyone to look so earnest and so roguish at the same time. He took the hand and stood up, and for a split second, with their hands still clasped, their eyes met, and Newt could sense the world around them in perfect clarity—the buzzing insects, the sun on his skin, the smell of dirt and stone and heather. It all spun around him in a symphony of colors and sounds and sensations. It was as if he and Evander were the only fixed points in a universe of motion.
Then he dropped Evander’s hand, stepped away, and turned his gaze toward the city. There was a thrill of new energy inside him, a tingling in his fingertips, and the dawning certainty that one day he was going to fall in love with Evander Sera. He wasn’t sure how to escape it. Or if he wanted to.
SIXTEEN
ALYS
The apothecary shop of the lower ward was situated between a bakery and a tailor who had closed his doors months before. Even though her family had been living here for three years, it still didn’t feel like home to Alys. She’d been born and raised in the fourth ward. Her parents hadn’t been wealthy, but they had been important. There were several families in the upper echelon and even in the citadel itself who would special order her father’s tinctures or ask her mother’s advice on treatments. That was before the night the citadel guards came though. The night they lost everything. No one wanted anything to do with her parents once they had been marked as traitors by the council for aiding rebels.
When Alys thought about that night, what was clearest in her memories wasn’t the way her father clutched her mother or the way her mother had screamed at the guards not to touch her children. It wasn’t even the sickening whistle of the red-hot brand.
What shone so brightly in her mind were the coins on the kitchen table, left in a careless heap. And how a day before, in those same coins, she’d seen her father’s face, her mother screaming, and the painful bright glow of the brand—and she hadn’t understood the divination until it was too late to warn them.
That was when she gave up on divination. Maybe there were some things better left unknown. Her failed attempt tonight only shored up her resolve.
The apothecary’s wooden sign, depicting a mortar and pestle, hung over the whitewashed door. It creaked slightly in the breeze. The windows upstairs were all dark. Neither of them had a key, so Evander reached up and tugged the cord dangling from the lintel. The muffled clattering of the bell inside the store seemed deafening in the silence of the street. Alys glanced around them nervously, but there was no one else in sight.
Evander had to ring twice more before the door finally swung open. Golden light spilled over them. Alys had expected her parents to be asleep, but Lenore Sera was fully dressed in her usual work attire of loose brown trousers and a white collared shirt with the sleeves pushed up around her elbows. Her tan apron was stained with a rainbow of spilled ingredients and smudged powders.
When she saw them, Alys could have sworn her face fell. Was it a trick of the light? Her mother’s dark hair was piled into a messy bun, and she pushed some loose strands from her face. The X-shaped scar on her right cheek was puckered and ugly on her otherwise smooth skin. Her hand was shaking.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said.
Alys’s heart skipped a beat, and she looked around. Where seconds ago the street had been empty, now there were two citadel guards on either side of them, closing in fast. Evander swore, and Alys saw his hand drift uselessly toward his pocket. Even if he had his coins, they wouldn’t help.
Lenore pulled the door open wider.
“You’d better come in,” she said softly. “There’s nothing for it now.”
When they didn’t move, Lenore reached out and took Evander’s wrist. She tugged him gently into a quick embrace. Feeling numb, Alys stepped inside as well. She could hear the guards behind her, very near but not approaching the shop. Her mother hugged her too, wordlessly. Alys eyed the interior of the shop. Everything appeared to be in order. The l
ong wooden counter was tidy, with only a couple of bottles not put away. The floor glistened like it had been recently mopped, and it looked like someone had dusted and reorganized the books on the broad shelf behind the counter. Her father tended to clean things when he was anxious.
She didn’t see him in the main shop, but there were more lights farther down the hall to the right, where the kitchen was. When they entered, Alys saw him first. Her heart settled a tiny bit at the sight. Edric Sera was stooped slightly in the shoulders, with gray streaks through his black hair and a pair of thin wire spectacles that always sat crooked on his nose. After his first shop had been seized by the council, he grew a bushy beard that Alys always thought looked wrong on his angular face. She wasn’t sure if he’d just given up on shaving every day or if he thought it would somehow distract from the scar burned into his cheek. She’d never gotten up the courage to ask.
Edric pushed his spectacles up when he saw his two children. His dark, bushy eyebrows were knitted in a frown.
“Ah,” he said. A useless, helpless, hopeless sound. “Ah.”
The man seated across from her father at the table stood up slowly, his chair scraping against the wood floor. At first, Alys didn’t recognize him. She’d only seen Chancellor Dane up close once before, and the man had been a different sight then, bedecked in ceremonial robes, pronouncing death from the high dais. Here, in her family kitchen, wearing a gentleman’s jacket and a black silk tie, he looked more like a blueblood from the upper echelon who’d gotten terribly lost than the arbitrator and administrator of the seers’ prophecies.
“Excellent,” he said. He retrieved a silver watch from the pocket of his pinstriped waistcoat and checked it. “Right on time.”
For a brief moment, Alys felt outside herself. She felt as if she was looking at the city, at her entire world, from a distant height. She felt she could see all the choices that had led them this far, all the threads of the past. And she wondered why they had ever thought they stood a chance against a regime that held the very future in its hands.
Beneath the Citadel Page 10