by Callie Bates
* * *
—
I WAKE IN purple twilight with my head pillowed in El’s lap. She shivers a little as I wake, coming alert herself. Somehow, she woke and dressed without waking me; her greatcoat cushions my ears. She looks down at me with deep satisfaction.
“Oh, dear,” I say, feeling a smile spread across my face. “I’ve been caught by the Caveadear of Eren and Caeris.”
“Yes, and she has you exactly where she wants you.”
She bends over, the curtain of her hair falling around us, and I lean up to meet her kiss.
But bells toll the hour—seven o’clock. Almost time to find my brother and get moving through the cisterns. Reluctantly, I draw myself away and sit up, pulling on my trousers and shirt. Elanna rustles in a bag beside her, pulling out two oranges and a chunk of bread. “I went down earlier for food. You slept like the dead.”
My stomach rumbles. I didn’t realize how hungry I am—when did I last eat? I stuff the bread into my mouth and rip into the orange.
Elanna says she’s already eaten. Instead, she worries at the ring on her finger. “Can you…” She hesitates. I stop eating; it’s not like her. “Can you contact someone who isn’t a sorcerer, through a mirror?”
“I can try. Who—” But I realize when she looks at me who she must mean. Worry makes her eyes stark. I reach for her knee and squeeze it. “Sophy?”
She nods and pulls a palm-sized shaving mirror from her pocket. I reach for it, but she curls her fingers around it, not letting go. “I have to tell her what’s happened. She must think I’m dead, or captured. But I can’t bear to tell her—” She swallows hard. “—I’ve lost my magic. I don’t have the power she needs.”
“But you’re alive. That’s what matters.”
“And Rhia…” El rubs her eyes. “She was with me when I was captured. I saw her fall. I don’t know what happened to her.”
I reach over, gently uncurling her fingers from the mirror, and cup it between my hands. “We’ll find out. Besides,” I add drily, “it would take more than a couple of witch hunters to do in Rhia Knoll. You’d need an entire army.”
El laughs at that, though there’s a catch in her throat, and I turn my attention to the glass, reaching for a mental image of Sophy Dunbarron. Sophy, I call in my mind, letting the whisper arrow over Ida and the Middle Sea, all the way to Eren. If I can compress space physically, then my whisper can niggle Sophy’s ear from anywhere in the world.
There’s a long pause, and I whisper her name again. She might not be near a reflective surface. But I try once more, because Elanna is staring at me with stark eyes, and I can’t bear to fail her in this.
And when I look down into the mirror, my own face has finally dissolved into one oval-shaped and milky-skinned, a wisp of blond hair falling over a pale eyebrow. She must have rushed to a mirror, though the light is too dim for me to make out the room surrounding her. Sophy looks exhausted and breathless, but her cheeks are flushed. And her mouth is open. Jahan?
“Is she there?” El asks. I nod, and she presses her hands to her mouth.
You bastard! I called and called for you.
Where—What’s happened? Sophy is demanding. Where are you?
“Just a minute,” I say. “There’s someone who needs to talk to you more.”
I pass the mirror over to Elanna, and Sophy shrieks so loudly I almost cover my ears, even though her voice is only audible in my head. El. El, I thought—
Elanna breaks in. “Is Rhia—is she—?”
She broke her arm. She was madder than a hornet. We practically had to tie her down to keep her from going after you. Sophy’s voice turns indignant. She called me a tyrant!
El’s grinning, even as tears stand out in her eyes. “She would say that.”
I feel myself smiling, too. I might not have been among the Ereni and Caerisians for long, and the common people might have mistrusted me—but I miss them. Even Rhia Knoll, who’s as sharp-edged as the blades she carries. Thank the gods she’s all right.
What happened? Sophy’s asking. The emperor sent me this horrible, threatening letter—and then they were giving out that you were dead…
“I was rescued.” Her fingers flutter self-consciously to the collar at her neck. “Not everything is as it seems here. But tell me first what’s going on at home. Have the Tinani…?”
They quieted down for a while, after you flooded them out on the border. She pauses. But people got word that you were dead, El. There have been protests all across Eren. There’s this horrible man—Aristide Rambaud, the Duke of Essez—who says that sorcery is evil and vile, and that I must be pushed off the throne. He’s allied with the Tinani. It’s…ugly.
“Then I need to come home,” Elanna begins, but then she chokes up. “Except—oh, all the gods, Sophy—they took my sorcery from me. The witch hunters—they stole it.”
Sophy is silent for a long minute. I can’t see her expression, as Elanna has angled the mirror away. At last, Sophy says, It’s enough for me—for all of us—to know that you’re alive. You’re still our Caveadear. This is still your home. If you and Jahan can work against the emperor from the inside, I can hold out here a little longer.
Elanna casts me a somewhat desperate glance. Maybe she thinks this is Sophy’s way of telling her she shouldn’t come home at all.
“We’ll do what we can here,” I say. “And then I promise I’ll send El back to you.”
Thank you, Jahan. There’s no mistaking the relief in Sophy’s voice, even in our heads.
“Jahan destroyed the emperor’s fleet,” Elanna says. “The one he was planning to send to Eren. There’s hope, Sophy.”
Sophy’s eyes widen. He did? Did the emperor—
Abruptly, she looks over her shoulder, as if startled by some sound we can’t hear. Her shoulders tense, and a look of stern resolve comes over her face. I’m reminded that we’re speaking to the queen of Eren and Caeris. I have to go now, she whispers. I’m sorry. Summon me again, please, as soon as you can. It is so wonderful to see you both. I—I’d begun to think I might not again.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Elanna says. “I promise.”
I reclaim the mirror from her. “Take care, Sophy. Give Alistar our regards!”
Yes, yes, she says vaguely, and then she waves and disappears from the mirror. I close off the connection.
Elanna is looking at me. “You’ll send me back to them?”
Have I said something wrong? “If that’s what you want.”
“Of course it is! I have to go home.” She gets up, brushing down the back of her trousers impatiently. But it’s with regret that she presses her lips together. Without quite looking at me, she says softly, “But you could come home with me, you know. You don’t have to send me back to Eren like a package.”
Turning, she strides away over the rocks. I scramble to my feet, protesting. “El!”
She swings around, her eyes lowered. “I’m sorry. This is your city. Your people. I shouldn’t presume.”
“No, I…I…” I’m stumbling over the words, because I don’t know what the right ones are. How can Elanna just say things like that, so easily? How can she know with such certainty that she wants me with her? When I’ve told her I can’t even marry her, because I’m so afraid of Madiya using her against me? Lamely, I say, “I want to be with you.”
Her mouth tucks in, and I feel more than ever that I’ve somehow failed. But she holds out her hand. “We’ll decide it when the time comes to leave.”
This isn’t the answer she wants, or deserves. Yet I don’t know what to say. I don’t belong in Eren and Caeris, and El doesn’t belong here. How will we ever reconcile that?
All the same, I take her hand. She leans a little against me, and we go together down toward the temple.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rayka’s waiting
for us, smirking. “Where have you been?”
“When you’re older, we’ll explain how it works between a man and a woman,” I say drily, and Elanna laughs despite the tension between us just minutes ago. My brother glowers. I grin. I might not be good at love, but I feel better than I have in weeks.
Elanna tucks her arm around mine, dragging me toward the stairs. Tullea waits for us at the bottom. She presses a torch into my hand. She seems about to speak, but then simply nods at me. I don’t know what there is to say. I can’t promise that I’ll find Pantoleon. We don’t know the names of anyone who died in the collapse. I might find Pantoleon, or only the memory of him.
Rayka charges ahead of me, leading us down into the cisterns. El and I follow. The darkness seems to swallow us up, along with the faint plink of water. I shake off the old memories that threaten to swallow me. My brother moves quickly, his steps assured over the uncertain ground—the show-off.
We seem to walk for hours under the city. Eventually we arrive at the tunnel that slopes upward, and the collapsed rubble from the roof. I think my heart is thudding. Then I realize that it’s not my heart, but noise above us. After a moment, it ceases. The kitchens must be in use. Rayka pauses outside the cobwebbed door. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as anyone can be,” I reply. It makes me uneasy, though, leaving El here alone in the dark so like Madiya’s cave.
She touches my cheek. “I’ll be all right.”
Rayka’s fussing with the door, so I lean forward and kiss her swiftly. “If anyone comes through, blow out the torch and hide. Don’t be brave.”
She laughs. “That’s heroic advice. I’ll remember it.”
“Well,” I say with a grin, “our plan will work best if we all survive to see tomor—”
“All the gods, are you coming or not?” Rayka demands. “I don’t want to do this on my own.”
“Duty calls,” I say, releasing Elanna. Her fingers linger on my elbow.
“Damned lovebirds,” Rayka mutters.
I allow myself a last smile and a glance back at Elanna. She’s leaning against the rough wall, chewing a strip of jerky. I wink at her. She smiles back, but there’s a soreness in it, as if she’s thinking about our conversation on Solivetos Hill. Or maybe she’s just thinking about our possible, imminent demise.
There’s no time to turn back to her. Instead I follow my brother through the door.
We emerge into the cellar. Rayka, sure-footed in the dark, trots up the staircase into the kitchen. He came back here this afternoon, moving unnoticed among the guards, to check the route to the remaining prisoners. I slip after him. Nothing more than mice scratching. A single kitchen maid slumps tiredly by the sink, washing out a large pot. She takes no notice as we creep through the still-open doors into the ruined courtyard. The piles of rubble loom to either side in the darkness. They must be searching for bodies still.
Rayka guides us around the rubble to the remaining tower. We slip through an entrance partially blocked by fallen bricks, and bolt up a narrow staircase to a close corridor. Somewhere ahead of us, a chain rattles. Someone coughs.
A light gleams. Two guards stand below a torch, talking. The jagged teeth of bayonets poke over their shoulders.
Looks like we’ve found the remaining prisoners—or some of them. I press my back against the wall, afraid even the slight sound of my breathing will give me away. Rayka hovers at my shoulder. I try not to inhale the rank odor of him.
No witch hunters here, at least—and no bells. Which tells me these prisoners are either not a threat or, more likely, aren’t sorcerers at all.
Distracting the guards won’t be the hard part. The hard part will be getting all the prisoners out unnoticed, past the other guards, down in the ruined courtyard.
Rayka’s muttering. I elbow him—what if the guards hear?—but instead of shutting up, he grabs my arm and whispers in my ear.
I nod. It’s a decent plan. “Don’t kill them.”
He rolls his eyes—a flicker of white in the darkness—and snaps his fingers, whispering persuasion to the muscles of the first guard’s throat. Tighten, tighten. The guard chokes, scrabbling at his neck, before he collapses, unconscious. The other starts to exclaim. Rayka grunts and snaps his fingers again. The second guard gasps and also falls.
We wrestle them—blasted heavy since they’re limp—into a corner. Rayka sets about stripping off their weapons and uniforms, while I approach the door they guarded. The men had no keys, but the lock presents little difficulty. I snap it like a gun and pull the door open.
Breathless silence awaits me on the other side. I walk in, holding the torch aloft, and flinch.
People are packed inside—twenty or thirty of them at least, their eyes gleaming in the torchlight. The place reeks of human sweat and waste. I feel sick. We should have come here sooner—not only this morning, but the moment we knew people were being taken here.
A man with broken spectacles limps forward. I gasp aloud at the sight of him.
“Professor Argyros,” I begin. He’s alive!
He looks at me, then peers closer. An astonished smile bursts over his face. “Jahan Korakides?”
A whisper passes around the room: “The Korakos.”
I gesture the people forward, swallowing hard at the sight of their sunken faces and haunted eyes. They’ve endured so much. “Come quickly. And stay silent.”
Rayka’s waiting in the corridor, dressed in a guard’s uniform. He thrusts the other one at me, but I shake my head and gesture to Argyros. “Give it to him. I don’t need it. I’ll go on to the next floor—there must be more people.”
Rayka raises an eyebrow, but he beckons for the people to follow him, muffling their footsteps with silence. I catch Argyros’s elbow. “Do you know if there are other people left? Pantoleon…”
“Pantoleon Chrysales? He’s been captured?” Argyros shudders and clasps my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jahan. I didn’t know. There may be more prisoners, but I haven’t seen them.”
It’s what I expected him to say, but disappointment hollows out my stomach. Pantoleon’s survival seems almost impossible now. I release the professor, and he joins the others following Rayka down the corridor, back to Elanna.
I continue on, but the upper floor is empty. I pace past unoccupied cells, my breathing loud in my ears. There must be more prisoners, somewhere. Or maybe only their bodies remain, crushed in the rubble of the wall.
Ahead of me, a bell clangs. I hurry toward it, running out onto an open parapet. I’m above a large courtyard, undamaged by the morning’s events. Below me, little more than shadows magnified by lanterns, I see witch hunters assembling prisoners in a single wagon, its bars liquid black in the yellow light. They seem to be preparing to leave—the driver climbs up on the wagon, and a boy leads out a second vehicle, a coach-and-four, stamped with the imperial crest.
Why are they taking away prisoners now, in the middle of the night? Unless these are actual sorcerers—being taken not to the place of execution, but to the Ochuroma…
Men emerge into the courtyard. Four of them, bells clattering on their bandoliers.
Maybe I’m right. My pulse is hammering in my ears. I look back for Rayka, but he hasn’t followed me. He must still be getting the prisoners to safety.
The portcullis creaks as it’s winched open. I have to act now.
So, like a graceless bird, I jump. As if I could fly. For a moment, as the air catches me, I imagine that I feel the rattle of wind through feathers. Like Mantius.
Then I land, my knees rattling with the impact, just in front of the wagon. The horses spook and buck. The driver shouts. I dodge around the horses.
A witch hunter surges in front of me, ringing a deep bell. I wave my hand, reaching for the bell’s clapper, but my magic slides off. So I do what Rayka did—I pull power from the earth, and the paving
stones shake. The man staggers. I compress space, coming up right before him and driving a fist into his chin. He falls.
Bells erupt around me, a cacophony. But I rattle the paving stones and compress space. It’s like the Getai again, only this time I’m more confident of what I’m doing. I plow my fist into another witch hunter’s face, seize a torch from another one and fling it at the coach. It misses but the horses buck and jostle in their traces, racing away through the courtyard. I hear more guards running. I grab the fire and drag it into a curtain of blazing orange, blocking myself and the two remaining witch hunters in, along with the wagon. The horses are dancing, the driver cursing furiously.
It takes only a moment to dispatch the last two witch hunters. I turn back to the wagon—
And a man walks through the flames. Unharmed. Light-haired. Bells gleam on his coat. With a flicker of his eyes, he takes in the fallen witch hunters, the spooked horses, me.
My mouth is open, my pulse too loud. How did Alcibiades Doukas just walk through fire? Did the witch stones protect him, or—
“You’re too much damned trouble, Jahan Korakides,” he says.
I compress space—so fast I don’t see the pistol until it’s too late. But I feel the reverberation in my body, the impact of the blow shattering my chest. The distant pain. The pistol smoking. Alcibiades watching me, his eyes hooded.
Then the fire erupts. It whooshes into Alcibiades. He runs. As I waver, something strikes me in the side. I’m smashed at great speed across the courtyard. The flames have vanished but my eyes are still dazzled. I don’t know what’s happened. There’s blood on my hands. A distant, burning pain in my chest.
My brother’s holding me upright. He’s dragging me, now, through the corridors, while somewhere guards shout. My impossible brother, the one who spent weeks—months—ignoring my summons, came back for me.
He’s panting under my weight, with the effort of persuading everyone in the Frourio that there’s nothing to see. I try to move my legs, but they seem to belong to someone else. My head swims. Red sparks dance in my eyes.
