I turn to the others, searching for support. But Clementine’s arms are wrapped protectively around her sister, and I guess she has other things on her mind than Teddy’s strange mood. Lukas stares at his feet, his expression dark.
‘Teddy,’ I say, ‘I know you don’t really mean that. You’re just –’
He looks at me. ‘Don’t tell me what I mean, Danika. You’ve got no idea what this means to me.’
And then he’s gone: striding along the nearest chain bridge. I make a move to follow him, but Lukas touches my sleeve. ‘He needs his space.’
He’s right. I have no idea what this news means to Teddy, because I don’t really know anything about him. Not really. Teddy Nort is a legend of Rourton, sprung up from the cobblestones. A joker. A thief. I know nothing about his past, or his family, and I have no right to make judgement calls about how he feels.
But even so, my teeth grind together like stones. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. When I woke this morning, it was just another day. Chopping potatoes, scrubbing floors, sucking down soot in the blacksmith’s cabin.
And yet here we are. Our crew is broken and our new country sees us as enemies. Hinrik wants me dead and half this village would be willing to help him. I still have no idea what Lord Farran is playing at – why he lights the sky with flames each night, or what his plan might be for the firestones.
And at dawn tomorrow, unless we can stop it …
We march to war.
We don’t find Teddy for over an hour. There’s no sign of him in the kitchen, the cabins, or the trees nearby. My nerves are tight as we prowl the forest floor. I’m ready to dissolve into Night if need be, but there’s no sign of hunters or assassins in the dark. Just silent trees, and the glint of frost.
‘The firestone field,’ Clementine says. ‘That’s where he’ll be.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, Teddy thought I might like to see it, so he took me there and …’ Clementine blushes. ‘Anyway, Teddy likes that place. He said it reminded him of home.’
I’m not sure what surprises me more: the fact that Clementine Pembroke is blushing, or the idea that a field of glowing rocks could remind Teddy of home. The only things that glow prettily in Rourton are richies’ fireplaces – and no matter how many times Teddy broke into mansions to steal the silverware, I doubt he’d classify those places as ‘home’.
‘Well, come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’
We head along the tunnel and emerge onto the cliff. The firestones are shining now, and the cliff top is a mirror of the evening sky. Just as the first stars begin to appear overhead, a thousand tiny lights wink from stone nests in the earth. I instantly spot the human figure among the shine. He’s hunched over a little, head bowed, bent half to his knees.
‘Teddy?’ I whisper.
We hurry forward, striking out through the maze of glowing orbs. As we get closer, I stop walking. The figure isn’t Teddy. I see the light on the face, the crinkles around the eyes, the greying strands of hair.
It’s Annalísa.
She looks up, startled by the sound of our approach. As soon as she recognises us, her face twists into a snarl. ‘What are you doing here?’
She’s trying to sound tough, but there’s something a little less sharp in her voice than usual. Something … halting. It takes me a long moment to realise that she’s been crying.
‘Sorry,’ Lukas says. ‘We were …’ He glances at the rest of us. ‘We were looking for our friend.’
‘Lost him?’ Annalísa says harshly.
‘He went for a walk to think about things,’ Clementine says. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen him out here, have you?’
Annalísa snorts. ‘No one here but ghosts, my dear. Ghosts and death and darkness on the breeze.’
She holds out her arms and throws back her face. I can see the moisture on her cheeks now, the puffy bags around her eyes. She hasn’t just been crying. She’s been sobbing. Grieving for her daughter, only a few days dead.
My stomach twists. I’ve been thinking of Annalísa as purely hateful. An enemy. Someone who wants me dead out of spite. But Annalísa has been bottling up her real emotions, fighting to fulfil her role within the clan. She has locked away the depth of her grief, keeping it hidden until she reached this place. This place of dancing lights, of twinkling stone. A place for love … or mourning.
‘My daughter loved these stones,’ Annalísa whispers. ‘When she was a little girl, she told me they were the sisters of the stars.’
Annalísa’s eyes are fixed on the darkness ahead. Her voice is hoarse and raw. She doesn’t seem capable of finding the energy to banish us, to shoo us away. She just accepts our presence as another blow, and folds in upon herself in a new paroxysm of grief.
Then she turns and her eyes fix on me. She wets her lips, and I brace myself for the insult.
‘My daughter would have liked you,’ she says. ‘You remind me of her.’
This stings more than an insult. Not only did I fail to save her daughter, but I’m a constant reminder of the girl she has lost. The thought must burn her like acid every time she looks at me.
‘You will die, you know,’ Annalísa says. ‘You’re Taladians. Heathens. Our enemy. Your comrades will turn on you, my dears, before the fighting has even begun.’
She says it so blandly, so matter-of-factly, that another sting runs up my spine.
‘You should leave,’ she says. ‘No one wants you here. All you bring is trouble. And tomorrow, you will die.’
I take a deep breath. This could be my only chance. I realise that Annalísa doesn’t necessarily want me to die: she just wants to be rid of me. She might not sell me to the guards. She might be content if we promise to leave.
‘Annalísa,’ I say quietly, ‘we’re going to run. We don’t want to join the army.’
She blinks, her eyes bright. ‘Good.’
‘But there’s something we have to know before we leave.’
Annalísa’s mouth draws back into a harsh line. She blinks her puffy eyes, then nods sharply.
‘What’s the Hourglass?’ I say.
She stares at me. Her eyes are harder than ever, her lips as thin as splinters. ‘The Hourglass is a legend, my dear,’ she says. ‘It does not exist.’
‘But –’
‘It. Does. Not. Exist.’ Her hands clench into fists by her sides. ‘Lord Farran is chasing a ghost.’
‘So he is looking for it, then?’ I say quickly. ‘Lord Farran thinks the Hourglass exists, whatever it is, and he’s trying to find it.’
She doesn’t contradict me.
‘So whatever it is, it must be powerful,’ I say, thinking aloud. ‘Some strange form of magic? A really old alchemy charm, perhaps? Or something so rare that –’
Annalísa holds up her hand. ‘Enough’
‘What’s he doing with the firestones? What’s he doing to burn the sky at midnight, and why –’
I’ve pushed too far. Annalísa’s eyes are dry, her grief replaced by fury. She steps forward and grabs my shirt. Her hand gropes my wounded shoulder, and I wince as her nails dig into the flesh.
‘You are a danger to us all,’ she hisses. ‘When you leave this clan, you must never return. If you are still in the village by morning, I will kill you myself. Do I make myself clear?’
My mouth is too dry to respond. I force myself to give a slow nod.
‘Let her go!’ Lukas starts forward, but Annalísa digs her nails in deeper as he approaches. I can’t hold back a cry of pain and Lukas hesitates. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Just let her go, and we’ll talk about this more calml–’
‘I do not risk my life for blasphemers,’ Annalísa whispers, her eyes not shifting from my face. ‘And my clan has risked enough for you already. Bastian might have a soft heart, but it’s people like me who keep the world turning. Do you understand me?’
Annalísa’s fingernails dig even deeper. My shoulder throbs with a sting of liquid beneath the bandage, and I realise she�
��s re-opened the wound. I nod.
‘Good.’ Annalísa thrusts me away with a violent lurch. ‘Go,’ she says. ‘Go, and don’t come back.’ Her voice is a little choked again now, and the firestones flicker back into darkness around us. ‘Don’t you dare come back!’
The cliff top sinks into shadow. As we turn to leave, I can just make out the muffled rasp of sobbing in the dark.
In the end we find Teddy in the sÓlfox stall. He sits in silence, watching Bastian scrub the creature’s feathers. We hover awkwardly in the doorway.
Then Clementine whirls upon Teddy, her voice high and irritated. ‘Where in the name of Taladia have you been? We’ve looked everywhere for you.’
Teddy shrugs. ‘Just needed a bit of time, I guess.’
A long pause. I want to drill him for answers – to ask why the news of war made him flee into the dusk. But he’s already forcing a grin, clearly determined to change the subject. I bite my tongue.
‘Anyway,’ Teddy says, a little too brightly, ‘I fancied a lesson in sólfox brushing. Shame we can’t import these things into Rourton – make a fortune, I reckon, selling ’em to traders.’ He holds up his hands, as though to mime a shop sign. ‘Can’t you see it now? Nort & Sons: Fine Bred Foxhawks.’
‘You haven’t got any sons,’ Clementine says.
Teddy winks at her. ‘Not yet.’
Clementine splutters, shocked at his impertinence, but Teddy laughs and I feel a little of the tension dissipate. I glance at the sólfox in question, which slumps in its stall. Even with a bucket of raw meat at its disposal, it isn’t eating. Its eyes look dim in the light of Bastian’s alchemy lamp.
‘He’s been quiet lately,’ Bastian says, following my gaze. ‘He misses Corrintel.’
It takes me a moment to place the name. Corrintel. Then I remember Tindra’s diary, with her plans to flee upon the clan’s fastest sólfox. Now Corrintel is as dead as his rider, and his old companion must roost alone.
‘Bastian,’ I say, ‘you’ve been so good to us. We want to thank you for everything you’ve done. But …’ I hesitate. ‘But we think it’s time to go.’
He looks up at me. I think I see a flash of relief behind his eyes, but he quickly hides it. He’s a kind man, Bastian.
‘That is well,’ he says. ‘You aren’t safe here, I’d say. Not any longer. You aren’t of our people.’ He pauses. ‘But where will you go? Tonight’s the Ball of No Faces – every ethereal soul across Víndurn will be at the spires. And before dawn, all lowborn folk will march to war.’ He shakes his head. ‘Not a good night for travel, lass, if you don’t want to be found.’
‘We know.’ I glance at the others for help. What I want to say is: we’re going to stop this war. But that’s insane. Even to me, it sounds ridiculous; the raving of an arrogant fool. We’re just five teenagers up against a pair of armies. Not to mention Lord Farran on one side, and King Morrigan on the other.
It’s hopeless. Bastian will never believe it.
But still, we’ve got to try.
‘We thought we might head south,’ Maisy lies. ‘Towards your home country. The Borrolan Islands, didn’t you say?’
Bastian shrugs, scrubbing a fistful of suds across sólfox fur. ‘Haven’t seen the place for decades, lass. Hope it’s nicer than when I left it.’
‘Why’d your family leave?’ I say. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’
Bastian pauses, his hand frozen on the sólfox. ‘The islands are a beautiful place. Beautiful, but cruel. And when the sea comes rising … Well, it’s no damn place to raise a family.’
I hear the hoarseness in his voice. He looks shaken. My stomach twists as I think of rising seas – how high? High enough to wash people into the deep?
‘But what happened when you came to Víndurn?’ Clementine says. ‘I mean, you don’t have any family here in the village, do you?’
Bastian exhales, his breath as rough as the scrubbing brush. ‘My parents had ethereal proclivities. And after a lifetime of misery, Lord Farran gave them hope.’
I stare at him, my throat tight. I remember Bastian’s words on the way to the market – his remark that some of the villagers had been raised in the city. Some attended the ball each year with their families, and lived in the spires, until their solid proclivities developed.
He wasn’t just talking about Annalísa.
‘When my proclivity developed,’ he says quietly, ‘I begged my parents to come with me. They … refused. They wouldn’t betray Lord Farran, you see. He’d given them hope and life after despair.’
My breath catches. What was it that Bastian said, when I asked about ethereal parents moving with their children to the lower villages? ‘No patriot could betray his nation’s values in such a way.’ Did Bastian’s own parents first utter those words, when they cast him down alone into the shadows of the mountainside?
I imagine the pain of separation: hot and sharp, like a wire through flesh. Is this why Bastian never married? Never risked having a family of his own?
Bastian looks up at me. ‘My watchmen aren’t on duty. I’ve given them leave to prepare for the war. I can hide your disappearance for a few hours, perhaps, but no longer. Hinrik’s spies are everywhere, and word will leak that you’ve fled.’
I stare at him, throat tight, and nod. ‘Okay.’
‘He’ll hunt you,’ Bastian says.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘We’ll be careful.’
‘Here’s the thing, lass,’ Bastian says. ‘Some in this village call you enemies, and they’ll try hunting you down personally. They’ll figure it’s their duty to their lord. Then they’ll turn you in to Hinrik, see, and claim a reward to fill their bellies.’
‘We’ll be careful,’ I say again.
Bastian shakes his head, a sombre look in his eyes. ‘There are few things in this world more heartless than the sea.’ He swallows hard, and lowers his voice even further. ‘Few, but not none.’
I can see the fear in Bastian’s eyes: how close he’s come to blasphemy, to rebellion. I know what those words have cost him.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘For warning us.’
Bastian nods. His gaze returns to the shadows as he slowly resumes brushing the sólfox. That’s my final sight as we retreat: a silhouetted man and beast, alone in the shine of an alchemy lamp.
And as one, we turn to face the night.
The mountainside is black. Wind whips my face, and I pull my cloak tighter around my limbs.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ Teddy says. He seems determined not to mention his earlier meltdown, and no one else is keen to bring it up. For now, at least, it’s easier to pretend it never happened.
‘It’s still early evening,’ Lukas says. ‘There’s time to get up the mountain.’
I nod. ‘We need to hear Lord Farran’s speech. That war declaration said he’d give more information at the ball tonight. If we can just sneak inside …’
Teddy grins. ‘Hey, you know me. I never say no to a party.’
Clementine shakes her head. ‘It’s not that simple, Danika. We have low proclivities. We’re not allowed into the city without a good reason, let alone into the ball itself. It would be like a gang of dirty scruffers sneaking into one of my father’s business luncheons.’
‘Don’t knock dirty scruffers,’ Teddy says. ‘I went to a bunch of richie luncheons in my time and they’re boring as hell. Lucky I was there to ramp up the excitement.’
‘What, by stealing people’s purses?’
Teddy smirks. ‘Getting robbed is exciting.’
I notice that Lukas is very quiet. He walks with his head bowed low, his face scrunched in concentration.
‘What’s wrong?’ I say.
He looks up. ‘Nothing. I just … I was thinking. About how we could get into the ball.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, it’s a masked ball, isn’t it?’ Lukas says. ‘Bastian said so. They wear veils to cover their proclivity markings too.’
The realisation clicks. ‘We would
n’t have to sneak in,’ I say. ‘If we had masks and veils, we could waltz right in there and no one would know.’
‘There must be protection against it,’ Clementine says. ‘They could hardly risk commoners walking into their ball if it’s reserved for high proclivities.’
‘Dunno,’ Teddy says. ‘None of the villagers we met were keen to rock the boat, were they? I don’t reckon anyone’d have the guts to sneak in if they had a low proclivity.’
‘There’s probably a serious punishment,’ I say, ‘for pretending to have a different proclivity.’
Teddy nods. ‘Exactly. Who the hell would risk it just to crash a party? No one in their right mind, I reckon.’
‘No one except us,’ Clementine mutters.
‘Yeah, but we’re not doing it for fun,’ Teddy says. ‘We’re trying to hear this Lord Fancypants bloke’s speech, aren’t we? That’s different.’
‘You think that’s worth the risk?’ Clementine says sharply. ‘That suddenly makes it fine to throw away our lives?’
‘Hey, I didn’t say –’
‘And even if we did want to attend this ball,’ Clementine adds, as though a flawless argument has just occurred to her, ‘we haven’t any money! We can’t just stroll into a shop to buy costumes, masks, veils. And it’s already evening – all the shops will be closed. How exactly, Teddy Nort, do you propose we buy our costumes from closed shops?’
There’s a moment’s pause.
‘Buy?’ Teddy says. ‘Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I’m the greatest thief in Rourton.’ He offers us a cheeky grin. ‘I reckon it’s my time to shine.’
The ball is held in an enormous tower in the centre of the city. It spirals high upon its support columns, glistening with the shine of a thousand alchemy lanterns. We lurk in a nearby alleyway to watch the guests approach.
‘Ready?’ Lukas says.
I force a smile. ‘Yeah, of course.’
In reality, though, I’m frozen with nerves. I’m the only one in our crew with no experience at flashy parties. Lukas is probably the best suited of all of us to deal with the pomp and ceremony of such an affair. I grew up in a threadbare apartment, where the closest I got to a grand ball was dancing around my father’s radio. After my family burned, I lived on the streets, scavenging for food and working whatever dead-end job I could scrape in downtown Rourton.
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