by Jodi Meadows
My chest tightened with anguish. Knight was a distributor. He might not be using again, but he provided the firefly to dealers and users throughout all Skyvale. Maybe even farther.
And firefly. Shine that didn’t just addict, but killed those who quit. I met Romily’s eyes for a moment, but couldn’t tell if she knew what would happen to her brother.
“The Knight didn’t come last week, and he was late the week before. Everyone says the Burning Hand was mad with him and punished him. Dealers in the Flags are mad, too. At least that’s what my brother says. Not to me. He doesn’t want me involved. But I hear him talk to friends.”
“What kind of friends?”
Her voice went flat. “Nightmare gang friends.”
Oh, saints.
“Is your brother in the Nightmare gang?”
Romily shook her head. “He knows some people in it, though. He’s been selling them firefly. They have mostly regular shine right now, but they want firefly.”
If the Nightmare gang got hold of firefly . . .
A tremor shoved through me. This was worse than I ever guessed.
“Is there a good place we can watch what’s happening down there?” We seemed to be right over the door I’d dragged Knight through, but everything happening was still inside the building.
“Not if you don’t want to be caught. You’re too clumsy.”
The words stung, but she was right. I was a fair swordsman, but jumping around on rooftops wasn’t one of my skills. Yet. I’d practice.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’re bringing the Knight out.”
She was right. A pair of police officers marched my professor into the alley, kicked the back of his legs, and forced him to his knees. He grunted and fell forward. Was this how police normally behaved?
A familiar figure emerged from the group of officers. Wide shoulders. Well-tailored clothes. Lord Hensley.
I pressed myself flat on the roof and strained to hear over the brush of wind. Romily did the same.
“Did you realize you were followed?” Hensley asked, like he wasn’t worried about the police wondering about that suspicious question.
“That’s the Burning Hand.” Romily shuddered beside me. “I never saw him before, but that’s him.”
She was right. Knight had told me as much.
And now, my professor just sat there with his head hanging. Blood dripped onto the ground. Had the police beat him? Or had I hurt him more than I’d realized?
“Who attacked you?” asked Hensley. “What did they want?”
Knight didn’t move.
“You’ve disappointed me.” Hensley strode forward. A few of the police officers glanced at one another, but none of them intervened as Hensley knelt in front of Professor Knight and said, “Skipping deliveries. Getting followed. And now you won’t tell me who’s interfering? I cannot trust you, Professor. What if Shade hadn’t seen you go down?”
My heart pounded so loudly it was a wonder they couldn’t hear it down there.
“If you won’t do your work, and you won’t be careful, and you won’t tell me about the man wearing the Saint Fade Christopher mask, then you’re useless to me.” Hensley motioned to the police officers at Knight’s sides. “Hold him.”
My throat squeezed.
Only when Hensley stripped off his gloves did Knight begin thrashing against the hands gripping him.
Then, ignoring the struggles, Hensley pressed his palm to Knight’s forehead.
Knight screamed. The sound cut through the night, cut through me. I pushed myself up—I had to stop this—but Romily touched my arm.
“Don’t.” Her voice shook. “He’ll kill you, too.”
The scent of burning flesh rippled upward, clouding my thoughts. “I have to—”
“You can’t.” The whites of her eyes shone as she looked at me. “You can’t win against all of them.”
The truth hit me. She was right. Hensley wasn’t afraid of saying those things in front of the police, because the police—these anyway—were with him. They, like Knight, were working for him. And every single one of them just watched as Hensley drew back from Professor Knight, shook a whiff of smoke off his palm, and nodded to the officers.
“Let him go now.”
For a moment, I hoped that meant Professor Knight would be set free. But then, his body dropped. One of the officers nudged him, rolling him onto his back. His face was bright red and everything reeked. But that wasn’t the worst.
On his forehead, up through his hairline, there was a large blackened handprint.
The Burning Hand indeed.
I scrambled away from the edge of the roof, frantic to keep my movements silent. The roof-access door wouldn’t open. I kicked the wooden stopper aside and ducked into the stairwell and pulled up the mask and heaved.
“You all right?” Romily whispered after a few moments.
I spit out the taste of bile, put my mask back in place, and shook my head. “I’m not all right. But I will be after I put a stop to Hensley and firefly and every single corrupted police officer in Skyvale.”
“A big job.”
No one else was doing it. My father didn’t seem to know, either. He’d put Hensley in charge of this. He’d never believe Hensley was responsible.
Romily didn’t smile as she said, “I’ll help you, if you want.”
Because her brother was involved, and she wanted to help him. A good enough reason for me.
“For now, help me get into Hawksbill. But meet me tomorrow night. I want you to teach me everything you know about Skyvale.”
No matter what it took, I was going to stop Lord Hensley.
EXCERPT FROM THE MIRROR KING
Prince Tobiah’s adventures, which began in The Hidden Prince,
continue in The Mirror King,
the sequel to The Orphan Queen.
THREE
IN MY BEDROOM, I stripped off the bloodied gown and hunted through a wardrobe until I found a dark shirt and trousers. Finally, the haunting sense of internment lifted. James said I shouldn’t leave the palace, but this was something I needed to do.
Because as much as I disliked the prince, I was relying on Tobiah to help me reclaim my kingdom.
If he died, I would truly be a hostage here.
Resolved, I moved toward the front door and rested my fingers on the lock. Just then, footfalls slammed through the hall, toward the crown prince’s apartments. I held my breath as they shouted for another physician, but there was no word on his condition.
I twisted the lock, and the bolt fell into place with a heavy thunk. A breath went by before Sergeant Ferris noticed and began rattling the handle, but I was halfway to the balcony already. “Help me to the ground,” I told the wraith boy. “Then I want you to hide under the bed”—surely he couldn’t hurt anything there—“and if anyone asks where I went, just tell them I will return soon.”
He followed me to the balcony. Stars crowded the sky, their faint shine glowing across the woods at the back of the palace. Gleaming remnants of the king’s glasshouse shimmered below. Cold air blew in from the west, buffered by the palace.
“Do you remember my instructions?”
“Yes, my queen.” He’d grown bigger outside, ready to follow orders. The acrid stink of wraith came off him, making my eyes water. “I will hide under the bed. I will tell anyone who asks that you’ll return soon.”
“Good.”
“Princess!” Sergeant Ferris was knocking at the door. “What’s going on?”
“Hurry.” I scrambled over the balcony rail so I faced out, my heels on the very edge, my calves and thighs pressed against the wrought iron. “Quickly, but carefully. Remember, if I die, you’ll be inanimate again.” As far as I could guess anyway. “I assume you have some sense of self-preservation?”
He sniffed, almost an offended sound, as he gently took me around the waist. Suddenly I was in the air.
My toes stretched for the ground, touching nothing as ai
r whooshed around me. I was dropping.
Dropping.
Very.
Slowly.
Inside the room, the door banged open and James shouted something, but finally my toes touched the ground. The wraith boy’s hands slipped off my sides and the odor of wraith retreated.
“What are you doing?” cried James.
“My queen will return soon.”
When I looked up, I could just see James striding toward the edge of the balcony. I stepped beneath it where he couldn’t spot me. Not yet.
“Wil!” James leaned over the balcony, scanning the gardens.
If Melanie had stayed, she’d have covered for me. She’d have known just what to say to distract James and his guards while I slipped away.
“Ferris.” James’s tone was hard. “Get a small team together and search for Her Highness. Keep this quiet. Last thing we need is for everyone to know she’s broken out.”
“She’ll return soon!” added the wraith boy.
“Yes, Captain.” Ferris’s voice grew softer as he left the balcony.
“And where are you going?” James asked.
“Under the bed until my queen returns.”
I stretched my senses, straining to hear footfalls and breathing and the catch of clothes on buildings or brush. Carefully, quietly, I kept to the shadows and slipped around the perimeter of the palace. When patrols strode by, I held still and silent. The surge of adrenaline in my head felt real and right as I darted through the once-extravagant courtyards, leaving the palace for the first time since the Inundation.
There wasn’t much of a difference between the King’s Seat and Hawksbill; the two ran together and their boundaries weren’t marked. So there was no way to tell as I moved from one district to the other, but a rush of relief poured over me as I prowled around the wraith-twisted statues and trellises of nobles’ gardens, keeping beyond the glow of the gas lamps lining the streets.
Steadily, I moved westward, past the Chuter mansion and toward the Bome Boys’ Academy that sat along the Hawksbill wall. The school was four stories high, with a brick face and dozens of windows. Where there’d once been glass, now the holes were boarded up or covered with heavy wool blankets. Last I’d heard, the students had been sent home; during the Inundation, some of the doorways in the school had grown teeth and begun chewing.
Just past the school, I came to the wall.
It wasn’t impassible by any means, but without my grapple it would be a challenge to climb. The stone was smooth, even after the flood of wraith had changed the city.
Low voices sounded, and lanterns flared in the darkness between streetlamps.
I had to hurry, but without my tools, I had only one option.
“It’s for Black Knife,” I whispered, pressing my palm to the wall. “Wake up. Make a passage to the other side big enough for me to walk through.”
Under my hand, the stone warmed and began to ripple. Blackness paraded around the edges of my vision and I swayed. This was a mistake. I hadn’t awakened the entire wall, had I?
“There!” The soldier’s voice came from close by. “I see someone!”
“Is it the princess?”
“Hurry,” I whispered to the wall, and my vision blanked as the stone split open with a low rumble and groan. I struggled to breathe, to tell up from down. My groping hands fell on the edges of the new tunnel through the wall. Narrow. But I could squeeze through.
“Flasher! Saints, she’s using magic!” A light fell over me, too bright. “Get a patrol on the other side. Run!”
A pair of boots thumped off, leaving two men running for me.
But I was already in the tunnel, which was barely wide enough for me to move through sideways. I scooted as fast as I dared, jagged edges of stone catching on my clothes and hair.
An arm reached in. Fingers scraped my elbow. My stomach turned and I wanted to tell the wall to close after me, but I couldn’t with him reaching through. Shouldn’t. I’d have to leave it open.
“Go to sleep.” My hands scraped over the stone. “Go to sleep.”
Just as the soldier started to squeeze in after me, fingers twisting around my sleeve, I threw myself out the opposite side of the wall. He let out a frustrated growl.
“By Captain Rayner’s orders, you must return to the palace!” The guard shouted through the hole, but I was already sprinting into Thornton before the rest of the patrol caught up. “You won’t be harmed!”
I was gone, down a street and keeping close to the shadows, and finally behind a bakery where I leaned against a wall and let my breath squeeze from my lungs in silent gasps. Cold slithered into my chest.
That had been close.
And the magic. That had been stupid. Dangerous. Even if I’d animated only a section of the wall, it had still been too much. I should have found a trellis or something to climb.
But there hadn’t been time. And Black Knife was still dying.
I gave myself another long, silent breath as I listened for the patrols, and then I found a stack of crates by a fence where I could climb to the rooftops.
And I got my first look at the nighttime city since the Inundation.
The dark was overwhelming.
In Hawksbill and Thornton, streetlamps glowed like stars and hope, but in Greenstone and the Flags farther south, there was nothing. Just flat blackness.
Only days ago, there’d been mirrors on every west-facing surface in the city, catching sunsets and moonlight. All seven districts of Skyvale had been lit with faint reflected light.
But when the wraith came, every mirror in the city was destroyed. Glass windows, glass shields over lamps: those were shattered, too.
Legend had it that King Terrell the Second, Tobiah’s great-grandfather, had been called the Mirror King when he’d had mirrors hung all over the city. While it ultimately became just another way for people to display their wealth, it had been intended to frighten the wraith from ever invading Skyvale.
The truth ended up being a lot more complicated.
My wraith, what was now the boy, certainly didn’t like mirrors; it had stopped chasing me at West Pass Watch because of them. But in Skyvale, it had shattered the mirrors rather than retreat. How? Because I’d brought it to life?
I gave the dark, unfamiliar city one more look before I threw myself into it.
For hours, I moved from Osprey hideout to Osprey hideout, searching for signs of them. I kept an eye out for Patrick as well, but what would I do if I found him? I was unarmed, and as much as I wanted to catch Patrick and punish him for what he’d done, that wouldn’t help the prince.
It was almost midnight when I approached the Peacock Inn in White Flag—or what was left of the inn. It hadn’t been much to look at before the Inundation, but now boards had warped and bricks over the front of the building had melted over windows.
I stood at the corner of a nearby building, watching the inn for signs of the patrols James had sent after me. Three of my last stops had a police officer lurking about, which meant James knew where I’d gone—and why.
Usually, the inn was loud with drunks and thugs, but the whole city was quiet. The few people who braved the debris-filled streets skittered from place to place, keeping their heads low. Prey, waiting for a predator to strike.
Sounds from the taproom were muted. No one felt festive tonight.
If there were any officers here, they weren’t showing themselves. I dropped to the street and moved for the front door; the window I usually entered by wasn’t there anymore.
The front door opened and Melanie strode out.
We stopped and stared at each other for a heartbeat, and then her arms were around my shoulders and she gave a faint, relieved cry. “Saints, Wil!”
“Mel!” I hugged her back, then ushered her into a narrow alley. A dull crack sounded under her boot; we both froze, but the dirt and old papers that concealed the glass also muffled the noise.
We both exhaled.
“What are you doing?
” she whispered. “Why are you here?”
“What are you doing here?” I glanced toward the top floor, dark and eerie without the mirrors. “Are they here? Connor and the others?”
“They’re sleeping.” She leaned closer, smelling faintly of fire and something warm and damp. “There are people looking for you. Soldiers. The police. Looking for Princess Wilhelmina. Everywhere I go, I hear your name. Someone said you’re a flasher. What did you do?”
“Nothing. I broke out of the palace. I have to get Connor.”
“Are you a prisoner there?”
There wasn’t really a good answer to that question.
“Why Connor?” she pressed.
“I need to take him back to the palace.” Melanie didn’t know that Connor was like me. No one did.
“Are you afraid that I’m going to tell Patrick?”
My heart gave a painful lurch. “Are you?”
“No,” she breathed, looking hurt. “Saints, no, Wil. I only went with him because you need someone to keep you informed. You know that, right?”
“You couldn’t inform me that he planned on assassinating Crown Prince Tobiah?” Stupid Tobiah, standing out there on the balcony only days after the first assassination attempt. Less than a fortnight after his own father had been killed. Stupid, stupid boy.
At least, if he’d been just Prince Tobiah, I could have blamed ignorance or arrogance, but he was also Black Knife, and for that I could only assign reckless need to do what he viewed as right.
“This is the first time I’ve been able to get away.” Her shoulders slumped. “He suspects why I went with him. There’s no proof, of course, and as far as he knows, we’re still”—she swallowed hard—“together. But he’s kept a close eye on me. The only reason I was able to get out tonight was because we need supplies. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“To go where?”
“Aecor. Where else?”
Where else indeed? “Why tomorrow?”
“He’s certain the wound Tobiah took will be fatal.”
“It is a mortal wound.” The words scraped my throat. “He won’t survive it.” Not without Connor.
“We’ll be out of the city by dawn. He aims to reach Aecor before the week is up.”
