Something caught her eye. She lifted her arm from the water and squinted.
If she looked close enough, there was a strange whirl of a pattern on her forearm, well above the witch-mark on her wrist. It almost looked like …
Something impossible. She’d just wear long sleeves until it passed.
A faint, piercing sound made her jump. It was familiar—too familiar. A whistle, muted but clear.
She knew it. Didn’t she?
The whistle came again. It was a Crow signal, an order.
Up. That was what it meant. Up.
Fie woke with a start. The room around her was dark, the faint snores of Jasimir and Khoda both holding steady. Jasimir had claimed the couch, and Khoda a heap of cushions, both inundated with sleeping cats. Last time she’d counted, they now had seven in their purview, including Barf, but Barf had staunchly refused to share the bed with anyone or anything except Fie. The intricate window screen had been left ajar just enough to let the mousers come and go as they pleased.
It gave a slight rattle. Fie saw no sign of a cat.
Every nerve afire, she slid from the bed and crept to the window.
The screen rattled again. This time she was close enough to see the culprit: a thrown pebble.
She barely held in a noise of disgust and peered outside. Sure enough, Tavin was standing below, only a few paces away, lit in moonlight that had only diminished slightly since the solstice. His face broke into a grin when he saw her.
Fie made a bewildered gesture. He pointed to the ground, then held out his arms, mouthing, I’ll catch you!
She debated a moment, then lied to herself that she might gather valuable information, coaxed the screen open, and threw a leg over the jamb. Barf yawned from the foot of the bed but curled into a tighter ball.
It isn’t even that far of a drop, Fie thought with the kind of disdain she invoked for things she secretly enjoyed. The window was just high enough to discourage intruders, taller than Tavin by maybe half his height.
He reached up to help Fie scoot off the frame, fingers pressing into her hips in a way that was distracting and not helpful at all, and there was a wretched moment when he looked up and she looked down, bracing herself on his shoulders, only to find their faces much too close again, and all she could think of was how he didn’t smell the same in the palace as on the road, but close enough that it was still him—
Tavin set her on the ground, then took her hand in his, jabbing a free thumb toward the royal quarters. She goggled at him. If he’d woken her up just to tumble somewhere private, she might murder him ahead of schedule.
Tavin read the look on her face and frantically shook his head. “I want to show you something,” he whispered, then cringed. “That … didn’t come out right. There’s something I want you to see?”
“Is it in your trousers?” she asked doubtfully. “Because I—” Fie caught herself. She’d almost said she’d seen it before, which Niemi certainly had not. “I … can guess,” she mumbled instead.
His teeth flashed in a sheepish laugh. “No, nothing like that. It’s not even in the royal quarters, just the private gardens.”
Fie waited for Niemi’s spark to feed her an answer. There was only silence. Belatedly, she remembered throwing the tooth across the room. She swallowed.
She was on her own with Tavin now.
“Oh,” Fie said. “That’s, er, fine.”
He didn’t tarry in the gardens, instead cutting as straight a line to the royal quarters as possible. There was a magic to it: no Hawks on guard troubled them, only bowing their heads as he passed. They even opened the doors to the royal quarters for him, easy as could be.
Tavin led her right through those too, avoiding the stairs entirely. He didn’t even stop to pick up a lamp, letting a golden flame roll off his hand instead to light the way. In less than a minute they were back outside, on a stone path bordered in dense, dark hedges.
“You don’t have to, but it’s better if you close your eyes,” Tavin said.
Fie weighed it a heartbeat, but decided if this was any sort of trick, she was rutted anyway. She shut her eyes and let him steer her down the walkway, one hand between her shoulder blades. The air grew cooler, damper on her skin, a soft rush building in her ears. The scent of some strange flower drifted through the air, honey-sweet and light as a soap bubble.
They came to a stop. “You can look now,” Tavin said, close enough to her ear to send goose bumps down her arms.
Fie opened her eyes.
They stood at the edge of a broad, dark pond, facing the stone cliffs that made up the westernmost end of the palace. A waterfall traced a white veil down the stone, splashing into the far end of the pond. To either side, dozens, maybe hundreds, of thin streams fell like threads, some filling the smaller pools bracketing the main one.
A golden glow lit the waters, cast twice: once from patches of rock-moss along the pond bottom, and once from clusters of scarlet lilies bobbing on the pond’s surface, the pollen at their hearts shining like candleflames. The lilies were everywhere, spilling over the edges of the smaller pools, drifting in sedate rafts on the main pond, even sprouting in the tiny pools carved out of the cliff face by stubborn, tiny waterfalls.
Dimly she saw ornate statues, majestic fountains, an absurd gazebo or two, but she knew this was what he’d brought her here for: the one thing no craftsman could shape, no king could commission.
“They’re called lantern-lilies,” Tavin said, his hand warm on her back. “They’ve tried growing them in other parts of Sabor, but this is the only place where they’ll shine by night.” He ducked his head. “Everything you’ve seen here has been disasters and death threats and the worst of all this … this trash. I wanted you to see something beautiful.”
There was a shaking edge to his voice, one she knew he couldn’t fake, one that matched the tremble of his hand on her. This wasn’t real enough; it was real, in the way his room had been real, in the way that said it mattered to him. He might not love Niemi, but he would at least do this much for her, offer as much beauty as he could in a court of monsters.
Fie found herself reconsidering her stance on tumbling him somewhere private. But it would be selfish, lying with him just to tell herself she was in control, and it would be cruel, making him continue his mummery all the way to bed.
“Why have you been so kind to me?” Fie asked instead.
Tavin looked so sad for a moment, she wanted to cry herself. When he spoke, he sounded tired, but he gave her his best attempt at a smile anyway. “You remind me of someone.”
Fie couldn’t make herself smile back, didn’t know why the next question couldn’t stay bottled up. “Is that why you kissed me earlier?”
Tavin winced. “Yes.”
Fie raised her hand, let it lie against the side of his face. “Would you like to do it again?”
His breath caught. “Yes.”
She drew him to her. It wasn’t feverish and feral, like that morning in the tomb. The way their lips met this time was deliberate, slow, gentle in a way that broke her heart, so sweet, too sweet. It was peace in the storm, one more scrap of beauty to hold on to.
And like all beautiful things, it ended too soon. Tavin pulled away, resting his forehead on hers a heartbeat or two. Then he told her, “I should let you get some rest. I’ll walk you back.”
She wished, for a terrible moment, that she could be the kind of girl who would be happy with him like this. That all his kindnesses here, all his sorrow, all his regret—they would let her forgive him for the choice he had made in Draga’s tent.
But the awful truth they both knew, and neither could say, was that it was not enough.
Tavin didn’t speak again until they reached the guest quarters, though his fingers stayed laced with hers. “The queen is holding a ball four days from now, on the twenty-first, to mark one week left until the coronation. Honestly, I’m pretty sure she’s doing it just to prove she can throw an event without casualties for on
ce. Will you do me the honor?”
Another opportunity to spy, she told herself, not convinced at all. “Yes,” she told him. “I’d be…”
She trailed off, startled. A familiar sight had snatched up her attention whole.
“What’s wrong?” Tavin followed her gaze over the rooftops of the palace buildings. His own eyes widened.
Two unmistakable columns of fire and smoke rose from two of the palace’s three gates.
With or without the queen’s permission, the plague beacons burned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DEPUTY CAT-MASTER
“The beacons are out now,” Yula announced in a low voice as she unloaded breakfast from the cleaning cart.
Fie pushed an overly interested orange tomcat away from the panbread and set it on the table. The beacons had given her a handy excuse to sneak back in the night before, claiming she’d seen smoke in the sky and gone out to see what it was. “Did Crows answer?”
Yula shook her head. “The sick are all still here, and then some. They found another five Sparrows with the Sinner’s Brand, on top of the first three. Some of them have to sleep outside the quarantine hut. There’s no room for them inside.”
“That’s faster than it usually spreads, right?” Jasimir asked Fie.
She chewed a strip of panbread, thinking. “It doesn’t spread like this, period, unless there’s a dead sinner somewhere that’s been left to rot. Like with Karostei. But Khoda saw it. It didn’t just spread fast, it killed fast. No one’s gotten worse since yesterday?” Yula shook her head. “None of it stacks up right.”
Khoda blew out a slow breath, thinking. “I need to go check in with my sources,” he said finally, scratching at the still-healing lines on his face. “I’m sure the Hawks had direct orders not to light the beacons, so I need to find out who’s willing to spit in the queen’s face. You two stay here. Especially you, cat-master. You can try to get harnesses on your employees.”
Jasimir made an annoyed noise but didn’t argue, picking at his panbread as Fie wove Khoda a glamour and tossed him the tooth to keep it going.
Once Khoda and Yula had left, the prince waited until they were sure to be well on their way out, then turned to Fie and asked, “What are your thoughts on breaking into the royal quarters?”
She choked on her panbread. He pounded her on the back and shoved water her way, and eventually she coughed out, “What?”
“Breaking into the royal quarters,” Jasimir repeated, as if he’d merely proposed a walk around the Midday Pavilion. “You and me. We know Rhusana’s hiding something. Maybe we can find some clue about what it is. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What happened to Prince”—Fie fluttered her hands, warbled her voice, and mummed dewy-eyed dismay—“‘Oh no we can’t, it’s the la-a-a-w!’”
“First of all, ‘we can’t, it’s the law’ is not the wildly unreasonable statement you’re pretending it is,” Jasimir said peevishly. “Second, you know what happened, you were there for most of it. Do you want to do it or not?”
“I want to know how,” Fie said.
Jasimir picked up a cat harness and gave it a shake. One of the cats raced over, a handsome silver fellow with darker spots. “Good Patpat,” the prince hummed, and picked up the cat.
“Patpat?”
Jasimir scowled at Fie. “He pats you when he wants attention. Look, I had to come up with a lot of names at once. Point is”—he started feeding Patpat’s forepaws into the harness, a curious little canvas-and-leather vest—“Patpat’s a mouser. And he’s quiet. Rhusana leaves food everywhere in the royal quarters. When I left in Pigeon Moon, the mice problem was so bad, they’d already had to triple the number of summons to the pest control office. The guard will be on high alert and reading castes at every entrance, but you can sneak us in with a Sparrow witch-tooth, and no one will ask questions if we’re already inside.”
Fie nodded thoughtfully. “We can let the cat run around, go where we please, and if the tooth burns out, we’ll just say we’re looking for Patpat.”
“Exactly.”
“Khoda will hate that we didn’t run this by him,” Fie said.
Jasimir nodded. “Correct.”
“But I can wear the deputy cat-master badge.”
“Correct.”
Fie considered a moment. “So we should definitely break into the royal quarters, is what I’m hearing.”
Jasimir grinned at her. “Correct.”
* * *
“We ought to have a talk about your security,” Fie whispered to the prince a half hour later, as they crept into King Surimir’s personal study and closed the door.
Jasimir looked about the room, hands planted on his hips. “They’re doing their best. Besides, if you weren’t here, I’d need a sophisticated team of specialists to replace you—a Sparrow witch, a Peacock witch, a Vulture witch … A little over their paygrade.” He walked over to the desk and pulled a drawer open. “It’s all been cleaned out.”
Fie squinted at the empty shelves, running a finger along the gaps. Enough dust to account for a few weeks’ absence, and no more. The queen’s official study had been dustier, with only a few scattered quills and scrolls to ratify the illusion that she used it.
But … “She wouldn’t win over the Oleander Gentry with empty words. And if they only cared for her powers, they’d have turned once her hair collection went up in smoke. There has to be more, something on paper, that they only get once she’s crowned. Where haven’t we looked?”
Jasimir sighed. “Almost everywhere. There’s the library, the bathing chambers, the parlors, the bedrooms—”
Fie perked up. “She made your mother’s bedroom into a nightmare den. Why not yours, too?”
“Eugh.” Jasimir’s lip curled. “You may be right. There’s a small study attached. Nobody would think to look there.”
Fie called up the Sparrow witch-tooth again, and they edged out the door with their arms linked so as not to lose each other while unseen. Jasimir pulled Fie down the hall, pausing until a patrol of Hawks went past, then guided her up a narrow, unadorned flight of stairs she reckoned the servants used. It took them to a much finer hallway, where the prince slowly pushed open the first door on the right. The room was a midmorning sort of dim, the curtains drawn against the heat to come. Fie was tugged inside. She pulled the door shut behind her.
When Fie let the Sparrow witch-tooth go again, she found Jasimir utterly sucker-punched. One look at the room told her why.
The walls had been painted in soft swirls of silver, white, and gold, the bed much smaller than would fit Jasimir now. Toys were scattered all about the floor, wooden soldiers with the points sanded down, fluffy plush birds, a carved horse on wheels. It was a room for a young child, not an almost-king.
It was Rhusomir’s room now. And from the way Jasimir was searching the corners, every last trace of him had been painted over.
“Jas.” Fie elbowed him. “There’s a better room waiting for you. I’ve seen it. It’s got so much gold it’s foul.”
“That room is yours by right, not mine,” Jasimir said grimly, and headed for the door on the other side of the room. “I was saving a bottle of wine in here. She better not have touched it.”
Fie followed him into the study. Sure enough, Rhusana had clearly made camp in here, but from the way Jasimir was trailing fingers over his bursting, dusty shelves, the queen hadn’t had the time or care to clear them out. They were crammed with scrolls, with rolled-up maps, even rare bound tomes from across the sea. One shelf was a great collection of seashells and dried starfish; another was cluttered with strange spiral rocks, like snail shells turned to stone. A window seat overlooked the waterfall Fie had stood beside the night before, the lantern-lilies still violently red by day.
But a map of Sabor had been tacked over the far wall. Tiny flags dotted dozens of spots that might have seemed random to a stranger’s eye, matching no label or symbol on the map itself. Fie drew closer, throat
closing.
Rhusana couldn’t have—
She had.
Little Witness’s watchtower, marked with a flag.
The shrine of Maykala, marked with a flag.
The groves of Gen-Mara, marked with a flag.
Crow shrines, the only places left for them to seek shelter in Sabor, marked with flags. Not all of them, though; Fie saw blanks where she knew shrines lay, like Dena Wrathful’s temple, and Crossroads-Eyes’ great tree. But so, so many. Too many.
They should have been unfindable. Peacock teeth to weave an illusion, Sparrow teeth to ward off attention—these were sown in every shrine. Fie had never heard of anyone but Crows finding the way in on their own, not unless the keeper wanted them to.
She found the answer in a dish beside the map: a skein of hair and scraps of skin. Her own memory supplied the rest. The first and last time she’d tried to use a Sparrow tooth on skin-ghasts, there had been no gaze for her to turn away. A Peacock glamour would fail too.
Rhusana was using her ghasts to scour every last bit of Sabor, until she found every last shrine.
“Fie.” Jasimir’s voice said he’d found something near as bad. She turned and found him thumbing through one of the many stacks of parchment on the desk. He looked ill. “These are official decrees. This one bans Crows from owning property within Sabor. This one bans anyone from representing Crows before a magistrate. This one says anyone who does business with a Crow will be jailed for a year.” He flipped through more. “You … you get the idea. Rhusana has signed them all. They’ve even got the royal seal. But they can’t go into effect without signatures from ‘Prince Jasimir’ and Draga.”
It felt like a nail pounding into Fie’s heart, each order, with the horror of the map on the wall. She pointed a shaking hand at it. “Those are all Crow shrines, Jas. She’s—she’s going to tell the Oleander Gentry where the shrines are.”
Jasimir put a hand to his mouth. A breath later, it curled into a fist.
The Faithless Hawk Page 26
