by Mary Taranta
My chest tightens as I study him warily. It surprises me how easy this is; I expected opposition, denial, riddles, and more questions. Yet Frell doesn’t look like he has any fight in him. “How do you know about that?”
“The timing cannot be coincidental. The prince’s marriage has brought magic back into the city, and you seek me out on the eve of his departure into the Burn, with the spell he needs to save his kingdom.” He smiles, but it is creaky, as though it’s not often used. “Based on your mother’s last letter, I expected you ten years ago. Or, at the very least, I would have thought she would come herself, gloating, for all I doubted her ability.” He looks beyond me. “Is she here?”
“She’s dead,” I say, marveling that I almost feel sad to say it, rather than angry.
Emotions flicker across his face before his expression slackens. “Oh.”
“How did you know her? Did you teach her how to weave magic?”
But he shakes his head, turning into the dark room behind him. “You don’t have time for such irrelevant questions. Come. I may be rusty, but I’m not useless yet.”
Despite my interest, I refuse to be denied basic facts. “Are you from Brindaigel? Did you escape? Did my mother help you?”
Another tired smile spreads across his face as he opens his hand toward me. “Give me the spell,” he says, “and I’ll forge the weapon. Beyond that, I have no need for company. Or questions.”
“What weapon?”
An eyebrow arches. “She trusted you with her spell but not her plan?”
“I was six years old,” I say darkly, pulling back the collar of my cloak to expose the knotted spell beneath my skin. “It wasn’t a matter of trust so much as she was being hunted and needed somewhere to hide her work.”
Frell’s mouth falls open, shock registering across his face. “You’re the vessel? But the blood—”
The exterior door to the building slams open below, and Frell tenses. “Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“No.” I lean into the hallway, catching sight of three of Perrote’s guards, already flinging aside the broken furniture, followed by a man in a beaked metal mask—the uniform of Perrote’s council. And there, bringing up the rear at a more sedate, unhurried pace, is Perrote himself.
Panicked, I withdraw back into Frell’s apartment, shutting the door and fumbling with the dead bolt, aware that it is merely a moment of protection. When the guards reach the landing, they begin slamming against the door. It gives in its damaged frame, and I scan the room around me for something heavy or more useful than my small blade, but the tarnished sword looks heavy, and my training with one is incomplete. “Is there another way out?”
Frell stares hard at the door. His fists are clenched, his expression oddly defiant. “It appears the hunt is far from over.”
The door splits down the center. Swearing, I tear aside the curtains and struggle with one of the windows. But like the door, it’s been warped out of its frame and sticks, useless. Even if it could open, the broken cobblestone street is too far for me to safely jump.
One of the guards shoulders through the crack in the door and unlatches the dead bolt. Grabbing my dagger, I stand in front of Frell—a meager apology for bringing destruction to his door—but Frell pushes me aside, picking up the tarnished sword from the love seat. With one sweeping blow, he cuts off the guard’s arm.
The guard screams, recoiling back onto the landing, and I openly stare, rooted to the spot. Who is this man?
Whoever he is, whatever training he must have had makes for an impressive stand when the other two guards kick through the door, followed by the councilman. Yet while Frell fights well, I am erratic, confused. Despite the dagger, my instinct is to use my fists, and my blows are clumsy, easy to avoid. When a guard nearly slits my stomach open, I finally snap out of my haze and launch myself forward, throwing an elbow into his throat before ramming my dagger into his chest. His eyes widen in surprise before his body slumps into me, blood spilling over my hands.
All at once I’m thrown back to a night not long enough ago when Bryn ordered me to a kill a man and I obeyed. That was different, I tell myself; he was unarmed, begging for mercy. This was self-defense.
Even so, my guilt costs me my attention long enough that the second guard grabs me by the arm and twists it back until I cry out in pain. The first guard collapses to the floor, my dagger still buried to the hilt in his blood.
Across the room, Frell is likewise cornered by the councilman, his glasses half-hanging from his nose as he struggles to catch his breath. Inexplicably, he’s smiling.
“It has been a very long time since I’ve done that,” he says.
His smile infuriates me. How can he make jokes when everything I’ve worked for now hangs by one of his fraying threads?
The councilman edges toward the doorway and shouts, “Clear!” Only then does Perrote enter, expression mildly amused as he scans the dank apartment before settling on Frell. “Dimitr Frell,” he says. “The legend himself.”
Frell spits at him.
Perrote sighs wearily, snapping a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopping the saliva from his face. “Your mistake, Mr. Frell, is your arrogance. You believed yourself safe once you escaped Brindaigel. But I know how to hunt down rats.”
“This rat knew your labyrinth far better than you ever did,” Frell replies. “Well enough to ferry news of Avinea to those not too blind to believe the truth. You put your own ear to this rat’s mouth more than once, or so I’m told. God Above knows your shadow crows never brought you news of anything.”
A flicker of annoyance crosses Perrote’s face, a hint of wounded pride at his lackluster ability to cast spells with any merit. “And yet I caught this rat all the same.”
At his nod, the councilman releases Frell, shoving him forward. He stumbles a step, scowling as he adjusts his glasses. “How convenient that you found another crown to steal so quickly after losing your first.”
The councilman kicks the back of his legs, and Frell buckles at the knees, hitting the hardwood floor with a crack that rattles his furniture.
Perrote’s expression sours. “What you and Miss Locke have both forgotten is that you are still citizens of Brindaigel, and that I am still your king.” He pauses, deliberately folding his handkerchief and replacing it in his pocket. “And as my loyal subjects,” he finally continues, “you still fall under my jurisdiction. I am your judge, jury, and executioner. Hiding in this city for twelve years does not absolve your sins.”
“Thirteen,” Frell says. The councilman cracks him on the back of the head.
“Miss Locke, I’m being rude.” Perrote gestures me forward. “I’ve interrupted your conversation. You came for a reason, and I encourage you to continue.”
I stare at him, bemused. I came for answers about my mother; Perrote clearly believes my motives to be more than that. With Frell having expected me—or at the very least, my mother—perhaps they should have been. But even with my arm pinned and a sword at my chest, I only want one thing, and it is not any kind of weapon.
“Why did she try to run that night, and not any night before?” I ask. “What news did you bring through those tunnels to prompt her to finally leave?”
Frell gives me a pitying look. “The last news I brought to Brindaigel was of Corbin being named a legitimate heir of Avinea by the monks raising him,” he says softly. “But that was nearly twelve years ago. Your mother didn’t need an heir to act, not like those monstrous fortune hunters hoping to be rewarded for finding Merlock; she needed that”—he nods toward my chest—“perfected before she would risk leaving that much magic behind in Brindaigel. She wanted guaranteed victory. Nothing more, nothing less. Your mother did not leave on my account.”
“Guaranteed victory of what?”
But there’s no answer, only the gunpowder crack of a pistol and the gaping hole that opens in Frell’s head. I jerk forward at the noise as the councilman withdraws, smoke still clinging to the b
arrel of his gun. Frell pitches forward, and Perrote shoves the tip of his boot under his shoulder and rolls him limply onto his back.
I struggle against my captor, fury boiling like fire through my blood, testing the limits of Sofreya’s protection spells. A litany of apologies to Frell runs through my head; this is my fault. Perrote must have followed me from the palace, and in my haste for answers—and my desire to go unnoticed by Chadwick—I didn’t even consider the possibility. How could I be so reckless, after chastising North for being the same? And now a man is dead, his blood spreading at our feet. And with him, any hope of answers about my mother.
Perrote sighs again, wiping a fleck of blood from his coat as the councilman grabs a chair and arranges it to face me, just out of reach of the spreading pool of blood. Perrote settles himself in the chair, folding one leg over his knee, picking at invisible lint on his trousers before pressing his hands together. For a moment he says nothing, and simply watches me with his head cocked and that supercilious smile plastered across his face.
“Faris Locke,” Perrote says. “At long last we find ourselves with an opportunity to speak unobserved and uninterrupted.”
A thousand rebuttals flood my mind, but I bite my tongue. With a sword still pressed to my stomach and an arm tightening around my throat, rising to Perrote’s bait would leave two bodies on the ground.
“Please.” He gestures to the sagging love seat. The guard clamps a hand on my shoulder and pushes me down, fingers digging into the pad of bandages to the blistered skin underneath. I force myself to meet Perrote’s eyes, to be the ironhearted girl my mother tried to make me ten years ago when she perfected this spell to find Merlock. But there has to be more to it; finding Merlock would not guarantee victory. What weapon was Frell talking about? The sword? It lies discarded at the councilman’s feet, too tarnished to be anything more than scrap.
“I’m told you have none of your mother’s many abilities,” Perrote says, interrupting my thoughts. He inspects the back of his hand and rubs at his knuckles. “Or our tragic rat’s.”
“What do you want from me?” I force bravado even as I fruitlessly scan the room in my peripheral vision for this so-called weapon. Attacking Perrote is worthless, because of all the protection spells he wears. The guard behind me is the easiest target, but he’s twice my size, and well trained; not to mention the councilman standing between me and the door, pointedly reloading his pistol.
My eyes stray back to the body, and I feel myself wilting, the need to fight draining. Did Frell always know it was only borrowed time? Did he remember that one inescapable truth?
Nobody leaves Brindaigel.
“I’ll extend to you the same offer I gave your mother,” Perrote says. “Give me the spell and I won’t kill you. Or your sister.” He spreads his hands. “That’s all I ask.”
My dagger. It’s still leveraged in the guard’s body, but within reach, yet Perrote’s threat gives me pause. Cadence has always been my liability as far as Bryn was concerned, but this is the first time Perrote has used her against me. And unlike Bryn, he has no reason to show me mercy.
“You’ll have to fight Bryn for her first,” I say, mind spinning.
“That spell”—he levels a finger toward me—“was cast from magic that belongs to me.”
“This magic belongs to Avinea,” I say, body tensing. “And you were never a king. You have no power over me, not while North is alive.”
“Corbin cannot save you,” he says. “He cannot even save himself from what’s to come. The sooner you accept that, the less painful it will be.” Exhaling, he rubs his palm across his short-cropped hair. “Skin her,” he says.
I lunge for the dagger and yank it free. The guard moves to stop me, but I twist and bury the dagger hilt-deep in his shoulder, forcing him to stagger back. With my heart racing, I then grab the oil lamp from the table and slam it into the startled face of the councilman. He gags against the noxious fumes, wrestling off his mask, and I duck, throwing myself onto the landing outside, nearly tripping over the body of the third guard.
The stairs, the road, the palace. I map them in my head as my blood beats with one simple fact: If Perrote is willing to threaten her, Cadence is in danger, and I’ve left her unprotected. Again.
Behind me the guard and councilman give chase, one of them grabbing my cloak, knocking me off-balance. I yank the cloak off and hit the door hard at the bottom of the stairwell—emerging outside, breathless.
The cold cuts through me like a knife, but I barely feel it as I run for the nearest cross street. The door slams open again, and I risk a glance back to see both men close behind, expressions fierce. My distraction costs me, and I trip over a loose clutch of broken cobblestones, skinning my elbows when I land on all fours. Grunting, I gain my feet and keep running, but not fast enough. They catch me, one taking my arms and the other my feet, sweeping me up off the street, without breaking their stride.
They carry me into an abandoned storefront, kicking the door off its rusted hinges and shuffling me past broken glass cases and walls emitting the scorched-wood smell of rotting magic torn apart too carelessly. After dropping me to the mildewed floor, the guard pins my arms above my head, and the councilman sits on my legs, ripping back the collar of my dress to expose the scar above my chest and the spell threaded like ink around it. With his eyes still watery from the kerosene, the councilman wipes his face dry and unsheathes a narrow dagger, spinning it in hand.
“Hold her steady,” he says.
A moving target is always harder to hit, and I begin to struggle, to no real avail. The councilman is undeterred as he slides his blade beneath my skin with a glimmer of heat that cuts through the clouded fog of my panic: He’s going to peel my skin off, and my mother’s spell with it.
The mercantile door slams open and two figures enter, their faces hazy. The councilman releases me and stands, but the guard is slower to act; he’s yanked back and thrown against a shattered display case. I push myself to my knees, teeth clenched against the swelling pain. How far did he get? I’m too scared to look, too scared to see a hole in my chest and my mother’s spell ruined, cut apart at the seams. Grabbing the torn collar of my dress, I hold it closed and stand. The room spins out of focus around me.
Iron strikes iron; iron strikes flesh. I hear grunts, cries, the sounds of a body hitting the ground, and I smell blood being released into the air. Someone begs for mercy—the guard, I suspect. No doubt he was pressed into service by the noble nature of his birth and now acts on orders out of fear, his loyalty to Perrote guaranteed only by the spell woven above his heart.
Flattening a hand to the wall, I suck in a deep breath as my vision begins to settle. The guard lies cowering on the ground, hands up in terrified defense as a woman holds a sword to his throat. She takes a step forward, angling for the kill, just as a third figure frames the doorway.
“Don’t,” Chadwick says, a low and gravelly warning.
The woman glances back. Dark hair frames her eyes; her cheeks are flushed with color. I don’t know her; she’s not a part of Chadwick’s hand-selected team heading into the Burn. “Sir?” she says.
“They are not ours to condemn,” Chadwick says.
“Sir,” the woman repeats, more pointedly, loath to forfeit the win.
Chadwick shakes his head once, swift and subtle, a signal. But the councilman grins around a bloodied mouth, pinned to the wall by another Avinean soldier.
“Diplomatic immunity,” he crows, only to choke on his laughter as the soldier pinches him more tightly around the neck.
“Release them,” Chadwick orders. The soldiers exchange dark glances but dutifully comply, and Perrote’s men waste no time in scrambling out the door, disappearing into the lengthening shadows of the street.
“I don’t understand the clemency,” the second soldier, a young man, says, sheathing his sword.
“Return to the palace immediately,” Chadwick says in that same, flat tone of voice.
“Sir—�
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Chadwick gives the woman a look that refuses argument. Frustrated, she sheathes her sword and glances at me before storming outside, the man at her heels.
“It was Perrote.” The accusation comes out as more of a shout, and I close my mouth, color flooding my cheeks.
Chadwick finally looks to me, concern warring with disappointment. “I know. Contrary to what half this city believes,” he says, “I did not become captain of the Guard because I was friends with the prince. I did earn this position, Locke. Grant me some credit.”
“Then why let his men go?!” My fury is making me shake, and my words spill out in a mess. “I am sworn to the Prince of Avinea, and Perrote has no right—”
“You belong to Bryn,” he interrupts, eyes flashing. “Who is allowing her husband to borrow you for his expedition. How could you be so stupid, Faris?!” He launches into a pace across the floor. “You were told not to leave the palace! You’ve risked everything in frivolous pursuit of—I don’t even know what!”
“Dimitr Frell,” I say softly. And then, with a pang of heartache: “He was possibly my last link to my mother.”
Chadwick presses his hands over his eyes. When he speaks, it is carefully enunciated, each syllable weighted. “And who told you where to find this man?”
“Alistair Pembrough.”
“Alistair Pembrough,” he repeats. “Perrote’s executioner—his daughter’s ex-betrothed. A boy who is magically bound to be loyal to his king. And you decided to pursue this lead alone, with no protection, against strict orders.”
It is an echo of the words I spoke to North, and yet, when directed at me, they chafe. “Alistair—”
Alistair told me where Dimitr Frell lived, but Perrote knew where to find me too. A possible payment from a loyal servant to his master?
No. Alistair abhors Perrote nearly as much as I do. But if he were under a spell, acting on orders . . .
“We cannot risk unbalancing an already precarious alliance,” Chadwick continues. “Perrote is withholding the remaining balance of magic promised to Corbin until our departure in the morning. Killing two of Perrote’s men or accusing him of any hand in this will guarantee his withdrawal of resources. None of this”—he lowers his hands and meets my eyes—“ever happened. Do you understand me?”
