“Subtle,” Khoda muttered. “Ready?”
“Guard!” the farmer shouted. “Thief! Get her!”
Viimo took off running. There was a flurry of leather stamping on stone, and then four Hawks streaked past in hot pursuit. Fie rekindled both of her Sparrow teeth and readied a spare for if a tooth burned out.
“Ready,” Fie said.
She’d borrowed this idea from when Jasimir had saved Barf before. Khoda made sure the horses’ reins were clear of their feet, then smacked one on the rump. It reared, startling the other two and only adding to the chaos. Shouts and curses spilled over the bridge as Fie and Khoda backed toward the gate. Every eye was either on Viimo or on the horses now shying down the cobblestones.
Fie and Khoda slipped by the stormy-faced farmer and past the vexed Gull merchants waiting at the now-clear gate. The two Vulture witches on guard were watching the chase with glee. Then Fie saw them narrow their eyes.
“That’s not a Crow,” one said. “Look—that hair’s like one of us.”
The other swore under his breath. “Reckon that’s the tracker who turned on Tatterhelm? The queen might want a word with her…”
The skinwitches didn’t so much as blink as Khoda and Fie strolled through the gate, then ducked into a nearby alcove. Barf wriggled until Fie set her down.
Two Hawks shoved Viimo through the gate a few minutes later. She moped and twisted about, the picture of sullen defeat, and Fie couldn’t help huffing a laugh. Viimo had been right about that much: starting the plan with her arrest was something Fie enjoyed quite a bit.
Once they were out of sight, Khoda stepped out, trying to get his bearings as he pulled two painted vests from his pack, both marked with the stripes of a Pigeon courier. “My handler will be waiting in Magistrate’s Row. Then after that…”
“I know.” Even from the alcove, Fie could see their next target: the golden spires of the royal palace, carving into the sky like beacons.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FROM OUR ASHES
Khoda’s handler did not bother to give her name. She looked as if she could blend in among the Owl scholars, with deep mahogany skin and thick hair braided tight to her scalp. The orange embroidery on her violet robe marked her for a legal scribe—or at least a credible fake. It wasn’t quite the same orange hue as the roof tiles of Magistrate’s Row, but judging from the number of scribes darting between courthouses, record houses, and the Advocate’s Guild, that orange thread would let her go anywhere she pleased.
She also did not seem pleased to see Fie at Khoda’s heels, dark eyes flicking between the two of them. “Courier. What are your rates?”
“Ten naka to deliver inside Dumosa,” Khoda replied. “Four more inside the palace.”
The handler nodded, jaw tight, and said through her teeth, “Who else are you planning to recruit? A stray dog?”
Barf chose that moment to flop into the dust between them all and roll over for a belly rub. The handler closed her eyes.
Khoda nodded and held his hand out. His lips barely moved as he hissed back, “Tell me a Crow witch with a grudge and a bag full of teeth isn’t an asset. Besides, this is the one that got Jasimir all the way to Draga in the first place. She can manage herself.”
“And there won’t be a … distraction for you?” his handler asked pointedly.
Khoda coughed. “Women typically aren’t.”
Fie raised her eyebrows but said naught. She couldn’t help thinking Tavin would have been less thorny with Khoda if he’d known.
“Hmph. Four naka more for the palace.” The handler counted naka into Khoda’s palm with an air of significance that told Fie this wasn’t just about the coins. “So far, it’s been worth the new investment. We would have lost half our staff to a … policy change, if we hadn’t had early word. But it’s a risk to have someone so—”
“I’m keeping an eye on it,” Khoda said swiftly. “Where do you want this delivered?”
The handler blinked at him, gaze darting to Fie once again, then passed over two scrolls, two heavy clay tokens, and two slips of parchment. One read Ebrim Kamiro, Repairs Master, Maintenance Division; the other Yula Haovi, Cleaning Manager, Maintenance Division.
“Be quick,” the handler said. “Two dawns from now, the crown burns white.”
Fie had given up trying to parse their double meanings, but that one she got all too clear. Two days until Rhusana took the throne, and with her, the Oleander Gentry.
“The sun will rise,” Khoda said shortly.
His handler nodded, grim. “Even from our ashes.”
That seemed to be some sort of signal, for Khoda turned on a heel. Fie followed him, feeling the handler’s eyes on her as they strode from Magistrate’s Row.
“What in the twelve hells does that mean?” she hissed to Khoda once they were a respectable distance away.
“It’s our creed.” He handed her a scroll, a token, and a parchment slip. “It means we do whatever necessary to keep order. The master-general was right, Black Swans deal in the kind of secrets that can tear a nation apart. Our entire purpose is preventing that, no matter what. Even if we ourselves must burn.”
“Sounds uplifting,” she drawled.
Khoda tucked his scroll into his belt. “My creed is what kept Steward Burzo from sending your hair to the queen with the next message-hawk. I had to make a call about which was better for Sabor: keeping my own cover, or losing it to keep you free of Rhusana’s control. You know how I chose.”
“I don’t think the fate of the nation hangs on one Crow girl,” Fie returned.
He pursed his lips. “You’re just a Crow girl to people who benefit from you being just a Crow. From what I’ve seen, you’re a witch who can use every Birthright with the right tools, and you understand how to exploit what people expect of you. That’s how you got the queen to give you Phoenix teeth, how you fooled the master-general of the royal legions into saving your family, and how you convinced her to honor Jasimir’s oath. You don’t just survive, you turn tables on the most powerful people in the nation.” He shot a look at her. “And now I’m betting that’s how you’re going to get Jasimir on the throne.”
There were too many yous in there for Fie’s liking. She’d done what any chief could do, and only because Pa’s soul had been tied up in it all. And now Khoda was making it sound like if things got dire enough, she could just whip up a miracle on demand.
He meant it as encouragement, that Fie knew. But all she could hear was Even if we ourselves must burn.
* * *
It was dismayingly easy for them to walk into the royal palace.
Khoda had explained on the way up that this was the easiest way to smuggle a witch in; Pigeon witches were so rare and so powerful that Sabor was doubly sure not to let any slip through their grasp. Every single Pigeon witch was strictly accounted for at all times.
Pigeon couriers, on the other hand, were both harmless and commonplace. There was precious little point in screening for witches that were already accounted for. When they approached the gate for servants’ use, the Hawks just eyeballed them for weapons, validated their courier tokens, and waved them through with a spare guard for escort and a warning to keep the cat under control.
All Fie had to do was maintain the Peacock glamour that covered her witch-sign. She made a mental note to warn Jasimir about it once they cleared him out of the prison.
Then she remembered she’d all but abandoned him, and wondered if he’d speak to her at all.
The guard led them down corridors tiled and graveled, some walled in lattice, others no more than a fine roof supported by slender columns carved like spouts of golden fire. Whatever wind may have made it into the palace grounds seemed to get tangled between its intricately carved walls, leaving little relief from the smothering afternoon sun.
Khoda named different buildings they passed under his breath: the library, the dining hall for servants, the servants’ living quarters. Fie tried not to ogle the splendor, even
of the plainest buildings. The first and last time she’d been in the royal palace, it had been dark as pitch. She still resented the gilt and filigree with every bone in her body, but it was easy to see now why Jasimir had missed living in such finery.
The farther into the palace grounds they got, the more the ground hummed below her feet with the steady, hungry song she heard in Phoenix teeth. Pa had told her all the Phoenix gods were buried below the royal palace, making such a well of power that any Phoenix could call fire on royal ground, whether or not they were a witch. She’d missed it before, when she’d not yet called on the fire Birthright, but it was nigh impossible to ignore now.
The Hawk guard walked them to a square, sturdy building, still laden with flourishes of gold flame and curling feathers. He jabbed his spear at the door. “Their offices are on the second floor. Have Kamiro or Haovi show you out, and don’t forget to show your tokens.”
Khoda bowed. Fie, unaccustomed to bowing to anyone unless she was mocking them, hurried to do the same. The guard didn’t seem to notice as he headed back the way they’d come.
Fie and Khoda went inside, Fie blinking to adjust to the dark. A set of stairs led them to the second floor, where they found Ebrim Kamiro’s office labeled in a neat, clear hand.
“Courier,” Khoda called at the sliding canvas-screen door. “Messages for Ebrim Kamiro and…”
“Yula Haovi,” Fie finished.
The screen door slid aside, and a woman in her fifties peered out. “From Magistrate’s Row?”
“Ay—yes,” Fie said.
The woman winced. “Oh, you’re going to take work. Come in, hurry.”
A man stood at the shelves in the back of the office, digging through a wooden crate of what appeared to be various tools. “The entire point of having my office, Yula, is that I decide who’s allowed in.”
Yula rolled her eyes at him and shut the door behind Khoda and Fie, nearly catching Barf’s tail. The tabby flicked it out of the way with a disdainful glower. “Well, you can decide who’s allowed in, Ebrim, if you ever decide to answer your own wretched door.”
He vaguely waved a pair of pincers at her, then set them on a shelf, grumbling into his crate. A moment later he surfaced with another, smaller pair of pincers, frowned at those, and started for his desk. “You can speak freely here; at this hour there’s no one but us on this floor. Just keep your voices down. You’ll change into servant’s uniforms, and then we’ll stow you in the sick room for the Sparrows, long as there’s no need for it.” Ebrim shook out a plain roll of hide, and with a start, Fie realized it was a map of the palace grounds. “This can’t leave my office. Hawks check for it every day. Here’s where we are.” He jabbed a finger into a corner. “I have open repair requests for most every part of the palace, so you can go anywhere you need to search. Your first order of business is finding His Highness, right?”
When Ebrim looked up, Fie found a surprising amount of distress in the man’s eyes. He was younger than Yula by a good decade or two, his sandy-brown face clean-shaven but his dark hair still graying at the temples; likely he’d been in palace service before Jasimir was born and had watched the prince grow up.
Khoda shifted. “Our top priority is making sure the coro—”
“Crown prince is safe, then getting him out,” Fie interrupted. Khoda shot her a look. She ignored it. “I’m one of the Crows who came for him back in Pigeon Moon. No way he pulled that stunt off without help from your ranks, aye?”
Yula ducked her head. “His Highness was known for … intervening,” she said. “When the king was in one of his rages, or when a courtier wanted to show off how they toyed with us, His Highness would sway them to mercy as best he could. It cost him plenty of friends a royal could use. We owed him.”
“Aye. Sparrows were the only ones I saw mourning him for true.” Fie folded her arms. “We’ll need anything you can tell us about the coronation ceremony, too. If we can’t throw it off, the prince won’t have a crown to claim.”
Yula nodded. “They’ve had half my crew scrubbing down nigh every inch of the Hall of the Dawn. We’ll keep open ears.”
“There are some places they can’t possibly be holding the prince.” Ebrim scoured his desk, then picked up his pincers and dropped them on the Hall of the Dawn and the Hawk barracks. He added a pot of nails over the library, scraps of parchment over the servants’ quarters, and a small potted plant over the armory. “The library’s too open. Same with the armory, and we’d know if he’s in any of our buildings.”
Khoda stepped closer to the map, brow furrowing. “We’d be looking for a room that’s probably been cleaned out in the last week. It would be isolated, probably the only one on its floor in use, and somewhere one or two people could come and go without drawing much notice.”
“Let me look through our requests,” Yula said. “I’ll have a list for you this evening.”
“Our thanks,” Fie said, then squinted at the map as well. “Maybe look for aught that’s close to the royal quarters, too. Rhusana won’t want to inconvenience herself when checking on him.”
“Nor will that faithless bastard Hawk.” Yula’s face darkened. “All those years he’s been at His Highness’s side, and now he turns.”
That caught Fie like a sucker punch. Khoda must have seen, for he piped up. “I don’t know what the queen offered him. I can only hope it was worth it.”
My life. The knowledge burned at Fie like a coal caught in her throat. The price was not worth it, yet Fie had every intent to show Tavin the worth of what he’d bought.
* * *
That night, they narrowed down Yula’s list to seven rooms near the royal quarters, debating each by lantern-light in the servants’ quarters’ sick rooms as Fie reworked her chief’s string to add new teeth, more string, and a small clay Vulture charm-bead from Viimo. When she was done, it was long enough to be a belt, one she could hide under her plain linen shirt and royal servants’ golden sash if need be. She’d always found it easiest to call a tooth to life as it rolled between her palms, but the tooth just touching her skin would have to be enough. One glimpse of a tooth necklace and she’d give them all away.
They had only a few hours of sleep before Ebrim arrived with the toll of the palace hour-bells in the dim predawn, bearing repair request slips for each area. He also had day-old sweet rolls stuffed with dates and almonds for their breakfast and a fish head for Barf’s.
“Remember,” he told them, trying to ignore the tabby rolling gleefully on his sandals, “you say you’re there to assess the issue that needs repair. If anyone asks, show them the signed request. If a Hawk or Peacock tells you to clear out…”
“Aye, you don’t need to tell me,” Fie said around a mouthful of stale roll. “We’ll clear out.”
Ebrim gave her a meaningful look. “Yes. And you’ll do it with a bow and an apology.”
Fie swallowed with a grimace. “Yes.”
They tried to leave Barf shut in the room while they slipped down the dark, silent hall; most servants wouldn’t be up for another half hour. However, they had not planned for her squeezing through the bars on the window, and they had no more than set foot out the door when she trotted up, chirping. Khoda swore under his breath.
“Pa said she’s lucky,” Fie said with a shrug. “And I’ve only three Pigeon witch-teeth, so we’ll need what we can get.”
They hurried first to the archives, where several large closets had been cleared out in a mostly empty tower. The Hawks on guard let them in with a yawn, and Barf entertained herself terrorizing the local rodent population, but their “assessment” only turned up the tax records for provincial grain farmers of a hundred years ago.
The next room was in a corner of an unused cellar near the icehouse on the other side of the palace grounds … or at least, that’s where Fie thought it to be. Khoda was the one who knew the palace’s layout.
The sun hadn’t quite climbed over the horizon, and by the easing gloom, all the buildings looked like c
oiling limbs of the same terrible creature, with their scaly tiled domes, fans of golden feathered trim, and spines of arched windows. The dreadful hum of dead Phoenix gods simmered beneath her soles like a drawn-out pulse.
Somewhere in this gilded beast was Tavin. Somewhere was Rhusana. Would they come to Fie, or would she have to carve them out herself?
She could only hope to end this all before she had any need to learn her way around the palace’s tripes.
They had just strolled past a row of columns, each large as one of Gen-Mara’s magnolias, when a shout echoed from the open walkway behind them. “You there! Sparrow!”
Fie caught her breath and turned. Twenty paces away, a Peacock lord was beckoning them, looking peevish.
“Keep looking,” Khoda muttered in a rush, shoving the repair request slips at her, “and use Viimo.” Then he shouted, “Right away, m’lord!” and jogged off before Fie could so much as squeak a protest. All she could do was watch him walk away with the Peacock lord, bowing intermittently, until they vanished round a corner.
For a moment, Fie couldn’t breathe.
She was alone in the home of her enemies. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t know how to get back to Ebrim’s office. She didn’t dare ask for help.
If she froze much longer, a Hawk patrol was bound to notice, and then it’d all be over.
Pa would know what to do. Fie’s hand crept toward his tooth—then dropped. It was too soon to burn it already. She had other teeth. And that had been all she’d needed before.
The rhythmic stomps of a patrol caught at the edge of her hearing. Fie reached for her Sparrow witch-tooth, then paused. The invisibility would only last so long, and unless she knew where to go, she could burn that tooth clean out and never find Jasimir.
Instead, she chose the Pigeon witch-tooth.
Pa had never given her a Pigeon witch’s tooth to use before now; he’d only had her practice burning two plain Pigeon teeth at once and tweaking fortune in small ways. The footsteps drew nearer. She ducked into an alcove, fishing under her shirt to pry the tooth free. If she was to call on one now, she’d do it proper.
The Faithless Hawk Page 15
