What We Devour

by Linsey Miller

  “If the Sundered Crown hadn’t taken my ability to lie,” I said, “none of this might’ve happened.”

  Carlow laughed until she passed out, and the rest of us quieted after that. Hana snored softly, her head in Safia’s lap. My vilewright was little more than a soft pressure against my chest. I was nodding off when Alistair found us.

  “What now?” he asked and knelt at my feet. “What do you need?”

  The property of the councilors in my control, but there was only one way to do that without killing them all.

  The wrought unbound from the councilors and courtiers and free to use their wrights however they pleased, but only killing the twenty-five would do that.

  The necessary sacrifice to save most of Cynlira after the Door opened.

  But fear kept me from speaking it. The Sundered Crown’s magic would force me to face how many I was willing to kill.

  I had always been a graveyard so no one else needed to be.

  “Only three things, small things in the grand scheme of it all,” I said. “Trust me.”

  Thirty-Four

  My three days were up. Will’s trial was tomorrow. A taut, tearing soreness lingered in my shoulders and arms, exhaustion slowing my steps. I stumbled around my room and shook out my bed, looking for Julian’s coat. Creek’s ghost watched from the desk.

  “I could help if I knew what you were looking for?” he said, a poppy blooming blood red from the wound on his chest.

  I kicked my bed. “You’re a figment of my guilt. You only know what I know.”

  “And it’s so little.” He sighed and flicked a leaf at me. “Go to the very bottom.”

  I lowered myself to the floor and stared under the bed. Nothing.

  “Go back as far as you can,” he said, “and open the door.”

  I reached beneath it. My fingers collided with the wall, and a slat of wood fell aside. Dried flowers and spiders tumbled out. I ripped my hand away.

  “Where’s my coat, you ass?” I asked, but Creek’s ghost was gone.

  A knock at the door nearly interrupted my tirade. I’d have to go to Noshwright without the coat.

  “Come in!”

  “I need to talk to you.” Hana Worth, her uniform fresh and her bandages clean, shut the door behind her and leaned against it. “You going to kill Alistair to save Will?”

  I snorted. “No.”

  She hadn’t been specific enough, and that was hardly my fault.

  “You want to elaborate then?” she asked. “You’re up to something. He made you the representative of the Crown in charge of council matters this morning.”

  Perfect timing.

  “You’ve caught me in the middle of plotting his death.” I held out my arms for shackling and slumped. Magic pricked my tongue. “I’m going to make sure the council attempts to assassinate him.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine,” I said and dropped my hands at her raised brow. “Why are you his sacrificial guard?”

  “Because I’ve met the rest of the court, and he’s better than who’d inherit it,” she said. “Why didn’t you save Willoughby Chase?”

  “I don’t want to.” I laughed. “Don’t worry. The council won’t kill Alistair.”

  Perhaps the truth was freeing.

  “I was never worried for him.” Hana grinned, crooked and thin. “You said ‘attempt.’”

  I left for Noshwright without another word, praying Mack was there. This was dangerous, the riskiest thing I’d done since fleeing Mori with no clue where to go. Mack was one of the only people I trusted to understand what I was doing and why. I nearly cried when I knocked on the door and he answered.

  “I have an idea,” I said, hugging him close. “Trust me. Please.”

  “Always,” he said. “It’s killing me Julian’s going for it, but with Will’s trial, he thinks this is the Chase legacy. This!”

  Inside Will’s quarters were half the council. Lankin Northcott sat on Will’s right, the sigil on his chest bared. Julian sat on Will’s other side, and he rose to greet me, shaking off his father’s hand. I let him embrace me and rubbed his arm. He patted a stool behind his chair.

  “Willoughby,” drawled Northcott, “is this not the girl working for His Excellency?”

  I swallowed my pride and bowed my head to him. “Isn’t that why you need me? I can help you kill him, or you can try again without my help.”

  One of the other councilors looked me up and down. “You’re the girl the Sundered Crown recruited, aren’t you?”

  “She didn’t recruit me.” I unbuttoned my waistcoat and then my shirt, tugging them aside to show off the empty stretch of skin over my heart. “I’m dualwrought. I agreed to work for Alistair Wyrslaine in exchange for Will getting a fair trial.”

  “Unbound?” Northcott licked his lips, fingers brushing his sigil, and he listed toward me. “The Sundered Crown certainly kept that fact to herself.”

  “Understandable,” said a councilor I didn’t know, “but unbound wrought are rare and unpredictable.”

  “As well as untrained,” Northcott said.

  I nodded, grinding my teeth to keep my smile up, and refastened my clothes.

  “She’s been a friend of the family for near a decade and came here for me. Hear her out,” Will said.

  “Thanks,” I said in the most Felfolk accent I could. People always underestimated country drawls, and it was part of why Will could get away with so much. “I can’t lie. Falsities can’t get past my teeth without snapping my mouth shut, because the Sundered Crown didn’t want me lying to her, but I’m unbound and can do more than any wrought you’ve ever hired to kill Alistair. I just have one question before we start.”

  Julian smiled consolingly, his hand on my knee. “Course.”

  “Are you certain that you can’t save more people?” I asked.

  It was only fair I give them a chance.

  “My dear girl, we have spent our lives studying economics and running businesses. These plans have been in the making for the last twelve years,” said the councilor across from Northcott. “Ten years is the optimal amount of time to pass before we retake the land. It will ensure that enough die so as to allow us to rule but not so many that the nation crumbles.”

  “Once the Door opens, we wouldn’t even have time to move everyone,” said Julian with a shrug.

  They would have no time. When the Door opened, the Vile would be suddenly standing next to them.

  “I had to be sure.” I shrugged. What a terrible answer to mass murder. “All right. First order of business: you should kill Alistair at your trial.”

  Will’s brows rose to his hairline. “You think you can keep me alive?”

  “I think I can keep you from being sacrificed to the Door,” I said. “I won’t promise survival to anyone.”

  “All of us will be there,” said Northcott.

  I inclined my head to him. “You’ll outnumber him and any soldiers. I’ll take care of any bullets.”

  They didn’t even bother asking me whose.

  “And how do we kill him?” Julian asked. “Will you do it?”

  “No. You’re going to shoot him.”

  Julian sucked in a breath, and Northcott laughed. Lying wasn’t necessary; the silence that followed my statement told them what they wanted to hear.

  “He killed the Sundered Crown with a needle when a knight couldn’t even do it with a sword,” said Will, his eyes narrowed at me. “How will this time be any different?”

  “That’s the problem with assassinations—you think too singularly,” I said. “Alistair Wyrslaine is only one person. Like his mother, his vilewright can only do so much at once. If you all shoot at him, he can’t stop every bullet on his own. Wrights take time to work. Do you remember how long the Sund
ered Crown was down when Beatrice wounded her?”

  All of it was the truth, but not all of it was honest. Alistair was so desperate to be understood that I knew every vulnerability of his vilewright. My own hummed unhappily.

  Northcott nodded. “We thought she was dead, and then she wasn’t.”

  “It took so long because her wrights took that long to work. Alistair cannot stop every bullet alone.” I nudged Julian with my foot. “Alistair will die. Will won’t be sacrificed to the Door.”

  Not a single one of them asked me to specify what I meant.

  “Kill the Crown, save my father, and open the Door on our own terms?” Julian glanced at Will. “I’m willing.”

  “The contract I signed with him forbade us from hurting each other. All I can provide is information and an opening. I will distract him. You shoot at him then,” I said and tapped Julian’s knee. It was all true. The contract had forbidden us from hurting each other—until Alistair destroyed it. “Use your crossbow if you can get it in. He would have to use a different contract for it. I’m assuming you have a way to get your weapons into the courtroom?”

  “Simple,” said Northcott. “The majority of the soldiers are already ours.”

  Were they loyal to this plan, or were they loyal to their job? A web to untangle after.

  “I admit,” said Will, “this is preferable to dying.”

  “Alistair will not pardon you,” I said. My tongue burned. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth.

  Will smirked. “Did you ask?”

  “I did,” I said, “and he refused.”

  That conversation felt like decades ago, but it served me well now.

  Northcott chuckled and patted his knee. “You’ve no need for a pardon if this succeeds.”

  “True,” said Will. “You won’t stop our assassination?”

  “No.” I smiled, wide and true. “If you’re done trying to catch me with the truth, we have a deal.”

  We still had time until the Door opened, but it would be better if I knew when exactly it would open. But first, I needed access to every councilor’s safe havens and supplies. Letting Will go to his death with a guilty verdict would have gotten me only his. If tomorrow went well, I—as the representative of the Crown in charge of council matters—would own the property of every councilor found guilty of treason.

  “Tomorrow,” said Will and held out his hand. “We lead the way for a new, better Cynlira with your help.”

  I took it, and all I could remember was the feel of it against my teeth. “I will lead Alistair Wyrslaine to his death.”

  Thirty-Five

  I spent the evening in the caves with Alistair, knees pressed together and fingers slick with ink, going over every test, contract, and history involving the Door. We both knew it was pointless, but he couldn’t give up. He so desperately wanted to be special.

  “Every text says the same thing—the only way to entice a Vile into a deal is to offer up lives in some form or fashion.” I tugged the book from his hands and closed it. “It’s one of the Vile, Alistair. You may be the cleverest boy in the world, but you’re still only a mortal playing with immortal things.”

  “Drawing lots is the most logical route.” He glanced at me, relaxing at my smile. “Those with skills unnecessary for the survival of Cynlira would submit their names, and the sacrifices would be randomly selected. What would we do if all our healers were part of the sacrificed? No, it would have to be based on skill, and then those within the draw would have an equal chance of survival.”

  I sighed. I should have known not to hope by now.

  “You’re disappointed,” he said.

  I said nothing, and he had his answer.

  “I understand how you reached that conclusion,” I said, “but surely you know that those with the money and time to master the skills would be exempt from the lots. It wouldn’t be fair at all.”

  “You’ve been disappointed quite a bit lately.” He angled away from me. “Why stay?”

  I grabbed his chair and turned him back to me. “For ages, people thought bad smells caused illnesses.”

  “Yes?” His brows arched over his glasses. He had removed his coat, but the glasses never came off down here. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Their logic was sound, but they were still wrong.”

  “Oh.” He sneered and snapped his tongue against the back of his teeth. “My logic can’t be infallible because I am fallible. That’s an excuse.”

  I shrugged. “Whoever defines worth will define who survives, and that definition is not fixed.”

  He stared at me, tired eyes hooded and heavy, and held out his hand. “I don’t want to kill that many people anyway. I want to create a better solution.”

  He wanted to outsmart the Door, but I laced our fingers.

  “I know,” I said. “You created a new way to sacrifice when you were a child. Surely, you have some ideas about this you aren’t sharing?”

  Using intangible sacrifices wasn’t his creation, but considering what was coming, it was only fair I treat him nicely.

  “They’re untested.” His lips crooked up, and he tugged me closer. “But I have a few.”

  He spoke endlessly. It was as if we were back in that carriage weeks ago, our contract unwritten and no words existing between us. Except this time, I understood all of what he said, and he caught himself, backtracking to explain academic references I didn’t know. He never made it my fault for not knowing things. There was a tenderness in trusting another person to understand the threads of your thoughts.

  For all of Alistair’s flaws, he did respect me. It was everyone he didn’t I worried for.

  “You know,” I said, uncrossing my legs. I had taken a seat on the desk halfway through his latest ramble, and my knees were even with his chest. “Undertakers were all vilewrought back in the old days because deaths were a necessary sacrifice for life. People thought dying meant someone else could live.”

  “That never made sense to me.” He stifled a yawn and turned so that my feet were in his lap. His fingers picked at my laces. “We know sacrifices aren’t equivalent. You can’t trade a life for a life.”

  “Because we like explaining things,” I said and tapped his nose. “As hard as you pretend otherwise, you are very mortal.”

  “I could hardly pretend to be immortal.” He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders back, skin thin as his fancy paper stretching across the blue veins of his throat. How fragile we were. “You should sleep.”

  “So should you.” I plucked his glasses from his face and dropped them on mine. “Will you? Will he?”

  His vilewright, always so shy, peeked over his shoulder.

  “I want to keep reading.” His fingers tightened around my ankle. “If I sleep, I’ll have to prepare for tomorrow. It’s so tedious.”

  “What if I help?” Tomorrow, everything would change, especially between us, and it was only fair that I give him what he wanted tonight. Everything would come to fruition or fall to rot. “We can talk. Believe it or not, I like talking to you.”

  He didn’t treat me like I was only Lorena Adler, undertaker and outsider. Carlow and Basil were wonderful, but even they talked over me sometimes when discussing magic. It would have been easy to love Alistair. I wanted to love him, but what he had done and what he had allowed to be done tainted all the soft affection between us. So many people were valuing me for my wrights. It was nice to feel like he valued me.

  “Considering what my mother did, I have to believe you.” He stood and helped me from the table. “Do you want… Well, we would have to go to my quarters.”

  I pulled my legs from his lap and slipped from the desk. “I would like to judge how our Vilewrought Crown lives.”

  No one had settled on a moniker for him yet.

  He flushed. The hall
s were dim and empty, a few servants flitting about. Hana, a constant shadow behind us, walked silently, and Alistair carried on our conversation in a whisper as he led me toward the same wing as his study. His quarters were at the end of a high hall hung with portraits, their eyes a weight at the back of my neck. Alistair opened the door and ushered me inside. A painted Sundered Crown glared down at us. Hana stayed in the hall.

  Crowns lived like the rest of us, only bigger and gilded. The room had an entry hall like a house would have had, and Alistair left his shoes and coat in a pile by the door. A shelf with telescopes, withies, books, swan-feather quills, statues, and two stuffed rabbits loomed over one wall. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere, and everything had its own place. It was more museum than home.

  “I can have a chair—”

  “Alistair,” I said quickly, staring at him over my shoulder. “Really?”

  It was hard to be scared of this barefoot boy wringing his hands at the impropriety of it all.

  “You always treat my furniture like chairs, so I’m going to repay the favor,” I said.

  Chairs were too confined and rigid. I wanted grounding and sprawling freedom. I wanted to be able to enjoy being understood so well by someone without any of the expectations that went with it. Intimacy without expectations was a luxury. “Unless it bothers you?” I raised one brow like he always did. “Or you had other plans, in which case I’ll be leaving.”

  “No, thank you,” he said and wrinkled his nose. “The last time I had other plans was two years ago, and he’s half the country away, thank you very much.”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me through a series of rooms, each more ornate than the last, and laughed when my eyes went wide at the walls lined not with tapestries and portraits but hand-scrawled notes and maps.

  “You can read them later,” he said.