by Jodi Meadows
I ducked to his right side—so he’d have to swing backward to hit me—and attacked. He staggered and shifted his sword to block my blades at the last second. The clash of steel threw me off balance, but I corrected and struck out with my blades again.
“Found her!” shouted my guard. He foiled another strike, then another, not bothering to fight me. All he had to do was wait for help.
I sheathed my daggers and dropped to the ground, braced myself, and kicked his knee. Bone shifted and crunched, and I rolled out of the way just as his sword came down. The tip buried itself in the ground as the man screamed and clutched his broken knee.
There was no reason I should feel bad for defending myself, even if he was just some third-born lord without better options than to join the Indigo Order. Still, I winced with a little sympathy as I kicked him in the face, careful to avoid shoving his nasal bones up and into his brain.
Screaming in pain, he fell aside. I stole his sword.
Dawn caught on the northeastern horizon, shining gold above the mountains like a beacon. If I got over the wall I could escape the city and get back to the old palace.
I peeled away from the garden where I’d been sneaking, and made for the wall. My footfalls were silent as I raced down a street, keeping as close to the shadows as possible. In the distance, other guards shouted and called orders.
Someone demanded a physician; their newly crippled friend had been discovered.
I pinned the stolen sword under my arm and took out my grappling hook and line. Boots thudded on the pavement behind me.
I switched the line to my left hand, grabbed the sword with my right, and swung around just as two men in crisp uniforms ran up.
They reeled back, away from the tip of the blade arcing toward them, and one brought up his weapon to block. Our swords clacked and he pressed hard enough to shift mine back toward me; he was stronger.
I snaked my sword around and slung his from his hand. It landed in a rosebush several feet away, and when he ran to fetch it, I hurled my own sword at the second guard’s face.
When he scrambled away from the flying blade, I caught my grappling line with both hands and hauled myself up as quickly as I could. Hand over hand. Feet planted firmly on the wall.
Arms wrapped around my waist. My muscles burned as I tried to hang on to my weight and the guard’s, but I wasn’t strong enough; neither was the line.
I let go, thudding to the ground as I landed on top of both guards. They grunted and grabbed at me, but I elbowed them each in the face and rolled off, leaving behind my grappling line as I took off farther along the wall. Eventually, I’d reach the gate. I’d just have to be fast.
Lights hung down from the wall, illuminating my path. Shouts and cries from the nearby patrols spurred me onward, and my breath heaved in the cold air as I pushed myself. Mist trailed behind me and I gave up all pretense of stealth as two, four, ten guards joined the chase.
I wove between buildings and statues, ducking and dodging as quickly as I could. The crash of men through brush and evergreens chased me. Their boots thumped on the ground.
All over Hawksbill, lights flared from houses and people peered out from windows and over balconies, their faces pale and frightened. I recognized Chey and a few of her friends as I hurtled past her immense mansion.
Cold wind tore at my face, making tears prickle in the corners of my eyes. Everything blurred, even as dawn began creeping through the Indigo Valley, lighting the city with shards of gold and copper.
The gate to Thornton was just ahead.
My thighs ached as I drove myself faster. My lungs burned. My vision swam.
When I blinked away cold-born tears, dozens of indigo-coated soldiers stood between the gate and me. Dozens more appeared on either side of the road, armed with swords and crossbows.
I thrust out a foot to help me turn without losing momentum—I’d have to go deeper into Hawksbill and hide—but even more men stood behind me.
I staggered to a halt and turned in a slow circle as the men of the Indigo Order began closing in. I was surrounded. Trapped.
There were no tricks or tools in my belt, no surprise escapes. A hundred or more men bore down on me. There was no way I could fight them off.
Heart thrumming, I unhooked my dagger sheaths from my belt and laid them on the ground. With empty hands lifted to my sides, I surrendered.
A young man kicked his horse through the crowd of soldiers, his face red with cold or anger. He dismounted and hopped off, and took several long strides toward me, ahead of the rest of the Order.
Lieutenant James Rayner stood with one hand on his sword, the other fist planted on his hip. When our eyes met, there was no friendliness in him. Only a look of deep disappointment and resignation.
“Lady Julianna Whitman, ward of the kingdom,” said James, “you are under arrest for the impersonation of Liadian nobility, and under suspicion of the assassination of King Terrell Pierce the Fourth. Please don’t resist, or we’ll have no choice but to use deadly force.”
I swallowed back a surge of terror as I offered my wrists and held my ground.
James motioned to one of his men, who unhooked a pair of cuffs from his belt and strode toward me. The guards’ crossbows were all loaded and aimed; they wouldn’t miss if I attacked their comrade.
The cuffs were cold around my wrists, and too tight.
The jail cells beneath the palace reeked of vomit. Rat droppings littered the floor of my cell.
Shortly after being thrown in here hours ago, I’d wiped off the bench so I could sit. Besides a bucket, there was a threadbare blanket and lumpy pillow, and a torch burned on the other side of the bars, throwing in flickering orange light too bright to let me sleep.
Not that I could sleep now anyway.
I sat in the corner of my cell, feet propped on the bench, and leaned my head back to stare at the ceiling. Water tapped somewhere nearby, steady and stately like the beat of a pavane. My bruises throbbed in time.
They were new bruises, shaped like the rough hands of soldiers. The men had grabbed and groped down my arms and legs, searching for hidden weapons. They’d been thorough—too thorough—until James began to shove them aside. He’d called them off, threatening them with dishonor as he reminded them that I was still a lady.
I’d kept my head high. I hadn’t so much as squeaked when strange men prodded my chest and stomach.
But as soon as the cell door slammed shut and I was alone, I lost everything into my bucket.
Now what?
There was no helping Aecor from jail. I could escape, but how would I tell the mitigation committee what I knew about the wraith if I was a fugitive?
Then again, was being a fugitive so different from being an Osprey?
I hadn’t killed the king. I had to believe they’d learn that. As for impersonating Julianna Whitman . . . what was the punishment for pretending to be a duchess?
What if the pretender was actually a princess?
Of a conquered kingdom?
With an army slowly building in the background, ready to take back the kingdom in her name?
Melanie would find out I’d been caught. She and Patrick would figure out what to do. Meanwhile, they’d send word to all our contacts in Aecor that the Indigo Kingdom was holding me prisoner. The resistance groups and former army would rally. They’d come to get me.
Unless Patrick decided a dead Wilhelmina was easier to handle than a defiant Wilhelmina.
No. He wouldn’t.
“Julianna?” James stood at the bars, silhouetted by the torch at his back. “I have a few questions for you.”
I pushed up to my feet and mimicked his posture: hands behind my back, shoulders straight, and feet hip-width apart. “I have a few questions for you, too.”
“This isn’t a game.” His mouth curled into a frown. “Who are you really?”
Wasn’t that what we were all trying to figure out? “A nameless girl.”
He glanced at someone
outside of my line of sight, but if there was any communication in the look, I missed it; his expression remained impassive, and mostly in shadow.
“Well, nameless girl, I have another question for you.”
I didn’t move.
“Are you the vigilante known as Black Knife?”
“Do I look like Black Knife to you?”
“Maybe.” James pulled a piece of black silk from his pocket—my mask—and held it between two fingers, as though it might contaminate him. “Where did you get this?”
“I stole it.”
“So you’re not Black Knife.”
I held my hands out, gesturing at my empty belt. “Do you see a sword here? A crossbow? Silk cable to bind up my enemies? Obviously, I’m not Black Knife.”
“You have the same taste in clothes.” He motioned at my trousers and black sweater.
“Black is definitely my color.”
“Do you know who Black Knife is?”
I rolled my eyes. “Everyone knows who Black Knife is.”
“I mean his true identity.”
I shifted my weight to one hip and crossed my arms. “What about the mask is confusing to you? He wears it so no one will know who he truly is.” I let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled my eyes. “I thought being a lieutenant meant you were smart.”
He let that slide by. “So you don’t know his identity.”
“Clearly.”
“Are you protecting him?”
“I don’t think he needs my protection.”
“Very well.” James stuffed the mask into his pocket again. “Let’s talk about your alias. You’re not the real Julianna Whitman, so where is she?”
“Dead, I assume. In Liadia with the rest of her people who couldn’t escape the wraith.”
“And you forged her residency papers.”
I paced across the cell. Of course I’d forged the papers.
“What about your friend, Melanie? Is that her real name? Where is she?”
I kept pacing, and the questions kept coming:
“What was your objective here?”
“Where did you learn so much about Liadian history?”
“What kind of information were you after? Was your mission complete? Who are your contacts outside the palace?”
I answered all of his questions with silence and the occasional raised eyebrow, and finally he moved on to the king’s assassination.
“Where were you that night?”
“Sleeping.”
“We found weapons in your room and on your person.”
“But not like the knife you described. Serrated blade? Strong assassin?” I pushed up my sleeve to reveal the slender muscles of my arms, and the pale blue bruises from his men’s hands. “Do you think I’m physically capable of cutting clean through someone’s throat?”
James glanced at my arm, and his expression tightened for a heartbeat. “You might be.”
The truth was, while I was strong from years of fighting and training, I had no idea how much pressure or strength it took to cut a man’s throat, with a serrated blade or otherwise. It probably wasn’t much, but I needed to sow doubt. I was guilty of impersonating a dead duchess, but I hadn’t killed their king.
“I found your drawings.”
I picked dirt from under my fingernails.
“As well as pages and pages of nonsense writing in different hands. Signatures written over and over. Forgery practice, I assume. So you could learn their handwriting. What were you doing with that? Which one is yours?”
“You’re a very determined young man, James Rayner.”
James ran through his questions again, pressing harder this time, so I stopped speaking altogether. I returned to my bench, propped my feet up as before, and covered my chest with my arms.
James’s shadow vanished from my cell. “She won’t speak.” His voice was low, distant. “Except with sarcasm. She’s a completely different girl.”
“That’s what I expected.” The other voice faded before I could tell who it was. A general? The prince? The men were leaving the dungeon.
I closed my eyes and sat in silence, only the drip drip drip for company. Desperately, I wanted to be hard. I wanted to be the girl I’d shown James just now—strong, sarcastic, and uncrackable.
But the bruises throbbed and, alone now, my mind took me back to the street in Hawksbill, soldiers all around. My wrists bound. Fingers digging into my flesh.
My stomach turned over again, but there was nothing left to throw up. I took long, deep breaths to clear the taste of bile from my tongue. My hands itched for my notebook and a good pen; writing had always calmed me.
A new shadow fell in front of the torch, blocking the glare from my eyes. “I don’t think you killed my father.”
“That makes you smarter than everyone in the Indigo Order.”
Keys jangled and the bars squealed open. Boots crunched rat droppings and a moment later, the crown prince sat on the bench next to my toes. “Please don’t try to escape. There are guards in the hall.”
I cracked open one eye. “How many?”
“Five.”
“That wouldn’t be enough to stop me.”
Exhaustion lined the prince’s face, and red rimmed his eyes, but he studied me and nodded. “You strike me as a dangerous person, my lady.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
Drip drip drip.
“If your name isn’t Julianna, what shall I call you?”
“Everyone is so interested in naming me.” I slipped my feet off the side of the bench and sat straight.
The prince didn’t flinch at my sudden movement. He sat, half trapped in misery, and I knew too well how he felt. Lost. Confused. Betrayed.
“I wasn’t lying yesterday,” I said. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent. I lost both of mine years ago, and their deaths still haunt me.”
He dropped his gaze and didn’t speak.
“Sometimes I wake up and wonder if I’m back in my real life, where they’re alive and everything is as it should be. But I never am. It makes me feel so alone.” I swallowed hard and watched the torchlight play across his features. “But I’m not alone. They loved me, and that love doesn’t go away just because they’re gone. The same goes for you. Your father loved you. He would have done anything for you. The pain may never go away, not wholly, but never forget that you meant everything to him.”
“You pretended to be someone you’re not for weeks. How do I know anything you say is true?”
“You don’t.” I glanced at the cell door. Closed. The keys must have been in the prince’s pocket. “You don’t know if anything I just said about my past is true, but you do know that everything I said about your present is. You know how your father felt, in spite of your unfortunate personality. Everyone does.”
Tobiah glanced at me and frowned. “And why offer comfort when you have such a low opinion of my personality? Do you think I’m going to let you out?”
I couldn’t stop the faint smile that crept up on me. “Because when my parents were murdered, someone I barely knew offered comfort. He had no reason to do it. I used to resent him for it, because as far as I could see, he’d lost nothing when I’d lost everything.” I dropped my gaze to my knees, trying not to slouch beneath the weight of old memories. “Now, I wonder if his kindness is part of what kept me human all these years.”
He raked his fingers through his hair and leaned back. “Tell me again where you were the night my father was killed.”
Back to the questions. I struggled to build up my defenses again, but I was exhausted. My whole body was heavy. “Sleeping.”
“You have no alibi?”
“I suppose I don’t.”
“Then I guess I’m done here.” He stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. Weariness made his shoulders curl inward. “Unless you want to tell me what to call you.”
“You have so many options. I still answer to Julianna.”
“James said y
ou called yourself a nameless girl.”
“It’s what a friend calls me. Affectionately, I think. He doesn’t know my real name, either. Don’t imagine I’m going to tell you.”
“A friend, huh?” Tobiah was watching me, his dark eyes filled with grief and regret and a spark of familiarity. He knelt in front of the bench and pressed something small and silky into my fingers. “Oh, nameless girl.” His voice shifted deeper. “When will you learn to trust me?”
I turned my hand over to find the Black Knife mask.
My heart tumbled and twisted. “You?” Tobiah was Black Knife? How? When did he find time? Had his father known? What about James? Or Meredith? And why had he not revealed me as an impostor the first day Melanie and I walked into his father’s office?
“But you’re so sour and he’s so—” I clamped my mouth shut. “Sorry.” Maybe.
Oh no. No. I was in love with the boy who was the reason for the One-Night War. The reason my parents were dead.
His mouth turned up in a pale smile. “I’m not a good alibi. You’re right.”
“Especially when people think Black Knife did it.” Fighting to keep a steady hand, I let my fingertips touch his cheek, his chin. The sensation of his skin under mine, the planes and ridges of his face, and even the way he gasped and closed his eyes at my touch: I’d felt all of this before.
This couldn’t be real.
“That’s why I didn’t come last night. I’m sorry you got caught. I couldn’t think of a good way to warn you to stay in without you finding out.”
“But you told me just now.”
“Did I?” With that same tired smile, he took my hand and kissed my fingertips, but drew back when my sleeve slipped up to reveal my forearm. “Oh, Will. What happened? The guards?”
“It’s nothing.” Just the memory made my stomach turn over, but I hardened myself against it. I refused to show him—or anyone—how those men had hurt me.
“I know the way you lie. I’ve lived with it.” He checked my other arm, and his expression fell into something hard and dangerous. Shards of Black Knife manifested: his tone, the way his body tensed, the angle of his head. My heart pounded as he trailed his fingertips across my flushed skin. “Is it like this everywhere?”
