by Anna Holmes
As if I could forget the stunted, shuddering breaths Caelin takes on her account. As if I could forget the pain that seems to slice through my leg with the subtlest movement. I shake my head once and turn my head from her.
Mother purses her lips. “Crow, your cooperation will be noted. Come, Alain.”
Jori protests, “You’re leaving me—again.”
“Your assistance is no longer required.” Mother pulls me along by the elbow. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”
I cast a sidelong glance at Jori as we go. Perhaps now she’ll understand. The Legion bleeds us all dry in one way or another. It lies to most of us as it does.
When we reach the door, Mother tosses a hand out haphazardly, like Elle used to tag the fenceposts back home.The burnished gold and bronze of the clock begin to rattle. I cry out, “No—!”
The sun falls, grin still in place, straight down toward where Caelin lays.
I yank myself free of Mother's grasp and run back, even though I don’t want to see. Jori stands, holding out her arms, shaking with the strain of trying to keep the sun hovering just over the ground. Caelin has not been crushed. She gathers up another burst of strength, and flings the sun away with a clatter that shakes the room itself, the loose pages flying into the air like flurries. “Go,” she shouts, sagging to her knees. “Just—go.”
I don’t have a choice. Mother’s got me by the arm again, dragging hard, just as Jori collapses in exhaustion. “This wasn’t the deal,” I snap, struggling to get my shaking under control long enough to stand.
Blandly, she says, “Yes, I know. But you should know well by now, dear heart, that I don't make deals.”
I jerk my arm away. “For my part, I'm beginning to reconsider.”
“I wouldn’t, were I you,” she returns. “We wouldn’t want Ellenore to get lonely.”
Damn her, and damn me for forgetting. She always has leverage.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alain
The bell is still ringing, a toll for each step I take under her eye. Mother whisks me neatly through the streets, between buildings, past entire scuffles between guards and Legion fighters conveniently out of uniform. I grit my teeth and strain against these damned manacles. Does it count as breaking the treaty if they happen to be Rosalians acting outside the official knowledge of the Legion? I’m guessing the Kings would argue not.
Mother keeps her head up and takes in everything as though she’s watching some play she’s already seen through several times and is just waiting for her cues. The factor she hadn’t considered is me. I let myself stumble perhaps more than I usually would, even in these wretched snowdrifts. She glares down at my leg. “Can’t you keep that thing under control?”
“Thing? Oh, you mean the body part I mangled to save the false lover you sent to keep tabs on me? I’m sorry it’s not cooperating for you.”
“Yes, Crow mentioned that,” she says, her voice slithering like satin as she jerks me to my feet again. “And I accept your apology. Get going.”
“But I have so many questions. Where’d your hair go? Did you ever have a soul? Where is my father?”
“The longer you stall, the less likely it is that I will spare him.” She gestures to the airship port with a skeletal hand. “Make your choice.”
I glare at her from under my brow, square my jaw, and continue on with no further dramatics.
Her play carries on just fine. We’re undetected, lost among the action on the larger stage. We make it almost to the mouth of the port before anyone trained to see through the theatrics catches up with us. “Northshore!” Bannon yells.
Mother and I turn at the same time. Tressa, Bannon, Caelin’s mother, and a horde of mage hunters swarm around us, their breath fogging the air in front of their faces. I don’t know if I’m relieved or horrified or a terrifically unhealthy mixture of the two. I raise my chained hands in front of my body so as not to get strangled with my own ether. Tressa’s arrow slips between her fingers and the string releases with a snap. The point drives into my mother’s chest.
Mother staggers backwards, reaching out for my arm. I pull it away and watch her drop to her knees. “I’m sorry,” Tressa tells me grimly. The Queen rushes forward to me and hovers near my elbow.
Are you joking? I want to burst out laughing. Mother’s hand snatches my wrist, and she stares up at me, her eyes blazing blue. Call them off.
I just shake my head.
Her body jerks back upward, once, twice, an unnatural motion that has her at her feet almost the same way the deathmage suspended her fighters. The arrow’s shaft disappears into her rib cage, the only thing to suggest there had been a hole there the blood stain on the front of her dress. Dear gods, what is she?
Tressa draws back, and Mother looks at me again. If my company leader doesn’t hear from me in an hour, he has leave to dispense with them. Ellenore first.
My eyes fall shut. Shaking, I pick up my head and look at Bannon. “Stand down. Please.”
“Are you insane?” he demands.
“She has my sister,” I tell him, a lump in my throat. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
Bannon stares back, his face stricken. “And where is mine?” he asks at last.
“In the library. I’ve done what I can. But I can’t stay, or she’s….”
Something heavy and metallic slips into my hand as the Queen abruptly peels away and runs down the hill, snow flying behind her. My damn shaking fingers nearly drop it, but at last, I close them around it. The key. I maneuver my leg forward as though it’s bothering me and let the key drop into the top of my boot. Bannon holds my gaze a moment longer, then takes a staggering step backwards. “Fall— fall back,” he tells the mage hunters. “Help the people.”
“Thank you,” I say softly as the guards begin to troop away.
He turns his back on me. “Your Highness,” he calls over his shoulder. “I hope to gods you know what you’re doing.”
“Me too, Lieutenant.”
Tressa still stands there, suspended as though on an invisible string between him and me. “It’s all right, Tressa,” I tell her. “Go.”
She looks at me, her hand clenched around her bow so hard the knuckles go white, her still human eyes wide and wetting. “Don’t do anything stupid, Prince.”
I look down at my bound hands. “Well…you know me.”
“That’s the problem. I do.”
“Please—help Caelin.”
She nods silently and starts away, still unsteady on those legs that still haven’t given out on her. Mother waits until they’re well away, still staring hawkishly down the path even as her chest continues to rebuild itself with horrible-sounding cracks and shudders. “I’ve done as you’ve asked,” I tell her, my throat thick. “Call them off Elle.”
“Don’t take me for a fool, son,” she replies. “Not until we get moving. Speaking of which…” she whispers something voicelessly, and a rush of magic passes my ear. From the bay behind us, a commotion kicks up—a sort of commotion I have only heard from one ship before. My spine clenches. Devils take you, Kai Nuthatch. “That hour is getting away from us,” she says breezily. “Shall we?”
We've been in the air now for an agonizing amount of time, and no one has said anything. Nuthatch stares directly ahead, I stare through his head, and Mother sits with her eyes closed. The only reason I know we're moving is the occasional rough patch of sky rocking Fran. Nuthatch has all the windows besides his shut. Wouldn't want anyone getting a look at the passengers, I suppose.
Mother hasn’t budged. I suppose now’s as good a time as any to try the key.
I lean as far forward as I can, sending the chains jangling. From her chair, Mother opens an eye. I put on the most bored expression I can muster. She frowns at me. “I need silence, Alain, if I’m to heal.”
Yeah, I have a few questions about how that works. I’m fairly certain that arrow is still embedded in her chest. I hold up my wrists. “Could be difficult, Mother.”
Oh, how I wish I never had to call her that in the first place. “Where is Elle?”
“She’ll be along. Hush, now.”
Like she's quieting me after a childhood nightmare. I have a sudden urge to start screaming and shaking these chains around as loudly as I’m able. Fran takes another pocket of rough air, and between the rattle of the panels and my chains, her eyes fly open again. Nuthatch glances back uneasily. “There’s a room to the aft of the cabin if you wish, Envoy.”
She rises, pressing a blue hand to her forehead. “Very well, if the pair of you can’t seem to keep quiet.”
“Not until you call them off Elle,” I counter. “In a way I can confirm. Otherwise noise will be the least of your problems.”
She sighs and moves to the table and retrieves a small black notebook. I had one of these once. A summoning tome, for communicating orders across long distances. Mother withdraws a pen from the pocket on the side and writes, Retrieved and in the air. Deliver Therrick and the girl to me alive on landing.
The answer comes back quickly in brusque, capitalized hand. UNDERSTOOD.
She looks at me. “Are you satisfied?”
In truth, I am relieved in a way that still doesn’t chase the sickness from my gut. “For now, even if you are still using your own child as a bargaining chip.”
Nuthatch frowns ever so slightly, then turns again to face forward as she makes her way to the small chamber at the back of the ship. The moment the door shuts, I fall to fumbling the key into the lock. The sound alerts Nuthatch, who turns. “I wouldn’t,” he says softly.
“Mind your own business,” I spit at him. “Seems to be the only thing you care about. How much did she pay you for this?”
“My life,” he answers, still watching the passing sky. “My children. My wife. She’s released the Legion bounty on me. I couldn’t refuse, Alain. Tell me you would be able to.”
There’s so much I want to say about the things Nuthatch might have put in the hands of my fellow soldiers, but then, I hardly have latitude to talk, given what I did to Resurgent fighters. What they did back to me. What we all did to each other. “All right, fine, you were extorted,” I concede, attempting to jam the key into the lock again. “I can buy that. But do you think that they’ll honestly let you free?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I have to try. And for that, I have to get you where she wants you. I’m sorry. Truly.”
“Which is…?”
He frowns. “You don’t know?”
A rustle from the aft of the ship sends us both stock straight, silent, our eyes fixed to the door. It doesn’t budge. Nuthatch frowns, throwing a switch on his console and standing. I’m suddenly uneasy in a hovering airship with no one at the helm, but all the worse when he starts hunting around in cabinets, under the table. “What are you doing?” I hiss.
He waves me off with an impatient hand, rummaging ever more hastily. I’m starting to wonder if everyone on this ship isn’t dispossessed of their faculties. At long last, he wheels back, and out of the far cabinet crawls—
Oh, for gods’ sake.
I jump to my feet in time to pull August free of Nuthatch, who’s clearly seething. August’s face flushes bright red, and he opens his mouth to speak. I jerk my head no once, then gesture back to the room. I pull him closer to the front of the ship, where the noise of the machinery should be enough to cover our voices if we’re quiet about it. “What the devils do you think you're doing?” I demand.
“I thought—” he starts.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Arrow—Nuthatch. What can you do with him?”
I can tell by his face that he’s thinking about just opening a hatch and having done with him, and honestly, I can understand the compulsion. August leans forward and protests, “You don’t understand. I can help, I can—”
“Keep your voice down, boy,” Nuthatch snaps, glancing back toward the door. “Quick, into the hold. Down the ladder.”
August, however, stays stuck fast. He looks to me, defiant. “I was meant to be the Archon,” he tells me. “I can do it. I can make them stop. I just have to—”
I grab him by the shoulder, my chains still clanking around my wrists. “August. Listen to me. You can’t. If they find you, they will kill you.”
“You don’t know that. How long have they been without an Archon now? Rin says they haven’t examined anyone else. They’re desperate.”
And gods know why. It’s hardly as if they’re at a shortage of people. That in of itself concerns me, but it can’t, not for long. I turn him toward the hold and start pushing. “And you thought you would just come in and—what? Turn the whole thing around?”
He pulls himself free of my grasp. “Why not?” he demands, his eyes wide. “Isn’t that what she’s done? The Resurgence was bad, whether it meant to be or not. And she fixed it, she made Elyssia work. Why not Rosalia?”
I can only go slack. There are so many answers to that question, answers I have neither the time nor the energy to get into now. “Go,” I tell him, pushing him toward the ladder again.
Nuthatch stares after him, shaking his head in disbelief. “All you genius children,” he mutters. “You wait in there, kid. I’ll get you when it’s safe.”
August looks between the pair of us, obviously bruised. I turn back toward him and sigh. “Listen. I understand. But Rosalia—it needs much more help than Elyssia did. It’s got much bigger problems. Innumerable problems.”
“So when does somebody start doing something about it?” he demands. “You’re just going to let it—?”
Footsteps from the room. I cut him off with a glower and jerk my head toward the hold again. He goes, but grudgingly, his head just barely out of sight by the time the door slams open. I throw myself back to the bench. “What,” my mother demands, “is going on out here? Why aren’t we moving?”
“Apologies, Envoy,” Nuthatch says. “Just had some cargo shifting around. Had to go handle it.”
She stares at him for a moment, her dark eyes unblinking on his face, her head shifting to the side as though she doesn’t quite understand. “Is it handled?”
“Quite,” he says, moving back to the helm. I take the moment she sees utterly engrossed in him to jiggle the key into place again in the manacle. It’s a little bent. Nuthatch slings himself back over his chair. “We’ll be under way again shortly.”
“Your hold,” she says, pointing toward the ladder. “Is it down there? I’d like to inspect your…handling of the situation.”
“Yes,” he says. “But it’s strictly off-limits to passengers.”
She angles her face toward the hold, looking at it in supreme disinterest. “Nuthatch. The offer I’m making you is extremely generous. Do not try my patience.”
He frowns in her direction briefly. “It’s for your own safety, Envoy. There’s a cryst containment chamber between us and the goods.”
Oh, Nuthatch, no.
I felt every tug of every ship’s cryst at the port, dormant as it was. It is painfully, painfully obvious that Fran carries no such fuel, and if I can tell that, she can definitely tell that. I look to her, trying desperately to sound aggravated instead of terrified. “Mother. Envoy. Whatever. I heard some boxes fall over. Arrow went to fix them. Can we just get going already? If you're planning on prodding at me, I’d rather get it over with.”
Her head swivels to look at me, and I remember that fear from long ago. Only monsters would look like my mother, her gaze cold, reptilian, her movements smooth but delayed somehow, as though they require extra control. I stop fidgeting with the key immediately. “Captain Nuthatch can continue on his way,” she says. “I, however, am curious as to what kind of cryst gives off no trace of itself. And you can stay here.”
She starts toward the hold, and Arrow says, “I have to strongly caution against that—”
“Your concern has be
en noted,” she says, swiveling again, her footsteps on the ladder rungs echoing through the cabin like strokes of an axe in a still forest.
Immediately, I fall to trying to open my manacles again, and Arrow jams the ship into hover once more. The pair of us follow after her. “Envoy, wait—” he calls.
A stifled cry and a thud. “No,” I shout. Arrow throws himself down the ladder, only catching it again just at the bottom, in time to slow himself before hitting the floor. I follow after as quickly as I’m able, but the leg’s been stiffening slowly but surely, the pain working its way back to the fore.
And I know. I know before I even get down there what I'm going to see, but still I hope that maybe I can get this manacle unlocked in time, maybe it wasn’t what I thought.
When I run into Nuthatch standing, his chest heaving, at the bottom of the ladder, I know. Mother sweeps aside, revealing August on the floor, Tressa’s arrow embedded in his chest, blood dripping from her hand. “A stowaway, Captain,” she announces, her voice marble. “I’ve handled it. You can get us underway again.”
I rush past Nuthatch, his face ashen, his one visible eye wide, to the boy on the floor. August writhes, bloodstained hands clawing for the arrow’s shaft. As I drop to his side, the manacle finally gives with a small click. It pops loose, but still clings to my clammy wrist even as I feel the magic rush back to my body. A few seconds more, and I might—
That last flicker of hope dies cold in my chest.
The magic’s back, and I feel him acutely as I felt Caelin. It’s panic—raw panic, and cold, sharp pain that dulls by the second. There’s nothing I can do. Even if I pull the arrow free, there’s too little left to save. Whatever she did to propel the arrow out of herself tore a jagged path through his chest and drove the point firmly into the floor. He doesn’t have long.
I set my hand to his forehead, pulling for my own air, trying to push down my own scream. Mother hovers close at hand, but I can’t spare her a thought, nor myself. I can at least ease his way. Again, I push someone toward sleep. He turns his unfocused light eyes toward me, attempts a word. A bubble of red comes out with it. “Gav?” he asks.