“I still say it’s a waste.” His words gain an edge, struck against flint. “Your mind’s too quick for drudge work. Hurry, now, tell me which ship that is that they’re loading the cannons onto below us.”
“The Thresher’s Harvest,” I say, without even glancing down.
“And if they’re loading cannons, what type of offense are they expecting?”
I cast my thoughts back to one of the lessons with Brandt at the Ministry—Durst never required me to learn about military tactics, but Brandt thought it better to train me like any other operative. “One by sea. Close-quarters warfare along the blockade line, I’d wager. If we can sink the Iron Winds fleet in the bay, then we never have to test the defenses we’re fortifying here.” I gesture to the men hammering metal plating against the dock gates.
Marez grins. “Precisely. You’ve a tactician’s mind locked away in there.”
I want to believe him, but the truth is, I divined that battle plan from the little toy ships scattered on the Emperor’s war table as much as my lessons with Brandt.
“Now, what about the Commandant’s weaponry?” Marez strides down the battlements to assess the harbor from a new angle. We’re directly above the dockside armory, and men crawl in and out of it with shields, swords, halberds. The tempered black weaponry makes them look like beetles scampering around from this height. “What do you think we can expect him to bring to bear?”
He tucks the folio into the waistband of his leather trousers and props himself against the battlement, leaning toward me. He’s fairer-skinned than Barstadters, but I can see why the Farthing council sent him as their envoy—he could certainly be mistaken for one of us, with those dark, floppy curls and devilish eyes. And that smile—well, one can appreciate a smile like that regardless of homeland.
“The reports we received mentioned war machines,” I say, tenuously, like I’m positioning my feet for an intricate waltz. I don’t want to mention Nightmare outright. His eyes betray nothing, so I take the next step. “This may mean siege weaponry, cannons, or some sort of pathetic failed invention, like the Iron Winds are so notorious for producing. We aren’t really sure.”
He nods and starts to speak, but the wind picks up, snatching the words from him and spraying a curtain of my hair across both our faces. Marez reaches up to disentangle it from my nose and where it’s clung to my lips. His fingertip brushes from one corner of my mouth to the other, leaving a trail of cinnamon and stone. I swallow hard. As soon as his hand is gone, I ache for that warmth, like it was the last ember in the hearth.
“But I’m not interested in what the reports say.” Marez’s expression hardens. “I’m interested in what you think.”
My pulse crackles like a lightning flash, starting in my heart, surging through my fingers and toes. “I’m, uh…” What can I say? That I fear the Commandant and a Dreamer’s apostate will awaken Nightmare from the mountaintops? That they’ll devastate Barstadt City with a flood of anguish? “I’m still concerned by Lady Twyne’s involvement. I think there may be others within the city we’ve yet to unearth. And what your informant told us at the gaming den—”
His thumb slides behind my ear; his fingers rest gently at the nape of my neck. I freeze, unable to look away, unable to feel anything but his searing heat and the frantic hammering of my own heart. “Actually,” Marez says, “I take that back. I’m interested in you. Just you.”
I swallow. It sounds so loud in the dense, pulsing silence between us. “But I’m nobody,” I say.
“No, Silke.” His nose touches mine. “You’re everything.”
His lips press against mine. The kiss washes over me like a wave, determined to drag me under. I don’t even believe it’s happening at first, but that velvet mouth quickly convinces me. My lips soften, but then I press back, letting his warmth course through me, tamping down my nerves. Unafraid. Full of fire.
Slowly, he ends the kiss, then presses his forehead against mine. “Apologies, Silke.” He’s grinning madly; it makes me grin, too. “I couldn’t resist.”
I’m too stunned to speak. I’ve never kissed anyone before. I lean back from him, but my spine is already against the stone wall; there’s nowhere for me to go. And it’s not that I wish to escape him, not at all, only that it isn’t proper for me to be seen kissing men in public, especially where anyone could see. No, especially where Jorn could see, and then if Jorn were to tell Brandt—
Marez’s smile curls back down. “I’m sorry. Have I done something wrong? Should I not have kissed you?”
“Yes—I mean, no—it’s just…” I stop and take a deep breath, trying to quiet my trembling. “It’s just that it isn’t done, publicly, here in Barstadt.”
Marez laughs and takes a step back. Instantly I feel colder, aching for the warmth we shared just moments ago.
Those clever, clever lips twist again. “Does it matter what Barstadters think?”
“No,” I say, my face burning up. “Not in the least,” I find myself answering truthfully. The Ministry doubts me constantly; the Dreamer never heeds my call. Marez is right—I don’t need their approval any longer. My chest aches as if I’ve released a long-held breath.
“Then we are in agreement.” He cups my head in his hands and stamps a kiss on my forehead, then turns away from me with a start. “Come.”
We link hands, and I chase him up the battlements, past the discolored span of stone where they were repaired after Nightmare’s flight over six hundred years ago. Nightmare’s Spine surfaces into our view from behind the jagged roofs of the sailors’ quarter. Marez clucks his tongue at the sight of it. “What a grim sight to keep right above your city, don’t you think? If I were Emperor, I’d have scattered its bones to the four winds.”
“They scattered the fragments of his heart,” I say. “That was the important part.”
Marez tilts his head. From the back, he looks much younger. Is his charismatic, easy nature a mask, just like Brandt’s? “You don’t speak much of your dreams, for a Barstadter.” He looks back at me expectantly.
“I thought you found our chatter about dreams intolerable.”
He holds a hand out to me. “Actually, I find Barstadt chatter in general quite insufferable. You, dear Silke, are an exception.” His smile flashes, clear and bright in the murky fog. “Come, let’s check on how the constabulary’s preparations are coming along.”
We head north from the harbor. In the constabulary’s office, I take a seat while the head constable rattles off a lengthy list of contingency plans to Marez, coupled with improbably high numbers of policemen who have been called in to maintain order in the streets. My guess is he mainly intends to cower behind his desk and let the Farthing army clear the streets, if it comes to that.
I’m trying to pay attention to their conversation, really I am, but the wall behind me beckons, and the chair eases itself around me like an embrace. Keeping my eyelids open seems so unnecessary, so cruel. Memories of Marez’s kiss play through my head, interlaced with the turmoil of the past few days and not nearly enough sleep. My thoughts are fuzzy as my lashes flutter against my cheek and—
I’m sprawled in a field of daisies, their leaves a luminous emerald under white lacy petals. The sky overhead sings with crisp azure, and the occasional cloud streaks through in perfect counterpoint harmony. The smell of cool grass surrounds the picnic blanket, and the whispering breeze is just enough to make the world come alive.
A safe, shallow dream, not one in the dreamworld. I look down at the picnic blanket and find Brandt by my side, head propped on his arms folded under him. “Hello, beautiful,” he murmurs. His skin glows golden under the sourceless sunlight.
A bowl of berries sits between us. I pluck one up by the stem and let it pop into a juicy symphony in my mouth. Such a strong, glorious taste, with dark notes in all the right places. I reach for another, and then one more.
A hand snatches my wrist, grasping at me from inside the bowl.
“No!” I tip backward on the
blanket, but the razor-wire grip is too strong. The hand reaching from the bowl roils like a boiling stew of meat. Many fingers—claws, really—sprout from it, coiling around my wrist and slinking up my arm, growing longer by the second. My skin rips open as I try to pull away.
“Didn’t you know?” Brandt asks, still basking in the sun. He closes his eyes with a contented sigh. “This is a nightmare.”
I try to scream again, but the sound turns into a swarm of bees, chattering and buzzing as they leave my mouth. My throat swells shut. The hive buzzes inside me; my skin vibrates as they try to break free.
Another arm grows from the bowl, and another. The bowl stretches wide, excreting the horrendous spidery demon that has me in its grasp. The gaping hole left behind reveals what looks like the world of Oneiros below us, its avenues awash with blood.
“Nightmare is awakening,” Brandt says, and then settles onto the blanket for a nap.
The spider flings me into the air. Its barbed claws send venom coursing through me as it releases me—venom laced with misery. Mother’s empty eyes gush with blood as my half siblings tear chunks from her legs and arms to stuff in their shriveled guts. The Dean of Theosophy, Hesse’s boss, traps me in his office while I burnish his trophies. Every ring of his heels on the marble as he approaches is a fresh lance in my heart.
“Silke,” the ground coos as it rushes up to greet me. The spider pins me to the earth with one claw and joins the earth’s chorus. My legs spill over the edge of the tear in the ground, instantly rimed with frost from the Nightmare Wastes that have overtaken Oneiros far below.
“Silke!”
“Silke!” Marez rattles my shoulders. I jerk forward, nearly falling from my chair in the constabulary.
“Where did it—” I squeeze my eyes shut. No spider beast, no rivers of blood, no cruel Brandt. “I’m sorry. I must have dozed off.”
“You poor dear. The Ministry must be working you to the bone in this time of crisis.” He offers me his arm. I lean on him as I stand, my limbs still rubbery from sleep. “Let’s get you some fresh air.”
I can still smell rot from my dream as we exit the constabulary, but I push it from my mind. I focus on the clean scent of afternoon and the sweet gas fumes from freshly lit lamps. Only a nightmare. I’d glimpsed Oneiros in it—but had I really started to slip into the shared dreamworld, or was I only dreaming that, too? On the mountain ridge above us, Nightmare’s bones lay strewn like garland, and about as deadly. We’re safe for now.
“Anything else we need to assess?” I shift my weight back and forth while I wait for Marez to finish fussing with his leather duster. The minister ordered me to spend as long as necessary with the Farthingers. Part of me thinks I should rush back to the Ministry and help Brandt search for the traitor, but I’m reluctant to be apart from Marez. I swallow, fighting down the nervous flutter in my gut. What comes next for us, now that we’ve kissed? Another evening playing Stacks, or does he expect more from me? How am I supposed to behave around him now? I try to think of something clever to say, but nothing comes to me.
“Actually, my dear, I’ve one more trip for us to make, but it’ll have to wait until this evening.” The faintest hint of red touches his cheeks.
I feel the color drain from my face. “Oh?” I ask, trying to temper the tremor of disappointment in my voice. “What kind of trip?”
Marez’s gaze crackles across me like a struck match. “I understand there are tunnels—hundreds and hundreds of them, running beneath Barstadt City. How are you at navigating them?”
My breath quails in my chest. The tunnels are the last place I want to go. “I … I know the basics,” I say carefully. “Why do you ask?”
“As you’ll recall, we were tracking a series of illicit shipments into the city, believing them to be related to Lady Twyne’s treason.”
I nod, but say nothing. I will not tell him what we found out in Birnau.
“We think we know who is working with her. But we’ll need to sneak into the High Temple to catch him.”
“Him?” I freeze in place. The rogue priest Brandt and I are seeking. The person capable of stealing Hesse’s research and using it to summon Nightmare by reuniting his shards. Is Marez really so close to unmasking the traitor? My heart pounds frantically. As much as I dread returning to the tunnels—that world of fear and powerlessness—I’ll do it, if that’s what it takes to save Barstadt.
“Yes, him. I got wind of a conspiracy that leads straight into the High Temple.” Marez’s expression darkens. “And we’re going to catch him in the act.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
He’s found the rogue priest, operating in the Dreamer’s High Temple at the very heart of Barstadt. Marez thinks he knows who it is—who Lady Twyne’s confederate is. Back at the Ministry, I seek out Brandt to help me peruse the archives in search of more information on the High Priest’s acolytes, but he’s still off canvassing the acolytes’ schools. My heart twists at the thought of Brandt, but the pain feels duller now, more removed. I press one finger to my lips and recall the taste of Marez on them. The way he smelled, all leather and spice. Just like I wish to see the realms beyond Barstadt once I’m free, once this mission is done and my citizenship papers are in hand; it feels good to know I needn’t be chained up by my foolish yearning for Brandt.
I poke through the archives for a short time, but the Ministry keeps few records on the priests at the High Temple. Dantrim Jurard was a student of Hesse’s, but only for a few months, before joining the priesthood full-time. Evisand Brett—House Brett. It looks like House Brett did make several deals with House Twyne, but not for several years. I jot down notes on Jurard and Brett both to bring with me on tonight’s expedition.
“You’re smiling,” Sora says as she clears away my dinner tray back in my quarters. “Should I be concerned?”
I touch my lips again, like pressing in a secret, and shake my head. “Not a bit.”
Finally, the night thickens, and I dress myself for an evening in the tunnels. I linger at the clerk’s desk in the barracks entrance. I know, deep down, that I ought to send word to Jorn, despite Marez’s warning. The tunnels are a dangerous place; even my intimate knowledge of them isn’t enough to protect us fully. But the threat of a traitor within the Ministry chills me to my core. The desk clerk eyes me with wet, toadish lips, and I shudder, wondering if it could even be him. “Heading out for the evening, miss?” he asks in a syrupy voice.
I shake my head. “Only a brief stroll.”
Kriza and Marez meet me at the canal grate that feeds into the Temple Quarter tunnels. Kriza’s long, frizzy hair is wrangled into the brimmed bucket cap many tunnelers wear, and she’s coiled a length of rope around one shoulder. She studies me for a moment, then hops down onto the ledge with a grunt. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” she says, though I’m not sure if she’s addressing me or Marez.
“We’re headed for the center of Dreamer’s Square.” Marez shrugs into a dark, ragged coat. “The maps I found were incomplete, but this looked like the most direct point of entry, yes?”
“It’s close enough. I should be able to get us to the High Temple shortly.” I study him and Kriza—both of them standing tall, chins jutted up like a dare. “No, no. You have to carry yourself a certain way if you don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention here. Head down, eyes and hands to yourself. Walk on the right side of the tunnels.” I hesitate; memories cascade over me like sheets of rain. Most of them are brutal, but each taught me a lesson—all the rules I followed to keep predators away from me and ensure my possessions remained my own. “Don’t look too meek, though. Mind your own business, but keep a look about you that says you know where you’re going and how to handle yourself if someone gets clever.” Brandt’s second rule of spy work—anyone showing too much interest in you is probably after something. Conversely, people—especially tunnelers—get suspicious if you look at them too much, and suspicion too easily boils over to violence.
Ma
rez tosses his shoulders back. He’s far too handsome for a tunneler. Someone’s bound to want to see him sullied.
“Keep one eye in front of you and one behind,” I say. “Count the people we pass, and track their footsteps behind you. Watch their shadows across the tunnel walls. You don’t want to be caught unawares, especially if they’re working in a pack.”
Kriza groans. “Is this a bloody underground city, or the Farthing Timberwoods? Should I be on the lookout for bears?”
“Do you want this to go well or don’t you?” I snap at her. “Listen, it’s something you learn through trial and error. And we don’t have room for error tonight. I can’t put into words what tells me who I can steal from and who I should avoid. Which darkened tunnel is safer than the next.” My voice quavers; tears edge into the corners of my eyes. Dreamer’s mercy, don’t let me fall apart in front of them. “It’s instinct. If you live in there long enough, you have it. If you don’t, none will mourn you.”
I slip through the tunnel grate, and it’s like slipping on a familiar old robe. The walls smell of iron and moss and a tangy medicinal scent; the runoff trickles calmly through the channel in the tunnel’s center. Marez and Kriza have more difficulty fitting between the bars, because they are not little slips of people, shadows meant to fit through the gaps of respectable life. Tunnelers are brought starving into the world, and too often, starving we go out.
The tunnel slopes upward, following the curve of the hill like a shadow just below the surface. Luminescent paint, usually stolen from a constabulary or an artisan’s shop, coats the tunnel’s ceiling in a thick strip that casts us in an eerie blue-green glow. Wherever the tunnels branch, the paint is used, too, to mark the new tunnel with an elaborate system of markings. Their meanings rush back to me, like a strong gust from the sea. Circles for entry, spreading like leaves off a tree that approximates the next few branches from a given path. Circles with bars through them to indicate a tunnel collapse, or a wavy line to warn of sewage tracks.
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