Alys studied Vesper’s face, wishing she were a sentient instead of a diviner, wishing that trust wasn’t always such a risk. Things couldn’t be that simple though.
“I believe you,” Alys said. “But we still have to save Cassa.”
“And we have to stop Solan too.” Evander pushed a shaky hand through his hair and squinted toward the sky as if it might have a suggestion.
“The vial of poison is still in the dungeon,” Newt said.
“We can’t go back there,” Vesper said. “We’ll be walking right into the guards’ arms.”
“If that’s the only way to kill Solan,” Alys said, “I’m not sure we have a choice.”
“I can do it.” Newt’s quiet confidence was, as always, a relief. “I can get in and out without being seen.”
Evander frowned at him.
“You can’t go alone. It’s too dangerous.”
“Alone is the only way I won’t be seen,” Newt replied, pushing his sweat-damp curls out of his eyes. “And besides, it’s not any more dangerous than going after Cassa alone, which is exactly what you were about to volunteer to do.”
Evander blinked at him, and Newt’s thin lips twitched with a smile. His pale skin was flushed, but with exertion and not embarrassment. Alys couldn’t help but think he looked a little older than he had when all this had begun. Sharper, stronger, braver. And the last time Evander had looked at anyone the way he was looking at Newt right now was four years ago, when he’d first met Cassa.
Despite everything, Alys felt her own lips curving into a smile.
“We have to split up. It’s our only option,” Vesper said. “I have to get something from my uncle’s study.”
“I think the chancellor’s errands can wait until after our heroic escapades are over,” Evander said.
“Not this one.” Vesper gnawed briefly on her lip, like she was deciding something. “He told me where to find your pardons, signed and sealed. If we—if we survive this, they might be enough to keep you all safe.”
If she was honest with herself, Alys was surprised that the chancellor intended to keep their bargain after all that had happened. Surprised but grateful. Even if it was a useless gesture.
“The council’s not just going to grant us pardons and be done with it,” she said.
“Executions require a majority vote, but pardons need only the chancellor’s seal,” Vesper said. “If the council insists on abiding by one law, then they are bound by the other as well.”
Evander snorted in disbelief. Even Newt was shaking his head. Alys agreed with them—the council members would find a way around any law to get what they wanted. They’d probably invent some prophecy to lend themselves credibility.
Then again, the council could have ordered the guards to kill them in the crypts, instead of insisting on a proper sentencing. Even though the chancellor had obviously fallen out of favor, he was still the chancellor. Maybe a pardon from him could make a difference.
“Fine,” she said. “If you’re sure you want to risk it.”
Vesper nodded. “I could use your help divining a route though,” she said. “His study is in the southeast tower, on the other side of the keep.”
Alys’s heart clenched at the thought. Another challenge. Never any easier, but maybe she was getting used to that, because her breathing stayed even.
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
Evander went to the nearby unconscious guard and stooped down to unbutton his jacket pocket. The silver coins rolled free and up his arm as if they were eager to be home.
“Keep them,” Alys said, when Evander offered them to her. She pulled the runes out of her pocket. “These work just as well.”
Evander’s eyebrows arched at that, but he didn’t say anything. The coins flew neatly into his hip pocket.
“Meet at the chapel on the eastern wall of the citadel,” Vesper said. “The one they rebuilt a few years ago. Do you know it?”
In her mind’s eye, Alys saw two guards in front of a moonlit chapel. Her heart began to beat just a little faster. Newt and Evander nodded.
“We have less than an hour,” Alys said, “so don’t get sidetracked.”
“What, no final words to inspire us?” Evander asked, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a side hug.
She looked up at him, remembering the morning, when he’d told her that he didn’t take things seriously so that he didn’t have to be afraid. Maybe that was something she’d come to depend on. Maybe bravery was contagious.
“How about, ‘if you die, I’ll never speak to you again’?” she replied.
“Or, ‘failing is better than not trying at all’,” Vesper said, “because either way, you’re dead.”
“‘If you believe you can succeed, then maybe you’ll be too distracted to notice when you don’t,’” said Newt.
“All right, all right.” Evander raised his hands in mock surrender. “Consider me inspired. Let’s just save our backstabbing fearless leader and get this over with.”
FORTY-THREE
CASSA
On the way to the Judgment Hall, Cassa wondered why so many of the threadbare tapestries and faded rugs looked identical in the citadel—endless iterations of the same corridors. She might as well have never left the crypts. It made her miss the city. The realization came with a pang in her chest. She missed the crooked streets and bright chipped paint, the way the hand-carved signs creaked in the wind, and the ease with which she could blend in or stand out, depending on her needs. Maybe more than anything, she missed the way the city was hers, every curve and corner of it. The firebrands had laid claim to Eldra a long time ago. Even though the citadel had never fallen and the rebellion was dead, the city would always belong to the people, not the council—no matter what they chose to believe, hidden here behind their stone walls.
The city was the only inheritance she had from her parents: the city and the responsibility to somehow protect it. She was pretty sure she’d failed, considering she was moments away from being sentenced to death. This time the sentence would probably stick.
When she finally stood before the great double doors of the Judgment Hall, her hands were shaking. One of the guards yanked open a door while the other shoved her inside. She stumbled forward a few steps and heard the door shut with a thud. The guards took their places on either side of her, a few steps behind. The councilors’ murmured conversations fell silent as they looked at her.
It was so different than before. The first time she had been in this room, the future felt bright and infinite and entirely hers. Now she couldn’t help but think that in breaking away from Solan’s infallible prophecy, she’d given up her future too. Maybe there was no place for her in the world anymore, since she hadn’t done the one thing she was meant to do.
“Cassandra Valera.” Councilor Adara clasped her hands over the document she’d been perusing.
“Cassa,” she replied automatically. She cast a glance over all of them. Their faces were only passingly familiar, but still she knew them each by name, by history, by crime—just as her parents had. Her father was adamant that they always know their enemies just as well as their friends. Maybe that was the real reason he’d made her memorize the fifty infallible prophecies. All that knowledge was useless now.
“Can you please just seal the order and be done with it?” Delia Vicaro yawned and rolled her neck before shooting a pointed glare at Adara. “It’s obvious that these brats care as much about your precious protocols as we do.”
She cut Cassa a look, as if expecting some kind of affirmation. Adara very deliberately ignored her and continued.
“You stand here before the high council faced with charges of high treason.”
“Among other things,” Grantham Barwick muttered. He was pushing a pen around the table with one finger, every bit as bored as his fellow councilor.
Cassa fought the urge to roll her eyes. Standing here before them, seeing them as they truly were, didn’t
make her hate them any less. But it did make them less sinister and more ridiculous. Councilor Adara did roll her eyes.
“We’re in the middle of an unprecedented crisis right now,” she said. “Surely it’s not too much to ask for a little decorum?”
“Is it true,” Councilor Vicaro asked, ignoring Adara, “that you tried to kill Chancellor Dane tonight?”
Cassa blinked at the unexpected directness.
“Why do you ask?” she said carefully. “Are you disappointed that I didn’t succeed?”
“I’m just trying to figure out whose side you’re actually on.” Councilor Vicaro leaned forward on her elbows, twirling the emerald ring on her finger around and around. “You tout the ideals of the rebellion, but we know you made a deal with the chancellor after you escaped. And tonight we’ve learned that you somehow managed to bloodbond Solan Tavish to mirasma in an attempt to free him. Surely you can understand our confusion.”
Cassa ground her teeth, hating that she had to stand here while they reveled in their supposed moral superiority. Hating that she didn’t even know whose side she was on anymore. She’d always been on her parents’ side, but now they were gone. For a while she had her friends, but then she’d betrayed them for a chance at revenge. Now what did she have?
I can only do what I think is right, Vesper had said. Would it have been right to kill the chancellor as payment for his crimes? Or were crimes only crimes when you were on the wrong side of the citadel walls? The chancellor had agreed that his hands weren’t clean in any of this, but neither were the councilors’ or Solan’s. Neither were hers.
At least when she was following the prophecy, she didn’t have to worry about right or wrong—just what had been foretold. Maybe that’s why the Slain God’s religion had lasted all this time. No one remembered how to decide for themselves anymore. No one wanted to believe that their mistakes were preventable. If your future was foretold, then you weren’t accountable for it. All your decisions and mistakes belonged to a seer’s dream, a diviner’s runes.
If they own your future, then they own you, her mother had told her years ago. Cassa could still feel the faint caress of soft fingers in her hair. Never let that happen.
“The rebellion was only ever trying to protect the city,” she said. It wasn’t really an answer, but it was all she had. “I know that may be a foreign concept to you.”
Councilor Adara straightened in her seat and pressed her palms against the tabletop. Her wrinkled hands showed none of the telltale trembling of age.
“Everything we’ve ever done is for Eldra,” she said, “to keep it from falling to ruin while the rest of the world forgets what once made it great.”
And for a moment—just a moment—Cassa believed her.
Then her attention was drawn to the ghost globes suspended over the council’s heads. They had begun to sway. Only slightly, in a phantom breeze. There was enough light in the room that the shadows shifted minimally, and none of the councilors had glanced up. If the guards behind her had noticed, they weren’t saying anything.
Cassa’s gaze slid back to the councilors.
“If you really want to do what’s best for Eldra, then you will let me and my friends go so that we can stop Solan Tavish before the entire city is at his mercy.”
“We have our reasons for keeping him alive,” said Councilor Barwick, crossing his arms.
Their power was all that mattered to them. It was all that had ever mattered. Maybe the right thing to do would be to just accept her death and let Solan wreak his revenge on the council. For a heartbeat, the thought was actually tempting, but then she noticed that the ghost globes had picked up momentum. They now swung from side to side. Perfectly synchronized pendulums. She considered the delicate silverwork encasing the globes and what she knew about the swirling Alchemist’s Fire within. She looked back at Councilor Adara.
“Last chance,” Cassa said.
A definite frown had carved its way into Adara’s features. She shook her head. “The council has already passed its judgment. The sentence for treason is death.”
The globe on the left stopped swinging, while the other two continued their arc to the right, reached their apex, and hung there for just a moment too long to be natural.
“Then I guess I’ll see you all in hell,” Cassa said, squeezing her eyes shut.
The crash of glass against glass and a flash that seared white-hot against her eyelids came a second later. Cries of pain. She told herself to move. She had to move. She had to—
Someone grabbed her arm and yanked her backward. She pivoted, throwing back her elbow before she opened her eyes. She missed and almost lost her balance, but the hand on her arm kept her upright. Evander. He winced at her and tugged her arm again. This time she followed him through the open door. One of the guards lunged as if to grab her but, judging from how easily she avoided him, he still hadn’t recovered his full vision.
“Hurry.” Evander pushed the door shut with his back and took hold of her wrist. He was holding a key.
Once she was free from the manacles, Evander helped her hold the door shut—the guards were fighting to open it—while she looped the chain through the two handles and then interlocked the cuffs. Crude, but it would hold. Evander pocketed the keys, and they ran.
FORTY-FOUR
NEWT
His father had told him once that in any situation the right choice usually didn’t feel like a choice at all. Newt hated the way that even now the guiding voice in his head was his father’s. Had defecting from the rebellion felt like a choice? Or had his father felt the way Newt did right now as he crept through the corridors? Like this was the only thing worth doing. Like every hard-learned lesson was to ready him. Like somehow his whole life had been leading up to this.
Evander was alive.
That fact still glowed in his chest, a steady, comforting light. Alongside it was the dark and jagged fear of how close they’d come to the alternative. The devastating terror of that first gunshot would no doubt haunt his nightmares for years to come. That bullet had been meant for the back of Evander’s head. If they’d arrived even a moment later—he couldn’t let himself dwell on that, not when there was still so much distance and so many guards between him and the dungeons.
When Alys had led them, they had been guided by the runes, but now Newt had only his senses to aid him. If he was honest with himself, he preferred it this way. Just him and the whisper-soft fall of his feet on the cracking marble floors, the brush of the old tapestries beneath his fingertips as he passed, the sounds of the citadel all around him. Between the tromping and talking of the guards and the occasional banging of doors, maneuvering the halls unseen was almost easy for someone who knew how to listen. He did have a few close calls, a few heart-stopping moments when he spun around a corner with only seconds to spare. He could hold his own well enough in a brawl, but he wasn’t fool enough to think he’d stand a chance with a citadel guard in a fair fight. Their blades were too sharp, their pistols too quick. It was easier to remain invisible—it always had been.
When he reached the door leading down to the dungeons, he knew his luck was likely to run out. Even assuming the sentry was still unconscious, there were bound to be guards on patrol. As Newt slipped into the stairwell and eased the door shut behind him, he kept his ears trained on the sounds below. Muffled coughs and curses—the prisoners. No telltale footfalls, at least not yet. He descended the steps as slowly as he dared. He was afraid a guard would enter from above and spot him before he’d even reached the base.
His breath hitched at the thought that he might not ever make it back up. Even if there were guards in the alcove, he couldn’t turn back without the poison. He wouldn’t. If Solan was allowed to leave the crypts, he could bring the citadel to its knees in a few hours, Newt had no doubt. The city would be next. They would trade in a corrupt council for an older sort of evil. One that had been left to fester and grow in the black bowels of the earth for hundreds of years.
Before the alcove came into view, Newt had to pause to collect himself. He didn’t know how to be ready to face whatever lay below; he just knew he didn’t have a choice. If he died tonight, would they tell his father the whole story? Or just that his son was dead, a traitor to the citadel? Newt wondered if coming this far would be enough for the man. Newt was a rebel who had slipped from the council’s clutches too many times to count, who had lost a part of himself to a rook so powerful, even the chancellor feared him. And he’d survived. Would his father rest easy in the knowledge that his son had made something of himself in the end?
It was a useless thought. Newt knew that it wouldn’t be enough for his father. He’d known for a long time now that nothing he did ever would be.
But it wasn’t enough for Newt either. There was more that he wanted, even though he had always been too afraid to admit how much. He’d almost lost Evander tonight. Only a moment later, and all he would have had left would be memories. They’d had only a few short years, and they were not enough. He could tell things had changed between them after Solan got into his head. Evander kept looking at him askance, as if he were waiting for something. And there was more, a glimmer of a thought at the edge of Newt’s memories, a ghost of a sensation, a flicker of emotion that he couldn’t place. All he knew for sure was that Solan was to blame, and that burning anger was what drove him down the rest of the steps into the alcove, ready to face whatever fate waited for him there.
It was empty.
For a few seconds, Newt could only stare while his heart pounded uselessly with excess energy, prepared for a fight that wasn’t coming. Then he stopped questioning the impossibility of his luck and ran for the cabinet. The padlock was heavy and iron, but the hinges on the doors were old and rusted. Newt glanced wildly around the alcove, searching for anything that might be heavy enough to break them off. Nothing. He looked back at the cabinet, unable to believe that he had come this far only to be thwarted by a single lock.
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