by Callie Bates
She moves aside so I can precede her down the stairs, herding me with her lantern and club. “Student, are you? I’ve seen you before, I think.”
“Yes. I’ve attended Pantoleon’s lectures.”
I let myself out the front door, in a normal fashion this time. The landlady pauses on the threshold behind me. “They’re cleaning up the city,” she says with approval. “It’ll be safer now.”
“Yes,” I say. “You never really know your neighbors until something like this happens.”
I didn’t mean to say that. I start off, walking fast. But the landlady seems oblivious to my true meaning. She calls after me, “If you know of anyone looking for a room, send them to me.”
* * *
—
I CAN’T BELIEVE they took Pantoleon. After I always urged him to be careful. After we finally reconciled.
Tullea doesn’t even speak after I deliver the news. She simply stands, looking past me, sightless.
I’m the one who can’t seem to stop talking. “They took him to the Frourio, at least, not the Ochuroma. As far as we know. He’s in the city. He’s prepared for this. He’s strong…”
Eventually Tullea simply walks away from me. I stop, the words hanging out of my mouth. It seems impossible to have failed so much. First the realization that Elanna is still alive, then discovering I failed to save her—and Lathiel—from Madiya. Now this.
It seems like we should still be able to go back to Pantoleon’s apartment, find him there, and bring him home.
I drop onto a stone ledge, running my hands through my hair. I need to warn Tullea about Bardas, and tell her that Elanna’s alive, and somehow find the words to explain Madiya’s presence and what it means and what she’s done to me. But all I know is that El is in danger and I ran like a coward. The witch hunters are rounding up anyone they can find on the streets, including my oldest friend. And now Madiya knows where to find us. We must stop the witch hunters, and the emperor, and that’s what she’s always wanted. It’s what she designed my brothers and me to do. It was her great plan, and we were her great work.
There is nothing I want more than to end their order. But still I balk at the idea of giving Madiya the satisfaction, at last, of doing what she’s always wanted.
Yet what are they doing to Pantoleon now? How much of his mind have they already destroyed?
Bardas said she had some sort of plan—of course she does. She’s been building it for twenty-five years.
“Rayka,” I whisper, but as usual, my brother ignores me.
Maybe there’s another way. A way to persuade the emperor to change his mind. If someone had the courage to oppose him, not merely in Ida, but in Aexione. In his own household…
Leontius is in Ida—he came down for the new Orovillo play. Bardas told me that Leontius has made no public appearances since my arrest. I know better than to assume it’s out of some grief for me. More likely he’s angrier than ever. But we spent two years being so close. I still can’t believe his anger runs so deep that he wouldn’t even hear me out, when I found him.
Besides, I still miss him. I want my friend back.
And though Leontius is not a wildly popular public figure, if he joins us it will add undeniable legitimacy to our cause. The emperor’s own son and heir opposing him for sorcerous rebels. It will also give Bardas—and Firmina—second thoughts. Lees feels no particular love for his stepmother. I need to try one more time, to get him to hear me…
Of course, Alakaseus might simply disown Lees and name Augustus his heir. I push aside the thought. If it comes to that, public sentiment will be so riled up that the emperor’s course of action will be far less clear.
I stand. My eyes are gritty with exhaustion, but I can’t rest now. Not knowing that Madiya is in the city.
“I’m going to find help,” I tell Tullea.
She just nods, but some of the life seems to come back into her. She shakes out her shoulders. “I’ll keep Solivetos safe.”
“Yes. And if Bardas Triciphes comes calling, turn him away.”
“Bardas Triciphes?” she repeats, her eyebrows raised, once more the formidable Tullea I know. “He’s helped us, you know. Smuggled us funds to relocate sorcerers.”
“Bardas himself might be trustworthy, but I don’t like one of his friends. A sorceress who’s helping him. She doesn’t have anyone’s interests but her own at heart.”
“Don’t most of us?” Tullea says, but then she shrugs. “All right. I’ll deny him, or them.”
I’m touched that she trusts me. “You’ll be glad you did.”
“Just come back, Jahan. It’s damned inconvenient, you running off all the time.”
I flash her a grin and stride away into the streets.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Old Palace lies on this side of the Channel—fortunately, since I don’t much relish crossing one of the bridges again. It’s so late—or early—that the bells are tolling only irregularly. The streets are quiet. I stick to the shadows until I come upon the bulk of the palace. All the entrances will be heavily guarded—the principal ones, at any rate, but perhaps not those less well known. I make my way to the lower gate, where I came through the “secret” tunnel with Quentin and Faverus. It seems months ago, though it’s been little more than a week.
No witch hunters patrol this gate, and the guards must be watching from above. It’s easy enough to slip through the bars—only a shadow, a bird—and run on silent feet into the tunnel. I pause, catching my breath, listening for pursuit. Nothing.
I creep through the dark, one hand on the rough stones. Somewhere, there should be an entrance leading up, at least according to the stories. I just hope they’re true.
And that Leontius will listen to me this time.
I inch forward. The blackness seems complete, ready to swallow me whole. But this isn’t the cave where Madiya experimented on me, and I force my breathing even. The most dangerous thing here, I tell myself, is me.
The wall vanishes under my hand. I’ve found the entrance. I turn in, blundering into a step, and bang my knee. At least no one seems to be guarding the place. I begin to climb. The steep stairs seem to have been cut for giants; after several turns, my breath is coming rough. But light is seeping in from above. The stairwell ends in a sunken garden, surrounded by the palace’s high walls, and the arches of a colonnade.
The sky is gray. It must be nearly dawn, and Leontius is an early riser. I just have to find his rooms.
Through the colonnade, I find a hall. More stairs lead to a familiar corridor, though it’s quieter than I’ve ever seen it. There’s a distant rattle, a servant dropping firewood, perhaps. I stay close to the walls, ready to work persuasion if I must, but no one approaches. At last, around the next corner, I find the door to my friend’s chambers. I draw in a breath. I shouldn’t be nervous—we’re friends—but then again, I suppose I am a disgraced favorite, the thing Aunt Cyra always warned me against becoming.
I walk through the fabric of the door.
The sitting room is warm. Wide windows overlook the harbor below. Leontius sits in a chair below them, intent on his reading. It’s The Journal of Botanical Studies. I want to laugh. Elanna reads it with almost as much passion as he does.
Instead I clear my throat. I feel myself starting to smile.
His head comes up. He opens his mouth. For a moment, I think he’s going to summon the guards. Then he lowers his head and his nostrils flare. “You.”
So much loathing, compressed into a single word. I take a step backward despite myself. I’ve never seen Leontius so angry—and certainly not at me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have come.
“How did you—” he begins, then cuts himself off. “No, I don’t want to know how you got in. Tell me something.” He draws in a breath. It quivers. I realize he’s trembling, as if he’s afraid and a
ngry at the same time. As if I’ve frightened him.
I hold out my hands. “Lees—”
“The Getai,” he bursts out. “Tell me. After they attacked us—I didn’t hit my head, did I? That’s not why I don’t remember it.”
I freeze, hands still open.
“And you,” he says. “You didn’t go berserk.”
It’s not a question, but I find myself nodding, though more than anything I want to disappear. Unravel this conversation. Make Leontius forget I ever came.
But I already made him forget, once. I did to him what I swore I would never let Madiya do to me again. When the Getai attacked, I acted without thought. I seized the power in all our bodies and compressed space so I stood in front of Leontius. The power drained some of the Getai; a few of our attackers collapsed. I flung persuasion at the rest of them—pure fear.
And I rammed my elbow into Leontius’s ribs, shoving him onto the ground. It stunned him. In the chaos, everyone thought he’d suffered a concussion. They didn’t think, when I cupped my hands around his head, that I was doing anything other than feeling for injuries.
“You stole my memories,” Leontius whispers.
I look away, blinking at the flames in the fireplace. I should never have come. “I—”
“But there were witnesses,” Leontius says. His hands curl and uncurl at his sides. “We wrote up reports. You must have stolen all their memories.”
“No, no,” I say, and my idiot tongue starts babbling, so relieved that this accusation, at least, I can deny. “I worked persuasion on them—so much persuasion—I made them think they’d just seen me go mad. It’s not real sorcery, it’s just a way of tricking the perception—”
I fall silent at his look of horror.
“You tricked them?” he whispers.
“It was easy to do—no one recognized what they saw—no one expected me to perform sorcery…”
“Is this what you always did?” he says, and with a gasp, “It is. You made the commander look the other way. Everyone. You did it to everyone—to my father…”
My hand reaches automatically for my scar. I shove it back down.
“Were we ever friends?” Leontius demands. “Or was that merely more persuasion?”
I stare at him. “No, Lees. The last thing I would ever have done is wanted—is persuaded—” I can’t seem to say it without damning myself. “I never wanted the scrutiny of being your friend! No sorcerer wants that.”
“You seemed to endure it well enough,” he says coldly. He glances at the door. “I should summon the witch hunters. I should have you taken from here in chains.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because you’re my only friend!” he shouts at me, then stops, his chest heaving, flinching as if we’ve been discovered.
“No one heard,” I say quietly. “I muffled the sound.”
“What a convenience it must be, to do such things,” he says bitterly. “Don’t the bells and stones bother you?”
“No.”
“Convenient,” he mutters again.
We stare at each other for a long moment.
“Lees,” I begin, “we are friends. I would never persuade anyone into friendship with me—don’t you think I’d work sorcery on you now, if I were so unscrupulous? But we are true friends, and that is why I’m here.”
Again, his nostrils flare with anger. “I’ve seen how you treat your friends.”
I blink. What is he talking about? Pantoleon? Elanna? But he doesn’t even know them.
“Finn.” Leontius flings the name at me. “Have you already forgotten him so quickly? He died for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You dragged him off to Eren to be a hero! So you could find your sorceress or whatever she is! And he died. You killed him.”
My grasp on reality seems to be spinning; I brace a hand on a chair. Carefully, I say, “Finn’s father killed him, if anyone did. I certainly never forced him to go to Eren.”
“But you went! You treated it as if it would be a grand adventure! Then he died, and you—you—” He stops, covering his mouth with both hands.
I’m staring. I close my mouth. How blind have I been to this? Finn is why Leontius wouldn’t speak to me? Finn Dromahair, of all people?
“I knew you were taking him into danger,” he says softly. “But I couldn’t stop you.”
I rub my forehead. “Leontius, did Finn—did you—?”
He utters a sour laugh. “What do you think? Listen, you can’t even say it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it. Finn was charming. He—he would have been flattered, to know you regarded him with such affection.”
“Flattered?” Leontius says. “You don’t need to lie to me, Jahan. He preferred women.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because I’m not pathetic,” he retorts.
“Having…a regard…for someone isn’t pathetic.”
“It is if you know they’ll never look back at you the same way.” He glares at the window. “There! Have I humiliated myself enough for you?”
I shake my head. “You know that’s not why I’m here.”
He scoffs. “You just happened to be in the area, while running from the law, and thought you’d drop in. Am I right? Isn’t that what Jahan Korakides would say?”
“Clearly you know me better than I know myself.”
He gives me a sharp look. “You’ve become just like the rest of them. Or maybe you were always like them, and I didn’t see it.”
I wince.
“You want something,” he spits. “And I bet I know what it is, too! You want me to intercede with Father on behalf of those criminals in the Frourio, don’t you?”
“Most of them are innocents—”
“No one cares!” Leontius bellows. “No one cares whether they turned a damned elephant into a crocodile. It’s all for show, the whole damned thing. I don’t know why you think Father would listen to me. Maybe if I put on a mask and pretended to be Augustus, he would.”
“But you’re his son and heir! You will be emperor one day. This is your chance to stand up for a cause. To make your mark.”
Leontius snorts. “And give Father the perfect opportunity to disinherit me? No. You know him. He would be thrilled. He’s been looking for an excuse to get rid of me for years.”
“If you allied with us, we would support you against him.”
He stares at me, and I feel the opportunity—and our friendship—slipping out of my hands.
“He would haul me away in chains,” Leontius says. “He would have me examined by witch hunters. He’d exile me, then, because no father wants his own son’s blood on his hands, not even mine. And you know what? I’d do it. I’d go into exile. I could have a garden, and no one would ever trouble me. Except that would leave the empire to Phaedra and Augustus. And I won’t do that to my people.”
I don’t know what to say.
He turns and picks up the journal. Over his shoulder, he says, “That will be all.”
It’s a dismissal, but I’m too stupid with shock to accept it. “Lees, at least let me know our friendship—”
“We were friends once,” he says. “Or I thought we were. But we aren’t anymore, and I won’t be manipulated by anyone, not even you.”
“Not even when your father is doing something utterly abhorrent?” I say.
“I’m playing the long game,” he replies, “for all of Paladis, not just to make a onetime stand that will get me killed or exiled. You should go now. Or I’ll be forced to summon the guards.”
I look at his back. My friend, so shy, so retiring, now implacable. I want to touch his shoulder and ask how I can help him change this. I want to tell him he can’t let his grief and anger harden his heart.
“I mean it, Jahan,” he says.
So I go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In the corridor, a man in fine clothes is striding toward me. Zollus Katabares. No one to see here, I insist. He frowns and blinks, but swerves past me and lets himself into Leontius’s chamber with a soft knock.
It galls me that Lees will keep rigid, traditional Zollus by his side, but he won’t listen to me. And it makes me feel far worse that, all this time, it was Finn he held a regard for. Maybe I would have done things differently if I’d known—maybe I would have tried harder to save him, or to at least let Leontius know what happened myself. But I can’t walk back on the past. What’s done is done.
I make my way back through the palace, more carefully now, and back out through the tunnel.
A voice whispers into my mind. Jahan.
It’s Lathiel.
I almost answer him. Almost shout, Lathiel! But I hesitate. I may have burned Madiya out, but she can still force my little brother to contact me. Is he acting of his own accord, or as her pawn?
It galls me, but I can’t answer. Not until I have a plan. But I don’t know how I can make a plan, with only the sorcerers on Solivetos Hill to help me.
No, I have more resources than that. I have Elanna, if I can muster the courage to rescue her and find a way to break that damned collar off her neck.
And I have my brother Rayka. If I can find him.
Rayka. I draw on all the power in me, and the lingering spark from Tirisero’s font. I make it a command. Rayka.
At first there’s nothing. But then, like a reluctant spark, I feel him. He doesn’t say my name. He doesn’t even seem to be coming toward me; he’s resisting, as usual. But it doesn’t matter. Now that I sense him, I can find him.
I stride out, repeating his name, until the spark turns into a flame. It pulls me forward, across a square, to a temple whose graceful façade gleams in the sunlight angling over the rooftops behind me. I duck through the door, avoiding the beggars sleeping in the vestibule, and let the flame of Rayka’s presence pull me through an atrium. There’s a door here—locked—but that proves no impediment. I walk through, staggering as my feet hit stairs. I ease my way down. My outstretched hands hit a rusted gate. Somewhere on the other side, Rayka’s presence flares brightly.
