“This is beautiful,” I murmur in Luca’s ear. The singing has died away, replaced with an expectant silence. “What festival is this again?”
“The Festival of Lights,” he whispers back. “To mark the birth of spring.”
“Is that a holiday in the City?” I ask with a frown.
“Yes, but it’s not a big celebration like it is in the country,” Luca tells me. “Households usually just make small offerings, say a special prayer, that kind of thing. The changing of the seasons doesn’t mean as much to them.”
“What happens now?” I ask.
“Wait and see.”
Suddenly there’s a cheer as musicians buried in the crowd begin to play. A space clears in the center of the courtyard and a group of young men and young women face off, each side joining hands and holding them high above their heads as they begin to move. I watch the dance, mesmerized, my feet aching with the need to join in. I look at Luca.
“Can we?” I ask, pointing at the dancers.
He grins and moves forward, pulling me after him. We wiggle our way through the crowd until we pop out in the center circle just in time to catch the tail of the girls’ line as it passes by. Luca gives me a little shove and I snatch the hand of the last girl in line. I stumble through the first couple of steps until I get the footwork down and then lift my head, smiling at the girl next to me. She smiles back and squeezes my hand. The other girls laugh and hoot, seemingly delighted with my nerve in joining the dance.
I gasp in surprise as the leader of the men’s line leaps into the air, supported and propelled by the one next to him, and spins. He lands lightly in a crouch like a cat and slaps the ground before coming up to cheers and trilling shouts from the crowd.
As if it’s a signal, the girls vary the dance and I have to scramble again until I find the new pattern. But it’s fun. It’s so, so much fun. It’s nothing like the precise, carefully crafted dances in the City where every step is planned and rehearsed ahead of time. Everyone takes turns leading the line and adding her own ornamentation to the dance while the other dancers follow along. When it’s my turn, I feel like I’m a little kid at my first recital. My heart pounding, I add a twist and spin, dropping down to slap the ground as the men had done. The crowd shouts with glee at that. My eyes pass over the crowd until I find Luca beaming with pride as he elbows the man beside him and points at me. Kirit darts forward and prances along at my heels, yapping excitedly as I drop to the back of the line.
I crane my neck as the line travels around the circle, looking for Luca again, and instead find myself staring into familiar green eyes set in an unfamiliar face. A girl’s face. Her skin and hair are fair where Luca’s are dark, and there’s an arrogant tilt to her chin that I’ve never seen in Luca, but she has the same tall, rangy form and angled cheekbones. It can only be Arismendi, Luca’s sister. Her eyes, Luca’s eyes, are fixed on my face with an expression of such horror and fear it’s like she’s wearing a mask. She stands completely still, locked in place against the rhythmic sway of the crowd.
And then she’s gone, hidden by the soaring flames of the bonfire.
Luca calls out to me, beckoning, and I break away from the line of dancers. I move swiftly to his side, suddenly uneasy. She can’t have known what I am, though I suppose it’s not impossible that she might have guessed who I am—in general terms, at least. It’s common knowledge in the City that the king’s brother has won the favor of a Companion. That by itself, however, wouldn’t explain the strangeness of her reaction. I pull Luca’s head down so I can speak directly into his ear.
“I think I saw your sister,” I say, almost shouting.
“What, here?” He straightens up so he can scan the crowd, an uneasy frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. “Are you sure?”
“No,” I admit. “But she looked just like you. Tall, with blond hair and green eyes.”
“Where did you see her?”
“She was on the other side of the bonfire.” I curl my fingers around his. “But, Luca…I think she’s not there anymore. I think something’s wrong.”
In a rush, I tell him what I saw. I study his face carefully, looking for reassurance. A smile, a laugh, some sign to tell me that what I saw wasn’t worth worrying over. I want him to tell me that there’s a simple explanation for his sister’s presence here and that all is well.
But he doesn’t tell me that. A cloud seems to pass over Luca’s face as he listens, and with every word I speak, my hopes sink a little lower.
“Come,” he says, taking my hand. “We should go.”
“Go where?” I ask, following close on his heels as we push our way through the crowd.
“Away from here,” he replies. “Out of the village.”
“But where—”
“Just move, Sasha.”
Alarmed by his tone, I shut my mouth and elbow a fat, jolly-looking man out of my way. I wind my fingers through Luca’s belt and hold on tight as he plunges through the mass of bodies. No one protests beyond a few dirty looks; everyone’s energy and attention are focused on the music and dancing and the sparks of the bonfire flying upward into the night. But the music has gone sour in my ears, and the silhouettes of the dancers against the flames now seem sinister and foreboding. The spinning, leaping fairies have turned into ghouls, demons cavorting in the flames of hell.
Finally, we escape into an empty street and break into a run, back toward the barn that houses Petal. Luca saddles him with brisk efficiency and leads him outside while I collect our things. He takes the pack from my trembling hands and vaults onto the horse’s back, pulling me up after him. Kirit trots ahead, leading us out of the town under the bright silver light of a full moon.
“What about Bard?” I ask.
“He’ll find us,” Luca assures me. “Or we’ll find him.”
“But this isn’t how we came,” I observe tentatively.
Instead of taking the road back to the City, we’re heading deeper into the hills. Petal doesn’t seem to mind, at least. He surges up the rocky path with self-satisfied snorts, as if to say, Puny humans, where would you be without me?
“No,” Luca agrees. “We’ll return to the City by another route. I’m sorry to drag you out of there like that. I have an inkling of what happened, but until we find out exactly what Ari knows—or what she thinks she knows—I’d rather be overly careful.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “How could she know anything?”
“Ari is Gifted with foresight,” Luca explains. “But her premonitions don’t come as visions, or even clear information. They’re more like very strong hunches. It must have been a very strong one to send her after us all the way out here.”
“And what do you think her hunch could have been?”
“As to that, I couldn’t say.” His voice is calm, but I can feel the tension in his back and shoulders, hard and taut against my own body. “Not the truth—at least, not the whole truth, or she wouldn’t have run.”
“We should have gone after her,” I say unhappily.
“No,” Luca replies. “Ari always travels with at least one House mage as part of her guard. She might not know what you are, but, depending on the exact nature of her premonition and what she’s told them, the mages might guess.” Luca shakes his head, releasing a sharp breath of frustration. “Shadow and blight! Of all the times for her Gift to make itself known.”
“Doesn’t it usually?”
Luca shakes his head; I wish I could see his face.
“No. It’s happened only twice before. Once before our father died, and once before an earthquake.”
“Oh,” I say, my voice very small.
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine what Ari might have seen: death, destruction, political unrest. Civil war, even.
I press my forehead against Luca’s spine. It seemed so simple: leave the City, meet with the Apostate. Could this latest complication have been prevented, somehow, or is it just bad luck? Luca knew about his sister’s G
ift, after all. But, curiously, I feel no anger or blame. It all feels inevitable somehow. If anything, I feel a vague sense of release, as if I’d been teetering back and forth on the edge of a precipice, just waiting to fall, and now someone has come up behind me and pushed me off.
I feel strangely calm. Numb, almost. Fear will no doubt find me, but it hasn’t yet. The magnitude of what’s coming is too great. I can’t comprehend it, so I can’t fear it. But I will, I know, because nothing approaches forever. At some point, it arrives. And then, I know, I will be afraid.
* * *
A cold wetness presses against my cheek. I jerk, scrambling away until I recognize Kirit’s dim outline. The space beside me under the rocky overhang where we made our bed is empty and cold. I crawl out from under the overhang and squint at the shadowy silhouettes of the trees. Clouds have drifted over the moon while I slept, turning silver to black and white to gray. A breeze creeps over my skin and lifts my hair gently from my ears and neck, flicking over and around my body like cold, curious fingers.
Where is Petal? More importantly, where is Luca? I shiver and suppress the impulse to cry out. He wouldn’t leave me without good reason, and I can only imagine the good reason is something that won’t be helped by giving away our hiding place. No, the best thing I can do is wait. I hunker down in a dip between two rocks. Kirit crouches motionless at my side, his eyes bright even in the gloom.
Our vigil doesn’t last long. Luca appears at my side without a sound and motions for me to follow him up the rocky outcropping. I do, stepping where he steps and trying my best to move as he moves. Even so, I make twice as much noise as he does. He seems to float over the fallen leaves and needles and loose rocks without even touching them. It reminds me, oddly, of how Ismeni used to sweep around the halls of her villa as if on soundless, invisible wheels. Even though I’m a dancer, it’s a kind of grace entirely foreign to me.
At the top of the outcropping, Luca pulls me into the shadow of a boulder and leans close to whisper in my ear.
“There are dozens of House mages and rangers heading our way,” he says. “I sent Petal away to lay a false trail, but they never wavered. Ari must have given them something of mine for a casting to find me.”
“But how did so many get here so quickly?” I ask, baffled.
“With Light,” Luca says. “It’s a filthy, barbaric practice. I knew that much even before I knew the truth about Light. One body takes the place of another—destroying it in the process.”
“I saw it happen once,” I say, suddenly remembering. “You—you were there. The Premier summoned Pretty Girl—a puppy—for Cimari. A little bird died.”
Luca stares at me with wide eyes. “I…yes, I remember. Blight, how many times must I have seen you and had no idea? How much time have I wasted?”
He kisses me hard. I cling to him, desperation and fear writhing together in my chest. But he steps back, leaving me trembling and wide-eyed.
“Kirit will be able to find Bard. Get back to the City and claim sanctuary at the Temple. I’ll find you there.”
“What about you?” I protest, gripping his wrists as he moves to lower his hands from my face. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll lead them as far away from you as I can,” he says bleakly. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll come for you, whatever happens. Do you believe me?”
I nod jerkily and release him, then freeze as the distant cry of a baying hound reaches our ears. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
“They’re coming,” I breathe, fear washing over me like a stream of icy water.
“Go, Sasha!” Luca hisses, pushing me away from him. “Now—run!”
I stumble backward and trip over a loose rock. By the time I find my feet, Luca is gone.
The hounds’ baying is louder now, and maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems to have taken on a note of urgency and excitement. A tremor runs through my body. It’s happening. Bozhe. It’s finally happening. They’ve found me.
But that doesn’t mean they’ll catch me.
I follow Kirit down the other side of the hill, moving as quickly as I can without losing my footing. As soon as I reach level ground, I run. But the ground doesn’t stay level for long. Despite my long hours of training, I’m wheezing and stumbling after the fifth hill. Or is it the sixth?
“Kirit,” I gasp. “Stop. I need to stop.”
I clasp my hands behind my head and grimace with the effort of staying upright. Kirit whines and paws at my leg, urging me to go on. I can’t—I can’t! My legs and back are shaking so violently I’m afraid I’ll break apart, my head is spinning, and I could lose the contents of my stomach at any moment, but I have to keep going. Memory surfaces: a man running for his life, a spear—and blood. So much blood.
“That won’t be me,” I pant, and force myself into motion.
Every breath burns in my lungs, but I breathe. Every step makes my very bones ache, but I run. Better to run until my heart bursts than to let them take me again. I won’t let them take me, hurt me, bleed me dry like those poor children.
With a rush of energy born of pure terror, I burst over the crest of yet another hill—and promptly tumble into nothingness. The world flies apart around me as I slide and somersault down the unexpectedly steep slope on the other side, every rock and bush I meet just shy of big enough to halt my headlong descent.
When I finally roll to a stop, all I can do is lie still while the now-visible stars wheel and spin above me. Every inch of me is battered and scraped raw, and an alarming amount of blood runs down the side of my face. When I try to stand, the ground shifts under me like a waking giant. I stumble, gasping as I catch myself on shredded palms.
“That was quite the fall,” a voice observes. “Acrobatic, almost.”
Slowly, I raise my throbbing head and squint at the gangling teenager in front of me. He stares back with bulging, frog-like eyes, a slight smile on his pale face. He turns his face up to the moon, now freed of the clouds, and then looks back at me again with that creepy smile.
“I thought you’d look different,” he muses. “More…impressive, somehow. The elders preach to us about the dangers of spirit-walkers from the day we enter the Academy. I expected horns, scales…a wart, at least. But you’re quite pretty.” He studies me closely. “I suppose it was a silly notion, anyway. Spirit walkers look like everyone else—they can be anyone, thrall or citizen. That’s what makes them so dangerous, isn’t it? But still. This is just—well, it’s disappointing is what it is.”
He sighs dramatically, and it suddenly hits me just how young he is. He can’t be any older than I am.
Something about him—the swagger, the drama, maybe even the sprinkle of acne—reminds me of Dave. Loathsome Dave, who turned out not to be so loathsome under the veneer of arrogance. Is there more to this House minion? Some semblance of kindness under his gloating cruelty?
“Please,” I croak. “You don’t understand. I’m not a spirit-walker. They lied to you, they—”
“Silence!”
He strikes an impressive pose, but the line of his shoulders is smudged by self-consciousness and doubt. Hope trembles in my chest.
“You’re not supposed to be here, are you?” I ask.
“Silence,” he says again, with much less bravado. But it only takes him a moment to regain his cocky little smile. He taps a finger against his pimpled chin. “No, I’m not. I have a Gift for finding things. The elders don’t put much store in the old ways, it’s true. But I think in this case they’ll be pleased nonetheless.”
“They’re liars.”
I close my eyes, overcome by the sheer unfairness of it all—everything, from the atrocities the House has committed to the lies they’ve propagated to cover them up, right down to the fact that I’m now forced to beg this obnoxious, arrogant little cretin for my life. My eyes snap open. No. I will not do that. I will not beg.
Though I can’t see him, I know Kirit is somewhere nearby, and I know his ea
rs are sharper than anything I can imagine.
“Kirit,” I whisper. “Hurt him.”
“What’s that?” The boy’s eyes narrow. “What did you say?”
I don’t wait to see where Kirit strikes. As soon as he breaks cover, I bolt sideways along the base of the slope. One of my legs drags, slowing me down. I don’t think it’s broken, but something is definitely wrong. There’s a deep, fierce ache that burns in my knee like a hot coal.
A rushing sound fills my ears. At first, I think it’s my own harsh breathing. But then a cold mist touches my face, and the stone beneath my feet grows slick. I skid to a stop at the edge of a roaring waterfall and teeter for a moment, my heart in my throat. I throw myself backward just in time to avoid an enormous chunk of ice as it crashes against the stony bank and hurtles over the edge. I inch forward and watch it disappear into the mist far, far below. What lies beyond that mist? A river, rushing angry and white over the rocks? Or a lake, rippling silver under the light of a full moon?
“There’s nowhere left to run. Come with me now.”
He’s found me. Faces flicker before my eyes: Emily, Luca, Baba Nadia, Sadra, Bard, Mother Wenla…so many things I never got to say and never will. All my love for them, and theirs for me, comes to nothing. My own words echo back to me through time and whatever else separates this world and the other.
It’s about freedom, not love.
I answer the young man with my back turned and my eyes closed.
“No.”
And I jump.
IV
Act Four: Con Fuoco
“It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed.”
-Thomas Moore
Porté
I wake to the sound of dripping water and the chattering of my own teeth. I’m damp, but not soaked, and lying on hard, cold stone. Did I make it? Have I by some miracle washed up on the rocky shore of the river? For several minutes I cling to this hope, not daring to open my eyes, until a small, rhythmic thumping reaches my ears—footsteps.
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