Amber & Dusk

by Lyra Selene

  Thibo was gone.

  I trudged to Lys Wing, where Lullaby greeted me with mussed hair and tearstained cheeks. And even before she flung her arms around my neck, my heart was shattered into pieces of broken mirror glass.

  “He’s gone,” she wailed, her words garbled and hoarse. “She finally took him. Thibo’s gone.”

  We held each other as we wept, but the tears streaming down my own cheeks seemed cheap in comparison to the grief of my friend. And when we finally broke apart, exhausted by grief, I could barely look her in the eye.

  “I don’t—” I choked on a fresh flood of tears. “I don’t understand what gone means. Is this what happened to Blossom? Mender?”

  “More or less. No one ever saw them … before. Or after. They just disappeared.”

  “Are they dead?”

  “Dead? Probably,” agreed Lullaby, and the set of her mouth was grim. “Or worse.”

  The skin on my face felt too tight. “What’s worse than dead?”

  “You’re the fantast. Use your imagination.”

  We lapsed into silence.

  “I think she takes them,” Lullaby finally whispered. “Do you know what Thibo’s legacy was?”

  “I only knew his court name, and how much he hated it. I never wanted to ask.”

  “He stole memories.” Her voice was terrible. “He could reach in and pluck them away. Gone. He loathed it. He used to say he was worse than a thief because no one even knew what he had stolen. But he was one of Severine’s most useful tools. She’d been using him more and more, as a spy, as an assassin, for whatever she wanted. And he kept trying to refuse, but she knew how to get to him. She sent two of his sisters to the Dominion border, never to be heard of again. When Mender …” Lullaby paused, shaking her head. “Thibo was done, you know? Tired of fighting, tired of losing. Part of me wonders if he was ready to go. Ready for her to take him for good.”

  I shuddered with anguish, rolling my thumb over the dented surface of Thibo’s locket. I would marry him, if he’ll have me. He’d been so close to his perfect life, only to have that precious, mundane, ordinary world stolen from him.

  It was almost too much to bear.

  “I’m never going to see it again, am I?” Lullaby suddenly said. I jerked my eyes to her, and realized that she was staring at the curling drapes kissing the deep blue walls of her painted room. “The ocean. I dream of it every Nocturne, you know. The crash of the tide kissing the beach. The red sunlight piercing the waves. My father’s voice, like coils of seaweed and echoing caverns and the infinite line of the horizon. But I’m never going to hear it again, Mirage.”

  “You’ll see the ocean again,” I said. The promise etched itself onto my ribs with pulses of light. “You’ll hear your father’s voice. I swear it.”

  And so too did I silently swear that this time, Severine had stolen too much. And if there was no one else, then I would be the one to collect the debt.

  Oh, I would collect.

  And when I finally returned to my chambers, my hands barely shook as I knotted a red silk handkerchief to flutter between my curtains.

  I’ll do it.

  The next few days passed in a haze.

  I didn’t write to Luca for fear of my correspondence being opened or intercepted—I had no idea whether Severine was spying on me, but it would be stupid to assume she wasn’t. But I took to wandering along the Esplanade in the last hours of Nocturne, and if more than one shadow lurked between the towering pillars there was no one nearby to notice.

  We conspired in hurried whispers, sketching a plan that between the two of us might actually work. Luca crushed my hands in his and smiled like I’d been sent by the Scion himself. And with his lilting voice and eager eyes, words like infiltrate and assassination sounded less like sedition and more like a promise of change.

  “And no one else will die?” An image of Lullaby’s lovely face stained with blood instead of tears brushed the edge of my mind. “Promise me the courtiers will be safe.”

  “Only the empress,” Luca swore. “There will just be a few of us. We’ll be like ghosts.”

  But once he slipped back through the darkened halls in his stolen livery, doubt crept close. Regardless of the right or wrong of it, we were plotting treason. And if either of us was caught, we would both die.

  I distracted myself by practicing my legacy with Dowser. It wasn’t difficult to convince my mentor to help me learn camouflage instead of projection; when I suggested the idea of invisibility and cloaking, he stared at me in surprise.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first,” he muttered, polishing his spectacles.

  Neither of us mentioned my questions from the day before, or the threads of obscure understanding stitching us closer together.

  But mastering another aspect of my gift was more challenging than I expected. It was like learning to write with the wrong hand, or speaking an unfamiliar language.

  I practiced long into the Nocturne hours, begging off parties and concerts in favor of standing in front of my mirror and trying to turn myself invisible. I surrendered to a world where I was made of glass, only to have my skin sparkle like crystal. I fell into an illusion where I was formed from breaths of air, only to have my skin smear on the breeze like pink paint in water.

  I gritted my teeth and tried again. And again.

  I awoke in the dead of Nocturne from a dream of rippling birdsong and ice wine and cool hands encircling my waist. Belsyre Wing. Epiphany slunk around the borders of my consciousness. I’d hated the literal practicality of that illusion, the passionless labor of reflecting a world that already existed. It was everything I’d loathed about Dowser’s methods: ref lecting the world I lived in, instead of creating my own. But I’d done it, and well.

  I jumped out of bed and stood in front of the mirror. I closed my eyes, and imagined a bedroom identical to my bedroom, but without me in it. The gloom behind my shuttered curtains. The rumpled sheets. The constant press of hand-painted f lowers. I surrendered to my absence, shearing away from the cavernous grasp of existential dread.

  I opened my eyes. I wasn’t there.

  A cool smile of relief pressed against my skin. I squinted, and thought I glimpsed the outline of an arm, the impression of a grin. But it was faint, like a scrap of parchment scraped clean, only to be written on once again.

  I released the illusion.

  It wasn’t perfect.

  But maybe with a little practice, it would be good enough.

  I spent every moment of the scant few days before Luca’s plan was to go into effect practicing my illusion of invisibility.

  I practiced in my room until the bells for Matin chimed, then kept on practicing until I was famished and my eyes swam with half-imagined illusions. I practiced in the halls of Coeur d’Or, standing stock-still and imagining another identical world overlaid on my own—a world that simply didn’t show me. I practiced until my face didn’t swim distorted in polished crystal vases and gilded statues.

  Once, a Dexter maiden brushed too close, inside the bounds of the illusion. Her eyes flew open so wide I thought they’d pop out of her skull. I dropped the illusion at once, but she stared at me like I was an apparition of Meridian himself.

  “Mirage!” she shrieked. “You came out of nowhere! I could have sworn—”

  But I simpered, and made up a lie, and she laughed at herself, her unease turning into embarrassment. It was almost too easy.

  Moving was the hardest part. Once I’d mastered making myself invisible at a standstill, I tried moving. Tiny steps, in one direction at first, slitting my eyes and imagining the illusion moving with me. Then faster, walking from one end of my room to the other, the world sliding around me as if I wasn’t there.

  So gradually that I hardly noticed it happening, the process of being unseen became like second nature. And when I realized that I’d intentionally rendered myself nearly as gone as Thibo, I had to laugh. Laughter that quickly turned to tears that turned to re
solve when I remembered how ruthlessly my friend had been stolen from me.

  The Matin before I was meant to let Luca into the palais with his cadre of assassins, I set myself one final test. Elodie and Matilde dressed and primped me, but the moment they left my room I undressed to my shift and corset. I shoved the gown in a wardrobe where no one would find it, then opened the door out into Lys Wing.

  The sun burned a harsh red, unmarred by clouds. Razored shadows lined the passageways, untouched by the dull glow of ambric lamps. I breathed deep, and let the veil of my second world fall around me. I cleared my mind, ignoring the froth of my nerves, and stepped out into Coeur d’Or.

  I drifted like a phantom through the halls. No one turned their heads or wondered why the newest courtier was prancing through the palais in her undergarments. And slowly, as instinct replaced control, I began to enjoy myself.

  I eavesdropped on a group of servants gossiping about their vexatious mistress. I paused in the shadows and saw pretty Vida steal a kiss from Wing, who blushed to the tips of her bejeweled ears before returning the embrace with gusto. All around me, life in the palais kept marching forward. I was nothing more than a fleeting fancy, an unexpected breeze raising the hairs along napes. A whispered footfall and a distant laugh, a flash at the corner of an eye.

  And even though I knew it was petty, I couldn’t help but exact one small revenge.

  I found Sunder leaving the Gauntlet, flushed and sweaty, a silver-embossed jacket slung across his shoulders. He seemed pensive, his brows slashed together over eyes focused on some distant thing. His stride was rapid, but I jogged up behind him, hugged my illusion tight around me, and jerked the jacket from his shoulders.

  The expensive brocade fell to the packed dirt of the jardin with an audible thump, raising a cloud of dust.

  Sunder turned on his heel, frowning at the limp pile of fabric. He bent, reaching for the collar.

  I twitched the hem, and the jacket pulled away from his fingers.

  Sunder’s hand closed into a fist, and he raised himself to his full height. His nostrils flared, as though he were scenting the air, and he tilted his head. His glittering eyes narrowed to slits as he stared right at me. I stood perfectly still, every muscle tensed as I focused on making the illusion perfect—my very existence a hallucination.

  Gravel crunched as he stalked from the jardin, leaving me standing trembling beside an abandoned pile of expensive embroidered jacquard.

  Later, after I dashed back to my room and laced my gown with fumbling fingers, a churn of laughter bubbled up and spilled from my lips. I laughed until tears prickled at my eyes and my corset dug a painful groove into my waist. And when I stepped back out in the palais, fully clothed and entirely visible, I could almost convince myself that seeking out Sunder was a stupid prank, a childish bit of revenge.

  Because when he turned on his heel and stared straight into my eyes, I almost felt like I was trying to say goodbye.

  The hours before first Compline passed so slowly I wondered if time was working against me.

  Luca and I had agreed in one of our secret conferences that the only thing stranger than me marching up to Severine’s personal quarters and requesting a private audience was me doing it in the dead of Nocturne. So I inquired, idly and discreetly, about the empress’s daily rituals, and a courtier was more than happy to gossip about Severine’s schedule.

  She spent the hours of Matin ensconced with the cabal of cronies she called advisors. Prime, she whiled away in the Atrium with favored courtiers dancing attendance on her every whim. Most of Nocturne she spent sampling the pleasures of whichever salons, dinners, and concerts piqued her capricious interest. But first and second Compline she usually spent alone in her private chambers.

  I scouted the Imperial Wing once I’d mastered my trick of passing unseen and unnoticed through the real world. Severine kept her chambers at the very center of the labyrinth of Coeur d’Or, past Belsyre Wing. The entrance was marked by a huge door, emblazoned with the Imperial Insignia: a massive sunburst gilded with kembric. Two Skyclad Gardes flanked the door, armed and alert. I waited until Severine exited her chambers for the delights of Nocturne, and caught a glimpse of a long passageway, curved like the inside of a shell and lit by ambric torches. Four more Gardes, two on each side of the hall. And one final door, slender and filigreed, edged in hard dristic.

  Six Gardes, two armored doors. Getting in might not be difficult, not with my new ruse. But getting out was going to be a challenge.

  Finally, sixth Prime tolled, and anticipation frothed within me, fueling the flames of my anticipation. I grabbed a cape with a deep hood and slung it over my shoulders, then turned to cast my eyes around my borrowed room. If everything went according to plan, I’d never return to this place. I lingered on the painted flowers slowly fading around the windowsills, and I couldn’t help but think of poor Blossom’s memory fading away with them. Bile burned in my throat when I thought of Thibo, passing in the same direction.

  Would Lullaby miss me, when I was gone? Did I deserve to be missed?

  I ran my fingers slowly over the surface of my vanity, touching the pots of cosmetics and jars of perfumes as if they were talismans. My collection of jewelry winked up at me, diamonds and rubies and amber purchased with Sunder’s spare change. I considered shoving a few of the expensive necklaces in my pocket as insurance, but I clenched my hand into a fist instead. The less of this place I brought with me, the better.

  I did one last sweep, then fished my amulet from its place beneath my mattress. The worn amber winked up at me, and I clasped the cool chain around my throat, tucking the pendant into the bodice of my dress. Then I stepped out into the last day I’d ever spend in the palais.

  My steps carried me through Coeur d’Or, quiet in the lull before Compline. I paused at the Esplanade, gazing across the manicured jardins and vaulting topiaries. Thibo. Sudden sorrow knocked the breath from between my ribs. I’d met him here, that first day in the palais. He’d smiled at my mistakes and made me feel at ease in an unfamiliar place. He’d been kind to me, kinder than I probably deserved.

  Coeur d’Or’s insistent beauty crushed down on me, suddenly oppressive. I’d wanted so badly to belong here, for the promise of this place to be more than a wish or a dream. But I could no longer ignore the taint of death and violence lurking in this glittering heart. Wanting something badly enough doesn’t make it real. And it certainly doesn’t make it right.

  I turned myself invisible as bitterness coated the back of my throat. Maybe it was easier to pretend I was already gone than spend another moment pretending I belonged.

  I wound slowly toward one of the small gates set into the high wall surrounding the palais compound. It was rarely used, but I’d seen a few couriers ducking through it into the wealthy neighborhood just outside, and the palais side was wooded and shadowed. Unless Luca’s group of revolutionaries were spectacularly imprudent, no one should notice anything amiss between when they arrived and when I made them disappear.

  I crouched in the shadow of a crooked laurel to wait. The heat of the past few days had ebbed, and a bank of thick grey clouds shrouded the Amber City, turning the light of the sun eerie. A cool breeze kicked at my loose curls, and I dragged my cloak tighter.

  Finally, I heard it: what sounded like a strange birdcall followed by a series of taps on the gate. I unlocked it quickly, using the code I’d memorized while surveilling an oblivious courier. I grasped a bare impression of height and breadth before a figure shoved by me, and then another, and another. Dread curled icy fingers around my heart as more and more hooded figures tromped through the gate. Finally, I spied a familiar crop of curling black hair over golden eyes, and I reached forward to grab Luca’s hand.

  “What’s going on?” I hissed. I stared over my shoulder at the militia forming in the shadow of the palais walls: nearly twenty men and women, muscled and grim. Weapons glinted from belts and shoulders. Inked tattoos crept above collars and along corded forearms. “Who
are all these people?”

  “We call ourselves La Discorde,” replied Luca. His fingers crushed my hand. “And we’re going to change the face of the Amber Empire.”

  “I don’t care what you call yourselves, there are too many of you. I can make you and one other person invisible. Maybe two.” Panic threaded my voice as disquiet chilled my blood. “The rest of them can’t come. What are they even doing here?”

  “They have another mission,” said Luca, his tone unforgiving. He motioned to two figures, a stocky man and a copper-haired woman. “Denis and Petra are coming with us.”

  “This is not what we discussed,” I snapped, trying to infuse my voice with authority. “We planned a bare-bones mission. In and out. Simple, quick.”

  “Plans change, Sylvie.” Luca’s eyes shone with fever.

  “But—”

  “Stop whining,” Luca snarled. “They’re striking at the armory. None of your precious aristos are going to die. Not if they don’t get in our way.”

  “The armory?” My knees were unsteady, as if the earth was crumbling beneath my feet. “I just told you, I can’t turn them invisible. If anyone sees them, our plan falls to pieces!”

  “If anything, it will be a diversion.” Luca’s voice was impatient. “We’re losing time. Our plan stays the same. Don’t back out now, Mirage.”

  I stared at the dark-haired boy—man—and regret made my limbs heavy and weak. Regret for what I’d done. Regret for what I was about to do. I opened my mouth to say I wouldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it, but the words were distant and impossible. Something in my face must have given me away, because Luca nodded sharply to a muscular, bearded man.

  The fighters disappeared into the hedgerows surrounding the outer jardins. I watched, mutinous, as the shadows swallowed them whole.

  “Sylvie, come on.” Luca gestured to Denis and Petra, standing silent and still as statues. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  I swallowed against the rock of dismay clogging my throat. Our plan stays the same. But I couldn’t banish the image of twenty renegades cutting a swathe through the palais. I remembered the glint of weapons, the harsh tang of hatred souring the air.