by Callie Bates
“Who goes there?” a guard shouts.
I push Madiya backward. We can get to Astarea’s Grotto another way, the long way along the Avenue of Oranges. But just then a gun explodes. Someone shouts. The spray of lead shot comes nowhere near us, but Madiya bursts into a run. I follow her. More guns erupt, and more guards shout in surprise. They must not be pulling the triggers themselves—Alcibiades must be doing it for them.
“I guess he knows we’re here,” I mutter.
Madiya snorts. “He knows a great deal more than is good for him. Here!”
We dive into the shadow between two great houses. The guns stop going off. I draw deeper into the shadows, trying to regain my breath. Madiya whirls around and clenches her fingers in my coat.
I stare down at her hand. She doesn’t take the hint. So I grab her wrist and pull her hand forcibly away.
“Jahan,” she says, and there’s a strange note in her voice. A plea. A hope. “Alcibiades is powerful. You’ve seen how powerful he is. And you—you have healing magic. Like me.”
“What?” I say. My lips feel numb.
“I could heal others,” she says again, as if she thinks I might not have understood the first time. “The same way you can. It’s how I managed to do the experiments—the little vestige of power left to me. But I never gave it to you boys. I never trained you to do it. You learned how to do it on your own, Jahan. You’re brilliant. Clever. I never realized it.”
I’m staring at her. After she insulted my abilities in the coach, now she’s saying I’m like her? I’m not like Madiya, and I never will be.
“You and I can defeat Alcibiades together.” She draws in a breath. Whispers, “Give me back my magic.”
I reel backward, throwing her off me. She lured me in—complimented me, warned me of the danger with Alcibiades. But this is what she really wants.
“Please, Jahan,” she says. “Please.”
I look at her. Even in the dark, even filthy and reeking of ash and sweat, she exudes a kind of magnetism. Once, I would have tried to do this for her. I would have wanted to save her. To help her. So that she would praise me.
But I’m not a boy anymore. She no longer has that power over me.
“No,” I say.
There’s a pause, as if she can’t believe what she just heard. “Jahan! I raised you—I taught you everything I know—I brought you up! And now you’re being ungrateful, just the way you always have been—”
“And that,” I say coldly, “is why I will never give you back your magic. Never.”
Silence. She draws in a ragged breath, and I steel myself against another bout of her persuasion. She’ll try another tactic this time. Guilt, probably. We don’t have time for this—we need to go. Or I need to leave her here.
Before I can move, there’s a whisper behind us. Footsteps. I whirl, bringing my fists up.
“There you are,” a familiar voice says. “You morons.”
I lower my fists. Two boys stand in the alley—both with ragged, lank dark hair and identical mulish stares. I never thought Rayka and Lathiel were much alike until this moment, but right now, there’s no mistaking that they’re brothers. I suppose I don’t look much better.
“I told you to stay!” Madiya hisses.
“And leave you two to solve everything?” Rayka rolls his eyes.
Lathiel looks at Madiya. “You can’t tell us what to do.”
He’s standing up to her? I’m staring. So is Rayka. And Madiya—she’s pulled her shoulders back. Her mouth is open, but nothing has come out of it.
Rayka clears his throat. “So, uh. Where’s Alcibiades?”
I’m only too glad to return to the matter at hand. “Astarea’s Grotto, we think. Come on.”
We take a back street this time, evading the guns. No guards patrol the perimeter of the imperial garden. We slip one by one through the gate and into the stillness of the shrubs and flowers. Ahead, the cypresses make tall shadows, clustering around the grotto. As we approach, I sense someone’s presence within the trees.
Rayka grabs my arm, pulling me to a halt. We crouch behind a hedge. Madiya whispers, “Listen.”
“Shut up,” Rayka whispers back at her.
Footsteps crunch. Someone’s come out of the grotto. Then Alcibiades’s voice drifts, low and amused, over the plants. “Do I have company? Come and say hello.”
Rayka stands, even as Lathiel and I try to yank him back down. “Hello, you bastard—”
He stops abruptly, choking. Flailing. He falls to the ground, heaving, gasping, his hands scrabbling at a hand that isn’t there. It must be Alcibiades’s magic—similar to how Rayka choked the guards at the Frourio, but Alcibiades isn’t just trying to make my brother unconscious, he’s trying to kill him. I grab for Rayka, trying to push Alcibiades away with my mind, but Madiya pulls me off him. “Go after Alcibiades—stop him—”
Lathiel is already running around the hedge, a silent shadow, obeying her out of habit. I plunge after him. He’s running across the open space toward the grotto—
And then he’s not. He’s gone, invisible.
But I see Alcibiades. He stands on the grotto pathway, holding up a lantern. A discarded coat sits by his feet, along with the glinting shape of a pistol. He laughs at me. “Korakides? I might have known it was you. Is Sylvia with you? I’d like to pay my respects, one last time. Maybe she’ll be more cooperative once I put her back in the Ochuroma.”
“You won’t,” I snarl. “I know your secret, and the Ochuroma’s—”
I stop, gagging. A fist has caught me around the throat. I flail, but there’s no one there. No fist. Just a pressure. I’m choking. Black spots swarm in front of my eyes. I’m going to collapse—
Alcibiades grunts. The pressure eases and I heave in a breath, still on my knees. But now he’s swinging around, reaching for someone who’s not there. Someone invisible. Lathiel.
From the hedge, Madiya calls, “If you harm the boys, you’ll never figure out what I did to make them great sorcerers!”
“I don’t care about that, Sylvia,” Alcibiades replies, laughing. “I don’t need your help, and neither do Augustus and Phaedra. But it’s been entertaining to play with you.”
I crawl forward. One foot, one hand, then another. The folded coat and the pistol are so near. I compress space, but the motion catches Alcibiades’s eye. He swings toward me, letting go of Lathiel, who drops to the ground, no longer invisible.
“We could have worked together, Sylvia,” Alcibiades says over his shoulder. “But since you wanted to destroy the witch hunters, instead of using them to gain power in secret…” He shrugs, turns to me. Smiles. “We might have held all the magicians in the world under our sway, together. But I don’t need anyone’s help anymore. And unlike you, Korakides, I don’t need the world to know I’m a sorcerer. If I have the witch hunters and the Saranons, I control the world.”
The fist grabs my throat again. I’m gagging. But even as I try to get a grip on it, to break it, the fist shifts and tightens. I can hardly see Alcibiades now, or the garden, or Lathiel. He’s sitting up behind Alcibiades, unnoticed. Maybe the grand inquisitor has discounted him because he’s only a child.
But I can just see Lathiel stretch his fists up against his chin. See him squeeze them.
Do you know how to kill a man without touching him?
No. I refuse to let my little brother have another man’s blood on his hands.
Alcibiades jerks. He staggers a little, fumbling at his left arm. Lathiel squeezes harder, but Alcibiades swivels and strikes him across the face. My little brother goes flying.
I’m gasping. Wheezing. But it’s enough of a reprieve. I crawl forward and grab the pistol and the powder flask beside it. My hands aren’t steady. Any moment Alcibiades is going to turn—he does turn—
There’s a cry behind me: Madiya, running throu
gh the hedge. I spare a quick glance. She’s carrying a stick, ready to strike Alcibiades with it.
But he merely snaps his fingers. A corresponding, sickening snap echoes up from Madiya. Her head jerks at a sharp, sick angle. Her body gives a single, violent shake. I can’t look away as she falls, crashing to the earth, her neck broken.
Just like that, she’s dead. Over. Done.
Alcibiades turns to me.
I’ve tipped the powder into the pan. I cock it. This is for Leontius, and for my brothers, and for all the sorcerers Alcibiades never freed from the Ochuroma, but tortured instead.
Alcibiades is staring down at me, laughing. “You’re a sorcerer. You can do better than—”
I fire.
We’re at close range. Alcibiades’s head snaps back, though less sickeningly than Madiya’s. Blood seeps, black, from the hole in his forehead. His arms jerk. The lantern tumbles from his hand. Then, gracelessly, he falls.
I climb to my feet. I wouldn’t be surprised to find him still alive, ready to choke me with his dying breath, but his eyes are empty, the muscles of his face slack. He’s dead, along with his ambitions to control the world—and all the sorcerers in it—from behind the imperial dais. I snatch up the lantern before it can burn a hole in the ground, and run for my youngest brother.
He’s sitting up slowly. Alcibiades must have hit him with more than just the back of his hand. Blood drips from his nose. “I’m all right,” he says thickly. Even his teeth are stained with blood. I rip a piece of my shirt off and stuff it against his nostrils. He manages, “Madiya?”
I shake my head, but Lathiel’s already crawling onto his feet. So I grab his arm and together we cross back toward the woman who made us what we are.
She lies tumbled on the ground, her head turned at an impossible angle. Slowly, I kneel and feel for her neck, though touching her makes my skin crawl. But her flesh is cool and stiff. There’s nothing there.
I look up at Lathiel. He’s breathing hard, fast breaths, so loud I can hear them. It’s over. Madiya can never touch him again. I reach up, and he grabs my hand. Neither of us can speak.
There’s a groan from the hedge beyond us. Rayka comes crawling through, just visible since the sky has begun to lighten. He’s bloody, bruised, as though he’s been in a fight. “Is the bastard dead?”
“Yes,” I say shortly, because I can’t seem to put words around how damned glad I am to see him.
“She can’t come back, can she?” Lathiel says, watching me with enormous eyes. “You can’t bring her back?”
Rayka’s come over to stand above us. Even he can’t seem to speak.
“No,” I say. I feel as if Lathiel’s squeezing my heart as much as he tried to squeeze Alcibiades’s. “No, she can’t come back. I would never try anything like that.”
Wordlessly, he nods. I hug him against me, and he hugs back. Rayka stands beside us, his arms folded. His shoulders quiver. I think he might be weeping. Not for Madiya, but for all the years she held us under her sway. For our mother. For ourselves.
My own eyes are burning. She’ll never whisper into my head again. Never command me. Never cajole and manipulate me. Never keep my brothers from me, or try to win us back to her.
Birds are chattering in the cypresses. Dawn color touches the gardens, and it seems as if I can breathe again, more deeply than I have in years. My brothers are with me. They’re safe. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
In the distance, a shout rises up over the palace roofs. A resounding din.
Elanna. I clamber to my feet. Elanna, and Leontius, and the mob. They must be here.
I turn back, reaching out my hand to Lathiel. He holds on to it. Together, Rayka leading the way, we run through the gardens, toward the palace and our people, and Leontius’s siblings.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As we come around the corner toward the square facing the Grand Court, I see them, the rebels and even the militia from Ida, overflowing the square outside the palace gates. They’re shouting, “Open the gates! Open the gates!” Behind the gates, the palace guard has retreated back toward the walls, well across the Grand Court. They’re formed up in a defensive line. So far they haven’t shot anything. Someone screams and points—my head jerks up. A green dragon swoops overhead, breathing fire. Illusion, I realize, and I laugh even though my heart’s pounding perhaps faster than it should. In the crowd, Tullea waves at me, Pantoleon at her side. More magic weaves through the crowd—flashes of light, an ambling tree somehow mixed up in the crowd. Felix Tzemines throws his black hat in the air.
A woman is running toward us, shoving people aside. Elanna. Her face is smeared with dirt and scratches, but she’s smiling. “Jahan!” She smashes against me, her hand tangling in mine, then stares at Lathiel and Rayka. “What happened?”
I try to explain, with interjections from Rayka. Lathiel just hangs on to me.
“The chasm closed,” Elanna tells us, “almost of its own accord. It must have happened when Alcibiades was distracted.” She glances over her shoulder. “Leontius is waiting for us. If you can, Jahan…”
Rayka takes over guarding Lathiel, and I push through the crowd with Elanna. Leontius occupies the center of the mob, perched on horseback. He casts me a wide-eyed look, but I wink at him and he puts his shoulders back.
“Korakos,” he calls, “open the gates!”
I bow. “As you wish!”
I stride back through the crowd, which parts for me, until I reach the gates. With the energy of the grotto well still humming in my hands, even in my growing weariness, it’s no trouble to murmur to the gate lock.
The gates fly open, and across the Grand Court, the palace guards bristle into tighter formation. I hold up my arms, keeping the crowd from surging through the gates.
“Aim!” a sergeant shouts, and the muskets pop as they’re cocked.
I gather them all in my mind, with the humming brilliance of the grotto well, and, just before the sergeant can call Fire, I snap the locks and pinch out the sparks ready to ignite the gunpowder. Only one gun backfires, with a sickening thud. The others simply crack. Across the courtyard, the guards exclaim. Some throw down their weapons and run. Others struggle, trying to reload.
It doesn’t matter—the guns are broken. And now we’re pouring into the Grand Court, all the sorcerers in Ida, all the reformers, and at the heart of it all, Leontius Saranon.
A flash catches my eye. Someone is running off the balcony in the Inner Court.
Augustus. He’s still up there. With any luck, he’s barricading himself in the Salon of Meres.
“To me!” I shout, and there’s a roar as we flood past the palace guards, through the colonnades, and into the palace itself. We’re an unstoppable wave surging up the stairs. When I glance to my left, Elanna is there, fierce and battle-triumphant. I reach for her hand as we pour into the upper corridors, empty except for the staring eyes of marble statues.
The guards outside the Salon of Meres take one look at us and throw down their weapons.
I fling open the doors of the salon.
It’s empty. Pieces of the diamond chandelier have shattered onto the floor, perhaps in the earthquakes yesterday. But no one occupies the room where Alakaseus Saranon let me know he would never allow us to win peace.
I run a hand through my hair. Augustus and Phaedra must have fled through one of the passages. Other people have crashed into the room—Leontius comes to a halt beside me, disheveled and angry. “Where are they?”
“They’re either hiding, or planning to stab us in the back,” I say. “Or both!”
Leontius rolls his eyes. “Their rooms, then.” He leads the charge through the narrow hallway between salons, into the west wing. We burst into Phaedra’s bedchamber. Clothes lie scattered; a perfume jar seeps oil onto the carpet. A terrified maid peers up from where she’s hiding on the other s
ide of the bed, and points to the passage connecting Phaedra’s chambers to Augustus’s.
His are not empty—shots ring out as we enter, from two guards wielding muskets. The bullets spray harmlessly into plaster. I break the guns, but the men don’t have time to reload anyway. Leontius marches forward, Zollus right behind him.
“Stand down in the name of your emperor!” Zollus orders.
The guards glance at each other, then throw down their weapons. They both drop to their knees.
“Where is my brother?” Leontius asks in a dangerous voice.
“He-he fled, sir,” one guard stammers. “With Princess Phaedra and a small retinue.”
“What are their plans?” Leontius asks.
Both men shake their heads.
I push through to Lees. “I’ll go.”
I edge into the passage. No more guards here, but still I’m cautious winding down a staircase to a narrow door. I step through rather than push it open.
I’m in a small courtyard—I’m not sure I even knew this place existed. Fresh horse droppings litter the ash-flecked ground, and the tracks of carriage wheels disappear through the archway. I run out, following them. A small, deserted gatehouse; the gate itself stands open. I stare back and forth. Have they really fled, or just gone to ground at one of their distant holdings?
I can’t see them from the air, like a bird—I need one of my brothers for that. I call to them: Rayka! Lathiel!
Footsteps scrape behind me, but it’s Nestor who runs out of the palace. He’s sweaty and grinning, and I can tell just by looking at him that he’s ready to do something heroic. “I’ll go after them, Jahan!”
“It’s dangerous,” I begin.
“This whole matter has been dangerous! It’s all right, Jahan.” He draws himself up. “I can manage alone.”
“No, I’ll come with you.” I’m not about to let Nestor pursue these ruthless bastards on his own. “It’s not—”
A shout interrupts me, in my head. Jahan! Not one of my brothers—Elanna. Then I hear, in the ordinary way, with my ears, a shout from the upper window: “Jahan!” There’s a panicked edge to her voice. She’s gesturing me up.
