I slept hard, waking only when Hana rapped at my door and rattled the lock. Blood speckled my bed and clotted my nose. The ink I had sacrificed had not been enough. My vilewright sat heavy on my chest.
Nothing was ever enough.
Six
I couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing Julian yet. Julian and Will had not recoiled when they learned I was dualwrought, but it had been an emergency.
Would he only stay friendly with me out of duty now that I’d handed myself over in exchange for his father? Would Will feel beholden to me? I’d found them and made them family, but this could ruin it.
I peeled Julian’s coat off and laid it across my bed, smoothing it out. It barely smelled of him now. The plain clothes and gray coat fit fine but felt heavier. A stifling sweat crept over me.
The door rattled.
“Adler!” called Hana. “His Majesty prefers early starts.”
I opened the door. She was leaning against the wall, a dozen new cuts on her hands and a moon pendant spinning between her fingers. Her gaze raked me over.
“Let’s go,” she said and walked away.
The red Wyrslaine sigil spanned the back of her black uniform. The shoulders of her sleeveless coat pulled taut across her broad shoulders, and the only delicate part of her was the way she tucked her necklace beneath her shirt. White scars marred her pale skin, crisscrossing her arms. Even her boots bore the Wyrslaine sigil.
My mother had spent the last six years of her life trying to keep me from this. If she saw me now, she’d have died all over again.
Hana led me to a small building nestled in a clearing of fruit trees. The names Baines, Carlow, and Creek were burned into the wood of the door, and bursts of swallowwort grew from the wood around Creek’s name. Carlow seemed to have ripped away the purple hyacinth growing from hers. Another name beneath Creek’s had been scratched from the wood entirely.
“This is the only day I’ll show you where to go,” said Hana. “I’m His Majesty’s guard, not a nanny.”
I was desperate to ask her how she could stand to be his sacrificial guard, serving as the sacrifice that allowed his wright to work, but the tilt of her thin lips and bulge of her biceps wouldn’t let me.
“Consider me sufficiently nannied.” I touched the door—no handle—and knocked. “Only one question: did you choose to be his guard?”
She flinched. “Like most of the people in his employ, he offered me a deal. I took it.”
She looked me over once more and left.
No one answered the door. I knocked again, and a muffled “open it” slipped through. I pushed. Something blocked the door.
“Open the door.”
I sighed and shoved. “I’m trying.”
The door groaned open. It clunked against a foot, and I stuck my head through the gap. A noblewrought with Life’s green sigil stretched across the back of their pale coat was curled up on their side. They didn’t budge when I knocked the door against their foot, and I had to force the door open with my shoulder, pushing them away. They’d a lithe body, pink skin tanned from days outside, and their brown hair was blond in sun-bleached streaks. Their lips were a pale gray-blue.
I rested my fingers against their neck and cursed.
“Hello?” I asked.
The room was long and lined with desks and shelves. Every surface was covered in books, bowls full of metal and bone, and glass apparatuses I didn’t recognize. There was room for five people to work comfortably, but only four of the desks were in use.
The one near the door was neatly ordered and pristine, only a stack of too many books marring its surface. I could feel the Heir’s need for rules rolling off it. Next to it was a table littered with dirt and rot, the wood blossoming with oleander and pansies, and worms churned in the old papers and earth. On the other side of the room near the door was a desk drowning in hand-drawn maps and diagrams, and a crossbow half taken apart sat in the corner. Solid bone bolts were lodged into the ceiling above the desk.
And at the far end of the room, at a table overflowing with crumpled pages and old quills, sat a noblewrought with their back to me. The blue sigil of Order—they specialized in technology, then—was stitched into the back of their greatcoat.
I cleared my throat. “There’s a corpse blocking the door.”
“Good for him.” The noblewrought grunted, narrow shoulders hunched up to their ears, and ripped a page from a book. “Kick him aside and come in.”
It must’ve been Creek then. He was the only man in the Heir’s employ according to Hana.
“Are you Carlow or Baines?” I shimmied the rest of the way into the room and stepped over Creek’s corpse.
“Rule one,” they said, fiddling with whatever was on their table. “Do not interrupt my work.”
“Rot will set in soon, and he needs—”
“He’ll be fine. He always is.” They shook out their knotted mantle of black hair and stretched. “Baines will be here shortly. They were supposed to deal with you.”
So this was Carlow, the girl I lived next to.
“No sigil,” said Carlow, sliding from her stool. Her brows furrowed above a pair of thick, dark goggles. She was slight and barely put together, as if she’d last changed her clothes and braided her hair a month ago. Freckles dotted her nose. “You’re not bound at all.”
“I’m an undertaker,” I said. “Least I was until I used my wright at the wrong time.”
Carlow’s coat hung from her shoulders. The sigil carved into the flesh over her heart oozed blood and blue ink. She must have disobeyed it constantly.
“He finally found a live vilewrought,” she muttered, scratching at the raw skin of her binding. “You may call me Carlow if you must speak with me at all.”
She would’ve been scary if she weren’t so short.
“Don’t be dramatic.” Carlow kicked Creek’s leg and stomped back to her desk. “You don’t get to die until I do.”
I was wrong; she was terrifying.
I leaned down to check Creek again, and he jerked up, drawing in a deep, rattling breath.
“How long?” Creek asked and coughed. The color returned to his face. “How long was I dead?”
“Five minutes,” said Carlow. “The formation collapsed a minute after death. I told you—our deaths aren’t accepted as sacrifice. We’re not enough.”
“Ah, the dulcet tones of an ‘I told you so’ upon revival do soothe my soul.” Creek shook his head, straggly hair sticking to his gaunt face, and stumbled to the messy desk. Standing, he looked more like a costume stretched over a wobbly frame than a person. He raked his fingers through a pile of tinder-dry twigs. “Damn. I thought we were onto something.”
“The new vilewrought is here.” Carlow went back to her table. “Deal with her.”
“You die often?” I asked, my noblewright shivering against the back of my neck.
Creek let out a bark of a laugh and turned to me. I stepped back. His eyes, pupils and whites and all, were a bright blue. It was the chosen color for the god Order, and the Noble created by Order had marked every mortal they cursed with those blue eyes.
“I am Delmond Creek, gardener and noblewrought, but you may call me Creek,” he said and held out his hand as if nothing were wrong at all. “You have already had the displeasure of meeting Carlow. Ignore her. Her bite is as bad as her bark, and I’ve run out of muzzles.”
“He’s a poisoner,” said Carlow. “Don’t touch him.”
I took another step back. The Noble and Vile had been banished centuries ago. To have been cursed by them, he must have been ancient.
“I had been wondering when you should show up, Lorena Adler,” he said, tucking his hands into his pockets. Grass stains colored the pale knees of his breeches. “Ignore her. Dear little Franziska Carlow is an ornery thorn in my side. I derive new medicinals from n
atural substances.”
“Poisons spelled with more letters,” said Carlow.
I meant to ask how he knew my name, but what came out was, “You’re cursed.”
The Noble were creatures of order and rationale, easily angered when mortals interrupted their work of balancing the world, but I’d never heard of any living Noble-cursed.
“How old are you?” I asked. “Did you know the Noble and Vile? Does the curse affect your noblewright? Did you get it for eating one of the—”
“My tastes are much more refined than that.” Creek sliced one finger open, took a moment—contracting his noblewright probably—and created an iris from the wound. He tucked the blue flower behind my ear. “While curiosity is certainly better than screaming, it’s still rude. Even if we are accustomed to rude here.”
Carlow snorted.
“Play nicely,” he said, but I couldn’t tell if his gaze shifted to Carlow. His eyes were hungry slivers of sky and impossible to follow.
“He’s sixty-nine,” said Carlow, turning to stare at me. “His curse is generational. Mine is infectious.”
She pushed her goggles to the top of her head. Her eyes, too, bore the mark of a curse, but they were so red and deep and dark I feared the color would spill down her cheeks and drown us all.
The Vile, creations of Chaos, had always favored red.
“Don’t worry. It only passes to people I love, and I hate everyone. You’re safe.” She jerked her head, goggles falling back over her eyes, and turned away. “Mostly.”
“Ignore her. I’m only twenty-five.” Creek cracked the joints of his neck with a sound like branches under foot. “Carlow and I are not truly immortal. No need for such a scowl, Lorena. We can only die of old age or if we fulfill the covenants of our curses, though I doubt I will ever grow a perfectly blue rose, so that’s no threat to me, and Carlow’s not going to love anyone ever again, so she’s safe.”
He led me around the room. At the very back, there was a small door that led to a washroom with a full copper tub with a web of pipes that rained water from the ceiling. Creek warned that it was for decontamination and placed me at the table next to Carlow, closest to the washroom “just in case.” He dragged over one of the two spare stools, declaring it the one least likely to be missed.
“The other’s too squeaky,” Carlow muttered.
“We haven’t had to use the washroom since Baines arrived. They’re quite militant about safety,” he said and patted me on the head. “We’ll keep you safe. You’re our secret weapon after all. Her Excellency and the court have been rejecting our recent contract proposals. Since you’re not bound to anyone, you should be able to continue our research without them knowing. You being dualwrought is—”
Carlow swept her arm across her table, knocking a whole slew of wood shavings, dowels, and dovetail puzzle pieces to the floor. “You’re what?”
“See what you miss by being ornery?” Creek asked. “You didn’t listen to His Majesty at all this morning, did you, darling? In order to remake the Door into one that doesn’t demand payment, we must remove it without letting loose its charges. Only a vilewrought can destroy the Door, the first step, and the Heir cannot disobey his mother. The court and councils consider this too risky. If we attempt to experiment with such a task, the employer we’re bound to will know immediately. They won’t know anything about you though.” He stepped back and studied me for a moment, one hand coming up to my shoulder. “Have you heard it yet?”
“No,” I said. “I barely thought it real until recently.”
“It’s very real and very alluring.” He leaned in close and whispered, “Open the Door.”
I jerked away, and he laughed.
“You had better get used to that,” said Creek.
“Her Excellency has no inclination to stop the sacrifices,” Carlow said quickly, scurrying to me and shoving Creek out of the way. “Her court of peers agree, and even the council is lenient when it’s not them being sacrificed. They think it keeps people in line.”
“Doesn’t it though?” Creek glared at me from over Carlow and set his chin against her head. “She doesn’t look very impressive. Dualwrought should be impressive. They’re chosen by the souls of the devoured Noble and Vile. Why this mortal?”
Carlow elbowed him. “Being wrought is essentially glorified possession, and when the immortals were still around, it was impossible to determine why and how they possessed certain mortals.”
“Mostly wore whoever fit, I imagine,” muttered Creek.
“The Heir is really trying to shut the Door?” I asked and pointed to her goggles. If they were always like this, we’d get nothing done. “Do those show you noblewrights? The Door?”
“No.” She pulled her googles down over her eyes, slipped out from under Creek, and returned to her desk. “They keep me from having to look at all of you.”
“Access to the Door is limited,” Creek said. “It is weak from hunger, and the Vile Crowns, the strongest of the Vile, are capable of infiltrating this world through it. ‘Open the Door, Lorena Adler,’ they’ll say, and eventually, you will.”
The door to the laboratory flew open. I startled, tearing my gaze from Creek’s cursed blue eyes. A noblewrought—short, chubby, and grinning from ear to ear—gasped when they saw me and shooed Creek away. He slunk aside.
“I’m Basil Baines,” they said, taking my hands in theirs and looking me over so quickly their brown curls bounced. “You’re Lorena, yes? The dualwrought? May I call you Lore? Call me Basil.”
I laughed. “Yes and yes and if you insist.”
“Smashing!” They tugged me away from the others. “Ignore them. They’re always weird and terrible. How do you use both wrights? Did you learn? I heard you weren’t bound. You have to teach me how you use your noblewright.”
“I’m not,” I said slowly, “but I don’t know as much as you lot.”
“Don’t worry. No one knows as much as Carlow,” they said and plopped down onto the stool at my table. “She doesn’t pay enough attention to be patronizing about it usually, right, Carlow?”
She grunted and turned a page in her book.
“She’s trying to figure out the pattern behind the number of sacrifices the Door requires,” said Basil. “It’s very dry.”
“That’s beyond me.” I hopped up onto the table. “All right. I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”
“You’re supposed to be reading,” muttered Creek, but he shrugged and went to bother Carlow.
“Deal.” Basil nodded, tongue pinched between their teeth. “How did you learn to use your wrights, and how are you not bound?”
“My mother told me to keep it a secret, so I did,” I said. “I never learned to use them really. I ask, and sometimes they answer.”
Basil leaned across the tables and grabbed a notebook, their freckled nose almost to the pages. “Only sometimes?”
“Sometimes,” I said, “they think I have bad ideas.”
Seven
The Heir didn’t appear the next day either. Three days I’d been stuck in this city, and already I itched to leave. I hadn’t heard from Julian or anyone else in Felhollow, and the lack of news or even attempts to contact me ached. I had gotten used to loneliness in the Wallows as a kid; for all of the Felfolk’s jokes about my home, Felhollow had become my true home. I’d have sacrificed anything for Julian’s familiar presence or Mack’s soft laugh. I missed them.
Carlow set a covered bowl on my desk, and Basil peeked over my shoulder.
“Maybe,” they said and nudged my side, “Carlow will be bowled over by your work.”
I laughed into my hand, and Basil shook beside me. Carlow pulled out a knife.
Basil—even Carlow and Creek on good days—made this new loneliness bearable.
“Leave that covered for now,” said Carlow, handing me the knif
e. “Creek, you fail first.”
We had been trying to replicate the Door, but so far, nothing had resisted my vilewright’s destructive abilities.
“Your lack of faith withers my heart.” Creek cracked the knuckles of one hand against his chest. “Life is a doorway to Death after all, so what better to make the Door out of?”
The man was inscrutably philosophical. He worked primarily with organic material and let Carlow handle the inorganic. The Door was Vile-made and unnatural, and Creek insisted on using the plants his noblewright made to try and shut the Door. He said their opposition would cancel each other out.
He placed a small replica of the Door wrapped in a lattice of vines on my desk. “I am sure this isn’t enough, but I am eager to see you open the Door, Lorena Adler.”
My vilewright destroyed his vines with only a memory from Carlow as sacrifice; they would never keep the Door shut or be strong enough to replace it.
“The Vile are incompatible with mortal life.” Creek shrugged. “Perhaps a lattice of wrights and wrought would be more apt.”
“Thank you for volunteering to be the first to test that out.” Carlow sharpened her quill. “Now, the real test please, Adler.”
Creek mumbled under his breath, and a bloody lattice of plants, red blooms and bone-white thorns, grew across his arm. They moved as if woven by unseen hands, and my noblewright grumbled against me. I tucked my hands into the pockets of my trousers to hide their shaking. By the time Creek was done, even my teeth hurt. Carlow prodded the odd plant life with her quill.
“Why is it always vines?” she asked.
“I prefer their companionship over yours,” said Creek. He caught me wincing at the way some still moved beneath his skin and winked. “They are still drawing blood from my veins, and they are connected to my noblewright, so they are not strictly mortal. There is magic in them not in my other works. Her Excellency forbade His Majesty from destroying works still connected to their noblewrought, so we haven’t been able to test creations like these. She said it was too akin to attempting to kill a wright.”
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