by Claire Luana
She closed the book with a sad smile and jumped to find Thom standing just steps away, holding two plates piled with food.
“So now you know my dirty secret,” he said, his voice flat—cautious.
Wren held out her hand for her plate, and he handed it over, sinking into the chair next to her. “I’m sorry I looked. But it’s a beautiful secret. Not dirty at all. And it’s one I will keep. As long as you’d like.”
Thom smiled gratefully and nodded.
“You’re very talented,” Wren said. “And clearly obsessed with food,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “All the drawings from when you were younger seem to have feasts in them.”
He smiled, taking a bite of sausage. “We never had enough. I guess my drawing was wish fulfillment back then.”
“I know the feeling.” Wren took a bite of one the scones Thom had selected for her. It was buttery and warm. Her stomach growled again, not yet content.
“What’s your favorite part of being a confectioner?” Wren asked. She hardly felt like a confectioner these days. She hardly felt like herself. Just a shadow of a girl, the rest of her borne away on wings of grief and sorrow.
“Seeing the faces of the customers when they get their ice cream. Not most of them, mind you. Most are rich brats who have five-course meals of the finest cuts every night. But there were a few, who when they came in, it was a rare and hallowed treat. A special slice of heaven on Earth. And seeing their faces the first time they took a bite…that was what made it worthwhile.”
Wren smiled wistfully. “That is one of the best parts, isn’t it?”
“I come from a big family—five kids. We had less than nothing; my father works on the docks as a stevedore, my mother did laundry. But they would save their money each year for each of our birthdays. Money they couldn’t spare, money that should have been set aside for a pair of shoes to replace the outgrown ones or new shingles to patch the roof. But they would save their money and on each of our birthdays, they would take that kid on a special outing to get ice cream. We looked forward to our birthdays all year.” He chuckled. “Those ice cream cones are some of my earliest memories.”
“Your family sounds wonderful.”
“They are.”
“Thom, I’m so sorry we pulled you into all of this. We thought you would be safer with the Guild, but look what’s happened.” She shook her head.
“I’m not sorry,” he said. “Part of me always felt that there was supposed to be more to my life than making ice cream. This has been the wildest few weeks of my life, but it also feels the most real somehow. Like the rest was just a dream. Now I’ve woken up. I just wish…I don’t know. I hardly got to know Sable.”
Wren swallowed thickly, the scone sticking in her throat at the mention of Sable. “I know. She was so enigmatic. She intimidated me. There were only a few moments where I felt like I saw the real her.”
“I’m not sure I saw any of those,” Thom said.
“How’s Hale doing?”
“He’s still sitting down on the dock by the little fish pond. We’ve brought him food and water, tried to talk to him…”
Wren sighed. “He loved her. He’s in mourning.”
“You all are.”
Wren closed her eyes. “They’re going to execute Callidus and the other guildmasters they arrested. I keep trying to figure out how to stop it, but everything seems like a dead end. Pike’s men won’t help us, Lucas is under house arrest…”
“Do you think they’ll really be executed? Or will it be like yours, where they pretend to kill them but keep them around in secret?”
Wren kicked herself. She should have thought of that, after Thom had shared his intelligence from the orphanage with her. “I don’t know. Hopefully it’s the later, then we’d have more time to regroup and rescue them. But…what if it’s not? Can we risk waiting?”
“No,” Thom said. “Do we know where they’re being held?”
Wren shook her head. “I presume the Block. I don’t think we could stage a break-out there even with all the help in the world. It’s…a fortress.”
“Maybe when they transport them for execution?”
Wren rubbed her temples wearily. “Everything went so wrong when we were rescuing you…I just don’t think we could pull something like that off. The king is going to keep tighter security now that he lost his hostages.”
“But the city is under attack; maybe he won’t be able to spare many men from the wall. Maybe he’ll be too busy with the Apricans to go forward with the executions.”
Wren froze with a bite of omelet halfway to her mouth. She put her fork down and pulled the chain out from beneath her dress, resting the heavy key in her palm. “Thom, you’re a genius.”
“I am?”
“Yes.” She nodded slowly, excitement welling within her. “We’re going to see Hale.”
Chapter 33
“What you’re talking about is treason,” Thom said, his green eyes wide.
“I hate that word,” Wren said as they made their way down the stairs to the lower level of Pike’s house and out the back door. “No one knows this, but Hale and I were captured by Aprican forces a few weeks ago. Hale knows their general. He says he’s a good man. They offered us terms to help them end the siege.”
“End the siege and turn Alesia over to them, you mean,” Thom said.
“They said that Alesia would remain mostly independent. They don’t have the men or the resources to govern the entirety of the Western Reaches. They would set up governors, and we would send them taxes and some goods. The Guilds and the nobles would continue to rule independently.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Thom admitted.
“Lucas said we only have a prayer of a chance of withstanding the siege anyway. If the city is destined to fall, we’re just helping it happen on more favorable terms and saving Callidus and the others in the process.”
Thom ran a hand through his curly locks, nodding slowly.
“All I’m proposing is to go and find out more about their terms. I’m not mad enough to doom the entire city to slaughter to save Callidus.” Even as she said the words, she contemplated whether they were true. A part of her had felt unhinged since Sable’s death, her life tilted by anger and grief. Part of her would do anything to make King Imbris pay for his role in Sable’s death. She wanted him to know what it felt like to be powerless, to have your world crumble around you and all you loved ripped from you. She shoved the thoughts aside, saying, “If the terms are unacceptable, we’ll walk.”
“Will they let us walk?” Thom asked.
Wren chewed her lip. They had escaped before. The Apricans might not be too pleased about that. But now that this crazy plan had cemented in her mind, she knew she’d have to follow through. “We’ll only deal with General Marius. He seemed honorable. I do believe he would let us return.” Her words carried more confidence than she felt. But what other choice did they have? She couldn’t sit by and let them kill Callidus, not when he had saved her. She had already lost Sable; she couldn’t lose him too.
“Okay,” Thom said. “If you think this could work, I trust you. I’m with you.”
Wren sprang at Thom, wrapping her arms around him in a desperate hug. Gratitude flooded her in an overwhelming wave.
“Woah,” he said, but he pulled her in. He smelled of syrup and fresh grass.
“I’m glad you’re with me, Thom.” Her words were muffled into his shirt, and she pulled back, wiping at a tear that had risen unbidden to the corner of her eye.
“This is my Guild,” Thom said softly. “There’s nowhere else I should be.”
They walked down the expanse of green lawn to the little dock that jutted into Pike’s fish pond. The smoke from the fighting at the wall was more visible from this angle; the flicker of flames painted the horizon with an eerie glow. Perhaps the Apricans would breach the wall today, and Wren’s mad plan would be unnecessary. Who knew what would become of them if that happened?
Wren walked around to the end of the dock to look at Hale, trepidation filling her. He looked to have aged a decade. His golden hair was about his shoulders, but it seemed to have dimmed, now straggly and greasy. Days of stubble shadowed his jaw, and bags under his eyes silhouetted their vacant gaze. But he hadn’t soiled himself, and the food and water were gone from the plate, so Wren knew Hale was in there. He just didn’t want to come out.
She sat down cross-legged by him, resting her hand on his knee. She should have come to see him earlier. She had told herself that Hale felt deeply, that nothing but the most poignant vigil would feel worthy of Sable’s passing. But in truth, she had been a coward. The pit of her own grief already threatened to swallow her—she feared she wouldn’t be able to withstand the yawning chasm of Hale’s.
“Hale,” she said. He didn’t look at her.
“You know how sorry I am about Sable. I know how much you loved her. There will never be another woman like her.” A lump grew in Wren’s throat. These words were true, true, true. “I know you could spend your life mourning her. But she wouldn’t want that. We need your help to save Callidus. To save the Guild. It was her life’s work, our Guild. I think she would want you to help.”
“You don’t know what Sable would have wanted,” Hale croaked, his voice rusty from disuse. “You hardly knew her.”
Wren kept herself from wincing at the barb. Perhaps it was true. Sable was a colleague to her, a friend at best. Hale and Sable had been inseparable for years.
“Fine,” Wren said gently. “I want your help. I need your help. To save Callidus. To make the king pay for what he did.”
This got Hale’s attention. He looked at her slowly. His turquoise eyes were clear, as sharp as tacks. “Tell me what you have in mind.”
The city was quiet as they walked towards the municipal court building where Hale and Wren had emerged from the tunnel the last time they had used it. The bells had stopped ringing, though a faint red glow still hung over the southern horizon, reflecting a strange hue into the low-hanging clouds. The color—the dark—they suited Hale fine. They looked like hell. And this was hell, wasn’t it?
They passed the buildings that bore the proud seat of Alesian government: the courthouse, the central square, the council chambers. Hale narrowed his eyes at the trappings of the Imbris crown. For the past two days, he had wandered through a fog of memory and regret, a prisoner trapped in his own sorrows, a condemned man who didn’t want to be free. It wasn’t possible. Sable couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be living in a world where Sable was dead. He wouldn’t.
When Wren had come to him, he had wanted only to be left alone. But then she’d spoken and Hale had realized Wren had found the one thing that would burn off that fog of grief: vengeance.
They turned into a narrow alley behind the council hall. At the end was a fountain with the ruddy face of the Brewer, his mouth depicted as broad and open. Water should have trickled from his mouth into the shallow marble pool below, but it was empty.
“Did we take a wrong turn?” Thom asked, looking back up the alley. Poor Thom, the innocent fool pulled into all of this. He should have insisted the man stay behind. But everything felt heavy and black, and he didn’t think he cared enough to argue.
Wren shook her head and knelt down before a side door, squinting at the lock, working her picks. The lock clicked softly, and they pushed into the dim recesses of the building, padding like cats through the hallways towards the storeroom that housed the tunnel entrance. When they reached the door, Wren turned the key in the lock and pushed it open.
“Torch.” Wren held out her hand, and Thom handed her one of the torches they had brought. He sparked the flint and the torch caught. They quickly lit the other and stepped into the tunnel.
“You’re going to want to duck,” Hale said flatly to Thom. “Lots of spiderwebs.”
Their passage through the tunnel was silent but for their footsteps, their breathing, and the occasional scuttling of rats’ feet. Wren seemed nervous beside him, the torchlight flickering across the sharp angles of her cheekbones. Her words echoed in against the thick stones: “So we go to General Marius’s tent, and we ask for terms. But if the three of us don’t agree, we don’t make the deal. Right, Hale?”
He grunted his assent. Terms. The terms mattered little to him, so long as King Imbris ended up dead. Better yet if he got to do it himself. His thoughts were sluggish, trying to remember the terms Marius had proposed before. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He felt like a stranger looking at that memory, peering through a greasy windowpane at the bright light beyond. How had he been so carefree? So optimistic?
Wren and Thom exchanged a look, which Hale ignored. Only one thing mattered now. Making King Hadrian Imbris pay.
The Aprican campfires glowed like fireflies in the distance as they emerged from the tunnel.
Thom took a deep breath, wrapping his cloak around himself. “Here’s to hoping we don’t get speared before they have time to ask questions.”
Hale said nothing, walking ahead without acknowledging whether or not they were following.
“We’ll let him go first,” Hale heard Wren say. “There’s no danger of Hale being mistaken for an Alesian.”
“What do you mean?” Thom asked.
“You’ll see.”
It was as easy to get into the Aprican camp the second time as it had been the first. Hale walked right into the center of a group of tents and demanded to see General Marius. The soldiers, who had scrambled to their feet at the sight of him, looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and led the way. Hale suppressed his disappointment, realizing part of him had been hoping for a fight. Had hoped that the purifying fire of his rage might clear the rest of the fog away.
General Marius sat in his shirtsleeves, cutting into a juicy piece of steak. “Ah,” he said, standing when they entered. “My confectioners have returned.” Hale noticed he still held his steak knife, not quite willing to relinquish it until they had announced their intentions. “Can I offer you a seat?” he said, and Wren and Thom obliged, sitting in two of the other chairs surrounding the table. Hale remained standing, crossing his arms over his chest.
The general finally put his knife down. “I admit, when you two disappeared from camp, I wondered if I would ever see you again. Yet now here you are.” He raised an eyebrow at Hale. “And it seems much has happened since we last spoke.”
Wren spoke first. “Last time we saw you, you asked for our help. Sim Daemastra suggested that the terms of such aid could be…generous to us and our city. We weren’t ready to listen then. We’re ready to listen now.”
“And if these terms are agreeable to you, you would aid us in…subduing the city?”
“We would.”
“What type of aid do you offer us?” Marius asked. “I need to know how valuable your intelligence is before I can negotiate on your behalf with my superiors.”
“We can get you into the city undetected,” Hale said.
General Marius stroked his beard. “How many men?” he asked.
“Enough,” Hale replied.
“This would be very valuable to us indeed. But how do I know you can be believed?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?” Hale retorted, frustration welling in him. This was taking too long. The Apricans should jump on the chance to put King Imbris in the ground. Sable’s spirit would never be able to rest until she was avenged. He would never be able to rest.
The general chuckled. “True, true.”
“If we help you, can you do something for us?” Wren asked.
“What do you want?”
“Help free our guildmaster,” Wren said at the same time as Hale replied, “The king’s head on a pike.”
Wren shot him a cross look, which he ignored.
The general inclined his head towards Hale. “Outlived his welcome, has he? I can give you the king’s head on a pike. And his whole family.”
“His family?” Wren said sharpl
y. “We didn’t say anything about his family.”
“The whole Imbris line must be wiped out,” General Marius said. “If we don’t clean house, there’s too much chance of a succession challenge or a coup. It’s our top priority upon taking the city. The king and his entire family are as good as dead. You have my word.”
Chapter 34
Wren stood up so fast that her chair tumbled down behind her. “No, absolutely not. There has to be another way.”
“Calm down.” General Marius took a sip of his beer. “I’m sure murder doesn’t sit well with a delicate lady like yourself, but this is the way it has to be. Ending the Imbris line prevents more bloodshed down the line.”
“She’s in love with one of them,” Hale said, his voice monotone. He didn’t even look at her.
She glowered at him. What did that matter? Even if she wasn’t, she would never stand by and let Lucas be killed.
It had been a terrible idea to come here. They needed to leave.
General Marius winced at Hale’s words. “I’m sorry for that, Wren. I’m sure he’s a nice fellow. But you can’t stand against the tide of war. We’re coming into Maradis with or without your help. But with your help, we could ensure favorable terms for your Guild.”
“Would you leave the city’s inhabitants alone?” Hale asked flatly. “No pillage, rape, things that the victors have perpetrated on the vanquished throughout history?”
Wren hardly recognized him. Where was the spark, the daring that was Hale? It was like he had been snuffed out.
