The tooth keened as Fie rolled it between her palms, the spark popping free like a cork. She blinked. Abruptly, the world shifted, unshifted, and rattled with potential.
Naught looked different; naught looked the same. She could hear, see, taste the currents of fortune: a whorl of bad luck on the walkway where Khoda had been called away, a bloom of good fortune unfurling around her. The footsteps of the Hawk patrol stopped.
“Tell you what, soldiers.” The voice seeped out from beyond a nearby gate. “If we leave now, we can beat Unit Seventeen for breakfast.” A chorus of assent later, the footsteps had retreated in the opposite direction.
Fie let out a breath, then tried to focus. She needed to find Jas. If there was any time for a stroke of fortune in her search, it would be now.
Another servant passed them, looking almost bewildered by the tray in his hands. Barf perked up, shedding ripples of good luck like a winter coat. She chirped and scurried over to follow the Sparrow man, the end of her tail twitching like a flag in a trifling wind.
Fie didn’t see any other sources of luck; Pa seemed to have been right about the tabby after all. She followed her cat.
They turned into a peculiar parade, the servant weaving through gates and corridors as Barf mewed at his heels, Fie darting behind statues and columns every time he turned to try to shoo the cat away to no avail. The few Hawks in sight peeled off from their posts as fortune nudged them away, recalling an errand or struck with an urge to use the privy.
The hum of Phoenix god-graves rose the farther they went, until they turned into a grand, arcing hall. Rich gilt and scrollwork crawled up the columns, and six towering golden statues stood sentinel in alcoves along one wall, facing six more across the way. Fire wreathed the bottom of each in a shallow moat, enough to deter anyone from laying hands on the towering statues, but not so much to damage the urns, lesser icons, and other trappings clustered into the alcove with them.
Fie didn’t know the Phoenix gods all too well, but their graves sang below her feet loud enough to tell her where she stood. Ebrim’s map had showed two great curved chambers flanking the Hall of the Dawn to the north and south, standing over the two burial grounds of the dead gods. They’d been labeled as the Divine Galleries.
The servant slipped behind a statue, fiddled with something, sent one more furtive look around, and tried to take a step back.
Barf had coiled round his ankles. He toppled to the ground with a yelp and a clang as the tray went flying. The smell of fish stew reached Fie even from the tapestry she’d ducked behind, as did the man’s flurry of curses. Moments later he stormed out of the hall, mumbling something about finding the cleaning staff.
Fie bolted to the back of the statue. Barf was far too fixed on cleaning up the fallen stew to pay her much mind, looking very satisfied with herself. Fie’s Pigeon witch-tooth was starting to burn low, but it didn’t take a work of fortune to see that the head on a guardian dog statue had turned at a strange angle, one that didn’t match the dog statue beside it. She pushed it all the way around.
A door-size section of the statue’s pedestal lowered over the flames, carving a path across them and into the statue’s base.
The fading currents of fortune had little to say about this development. Whether that meant going in would be good or bad, Fie couldn’t tell.
“Stay here,” Fie muttered to the cat, knowing she had absolutely no say in the matter, and headed in.
Firelight cut the darkness, revealing a marble staircase that wound down in a spiral, studded in cut-iron lanterns burning with a pale flame. Fie had made it halfway down when a voice echoed up, distant and familiar.
It was a voice that nailed her in place where she stood.
“… talk to me.” A long pause. “Please, Jas. I-I’ll get you out of here, I’ll get you somewhere better. Just say anything.”
Fie had thought quite a bit about what she would do the next time she saw Tavin. Mostly it involved knives, and demanding answers, and leaving him bleeding out in despair; always it made her weep.
She found now that for all her fury, more than anything, she just wanted to run.
There was a low mumble. Tavin didn’t answer for a moment. When it came, all he said was “You wouldn’t understand.”
She had to get out. She had to get away from him before she did something foolish. She had to run.
She took a step back, and her luck finally gave out: her servant uniform slipper had picked up grease from the stew. It skidded out from under her. She slipped and smacked into the marble steps.
A tense silence fell. She scrambled to her feet fast as she could.
“Hello?” Tavin called up the stairs. “Who’s there?”
Fie tore her slipper off and bolted up the steps two at a time, clutching it in her hand. She heard Tavin hurrying up the stairs behind her, mercifully still out of sight.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Identify yourself!”
Fie stumbled out of the passageway and back into the grand gallery. Barf was still licking the splatters of fallen stew. If Tavin saw her … Fie tossed her slipper at the cat, who sent her an indignant glare and scuttled off to sulk behind an urn.
Tavin’s footsteps had nearly reached the top of the stairs. She couldn’t hide fast enough without burning one of her precious Sparrow witch-teeth, she couldn’t flee the hall fast enough for him to miss, nothing was fast enough to get out—
The notion struck swift as lightning. Fie ran to the other side of the statue, calling a Peacock tooth in her belt.
You, it seemed to hiss as its spark snapped free. Fie sucked a breath through her teeth, then called a Peacock witch-tooth to life as well.
The harmony was hard to strike—two different notes, two different songs—but she didn’t have time to negotiate. She yanked them into cooperation and wove the image around herself in a blink of an eye: the vivid memory of a long, glossy braid, a rich brocade gown, bracelets and armbands as befit a Peacock family’s heir.
The spitting image of Prince Jasimir emerged from behind the statue, even though Fie knew it was Tavin wearing his face.
And Fie turned to him with a look of genteel surprise, wearing the face of Niemi Navali szo Sakar, the Peacock girl whose throat she’d cut just two weeks earlier.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LADY SAKAR
It was unnerving, seeing Jasimir’s face on a figure that moved like Tavin. She’d woven plenty glamours just like it for him before, when they’d fled across the country, but it was different when she’d painted those features herself. Besides, whatever Peacock witch they’d found to do it was clearly skilled; if she hadn’t known Jasimir to be locked away somewhere below, she’d have wondered if he’d broken out on his own. They’d even foregone a topknot like the one Jasimir once sported, spinning instead the same finger-length straight, dark hair he’d had at Draga’s camp.
But all it took was the sharp way he scanned the hall, shoulders stiff, for Fie to be certain. Tavin’s eyes narrowed on her.
“Excuse me,” he said tightly. The voice was still unmistakably his own, yet close enough to Jas to fool all but the few of us who knew them well. “No one is allowed inside the Divine Gallery at this time. How did you get in?”
Fie stared at him, score upon score of curses and questions and threats banging about her skull, none so loudly as Why? Panic and rage warred behind her eyes.
None of it would help her now.
Tavin frowned and took a step closer. “Can you understand me?”
Answer, she had to answer—all she wanted to do was push him into the fire herself—what would a Peacock girl say? She’d seen but a brief glimpse of the Sakar girl’s life before shaking the memories down to build her glamour; Niemi had been a gossip, a liar, and beloved in the mansions of the north.
Oh, let me, the spark of the tooth sighed impatiently. Fie’s head flooded with words, gestures, like a mother teaching her child the steps of a dance.
“I apologize,” Fie said with
a graceful bow, shocked to hear her voice smooth out to a delicate purr. “Your Highness startled me. I was simply out for a morning walk, and I’m afraid I seem to have gotten lost. You see, my family’s only here for your coronation.”
He smiled a flat smile, only as polite as custom dictated. She hadn’t shaken his suspicions yet. “Where were you trying to go?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Fie saw Barf sidle out from behind the urn to sniff at the remains of the stew. It took everything she had not to throw her other slipper at the cat. I need a distraction, she thought frantically.
Then stop trying to be clever, the Peacock girl’s spark sneered back.
Fie felt her features relax into something empty and pleasant. “Only around the gardens, Your Highness. I thought I’d walked back to the guest quarters, since I saw a servant leaving in such a hurry.” Astonishingly, the spark nudged her back toward the statue, words bubbling to her lips. “Is there an exit over here? I’ll just leave this way.”
The moment Fie took a step in that direction, a hand wrapped around her arm. “No—!” Tavin cut himself off as she turned to face him, eyelashes fluttering like palm fans.
He’s hardly going to let you go back there, Niemi’s voice whispered between her ears. Now he’s the one scrambling for excuses.
Sure enough, he looked stymied, even rattled.
“Your Highness?” Fie asked, hating the Peacock girl’s satin-sleek tone.
A frown tugged at his mouth. “I … need you to tell me about the servant you saw.”
Another dilemma. If she accidentally described a real Sparrow servant, she’d be bringing a hell down on their heads—
You little fool, the Peacock spark scoffed. They’re servants.
“I must apologize, Your Highness,” Niemi said through Fie. “I do not pay them much attention.”
“Nor do I.” To Fie’s horror, Tavin’s dark eyes roved over her rigidly blank face and seemed to like what he saw. He let go, but calloused fingertips grazed her upper arm, brief but shocking. A jolt went through Fie’s gut.
Anytime he’d reached for her in the last moon, his hands had lingered just so, as if to delay letting go just a heartbeat longer.
She missed it.
She hated it.
She thought it had been only for her.
“Forgive me,” Tavin said with a bow of his own, blissfully unaware that she wanted to tear his heart out with her bare hands. How dare he lay hands on her again, while she wore a stranger’s face. “I’ve been atrociously rude. I’d introduce myself, but…”
Fie didn’t need a Peacock’s help to say, sweet as poison, “I know who you are.”
He smiled as he righted himself. How dare he forget her so swift. A dagger hung at his belt. If she was fast enough—no. She’d seen how fast he could move.
Fool! the Peacock girl scolded again. Pay attention! He asked for your name!
Already Fie was doubting her choice to call this tooth. Yet she had an answer that would serve her purpose, and vex the ghost in the bone, a victory on every front.
“I am Niemi Navali szo Sakar,” Fie lied.
The spark in the tooth sputtered with rage. Tavin extended a courteous elbow. “It’s a poor apology, but I insist on escorting you back to the gardens. Or would you rather return to the guest quarters, Lady Sakar?”
“To the gardens, if you please, Your Highness,” she said hastily. They had to be coming up on the hourly bell, when it would be time to send a signal to Viimo. “I was trying to find the amber-pods.”
She twined her arm through his and tried not to shiver where they touched, fear and anger not quite stifling the part of her that still leapt at the contact.
“You must have just missed them,” Tavin said. “They’re on the west side of the guest quarters.”
Keep playing the fool, Niemi commanded. You’re adept enough at it.
Fie rankled, but the dead girl had a point, and Niemi had guided her this far. “I must have,” she agreed. Behind them, Barf let out a quiet, grumpy mew as she trotted to catch up. Tavin started to look behind him.
“Are you nervous?” Fie blurted out, capturing his gaze once more. “I mean … for your coronation ceremony.”
He smiled thinly at her, steering them out the entrance she’d snuck through to begin with. “You could say that. It’s been a … difficult time.”
Fie smiled with empty sympathy as they exited the Divine Gallery, mind racing. Getting lost was only a half lie; she still had no sense of where she was in the palace. This was a chance to map more of the grounds for herself if she could light an Owl tooth for memory … but when she’d called on two teeth or more, they’d always been of the same Birthright. The glamour itself wasn’t the problem: once she woke the witch-tooth and told it what to do, they more or less sustained themselves until the tooth burned itself out. The problem was that she needed the dead Sakar girl to keep whispering in her skull, and for that, Fie had to keep her spark singing.
Say something! the Peacock girl hissed, even now.
“I can’t imagine taking the throne at your age,” Fie fumbled. Not her best, but at least it was Tavin’s move now.
Each step was an opportunity lost. She couldn’t lose her guide to this dreadful, glittering world. But they didn’t have time for her to sort out the lay of the palace.
Fie gritted her teeth and called an Owl tooth to life.
This time it clanged against the Peacock song in her bones. She shut her eyes, trying to find a balance; it felt like listening to two different conversations at once and following neither.
Then, suddenly, they settled into harmony. No, not quite harmony … alliance. The teeth sang in her bones as two separate songs, uneasy but aligned for now. Glimpses of Niemi’s memories flared in her mind bright and sharp: a thousand conversations she had performed like a surgeon, slicing with backhanded compliments, stitching feigned sympathy, winching a tourniquet of rumor.
Tavin was asking her something. She blinked up at him, trying to focus. “S-so sorry, Your Highness, I was distracted by”—Fie waved a hand vaguely at a passing marble sculpture—“that statue. It’s quite…” It appeared to be a Phoenix queen stepping on a pile of dead invaders. “… lifelike.”
Tavin ran a hand over his mouth. Even with Jasimir’s features, the expression was wholly his own: she’d managed to sell herself to him as a fool, one who was only mildly amusing. “The Phoenix heritage is a glorious one,” he said, bland.
It was what he’d given her caste up for. Fie bit her tongue on that, but the curl of wrath went nowhere, searing up her spine.
The voice of Niemi rang in her head, borne louder and stronger now on the strains of Owl memory-song. You can still make him bleed for it, little fool. You know his every wound.
That she did. Besides, her head swam with the seasick feeling of burning dissonant teeth. She needed Tavin distracted before her fool act gave way.
And she didn’t need steel to make him suffer. “It must be terrible, losing your father like that. He was such a wonderful king.”
Tavin’s left fist curled, his Peacock glamour hiding the burn scars King Surimir had left.
“We all miss him,” Tavin said through his teeth.
She wasn’t done with him, not by a league. Not when she had mere weeks to save her kin from the death he’d chosen for them. “And the queen is also being crowned? Will you be consorts?”
He looked like he’d stepped in surprise dung, and nearly ran into a line of servants bearing perfumed garlands toward the Hall of the Dawn.
“No,” Tavin said quickly, “no. We will both rule, and both be free to find our own consorts. Come on, this is a shortcut.” He stepped off the walkway, leading them through hedges trimmed into tigers, phoenixes, gods; they passed grand lapis lazuli–encrusted fountains and beds of sunrise glory blossoms tentatively unfurling in the morning glow. The Owl tooth hummed steady in her bones, charting it all for her.
Part of her despised it, for every time
she remembered this garden, she would be drawn back to Tavin once more.
A heady perfume flooded Fie’s nose, and a moment later, they strolled through a pristine archway into a grove of amber-pod trees wreathing an empty pavilion. Branches dangled like garlands, thick with waxy leaves and clusters of translucent gold petals. Some were painstakingly woven into the roof of the pavilion to make a ceiling of shimmering blooms.
“Here we are. You’ll be at the ceremony tonight?” Tavin unwound his arm from hers.
Fie tried to ignore how her side felt cold for his absence. “Ay—yes.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for you, Lady Sakar.” He caught her hand, bowed again, and brushed his lips to her knuckles.
She froze.
Tavin straightened, smiled, and slipped through the archway without another word.
All her teeth dropped from her command, cold and silent. The glamour vanished, the song died, and she was no longer a makeshift duchess but one more nameless Sparrow servant. A false one at that.
The amber-pods swayed before her, but it took a wave of belly-sickness to ken why. She sat hard on one of the pavilion’s stone benches, the chill of the carved granite creeping through her linen trousers. Barf emerged from the shrubbery a moment later and leapt up to curl beside her, grooming a forepaw as Fie rested her head between her knees.
She’d gone light-headed when she’d first learned to call three teeth at once, so of course calling two different Birthrights would turn her belly. It wasn’t quite alike; calling three of the same teeth felt like the difference between spotting a ship at sea and viewing it through a spyglass, if she were the spyglass. Balancing two different Birthrights at once, though …
They didn’t swell or howl or rattle her bones. They made her balance them like cogs in a great machine, finding just the way to turn one so it moved the other. But there was a curious strength in it: none of her teeth had burned out, or even come halfway. They should have been nigh used up by now.
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