“Persistent,” Leafclever said, his smile widening.
“I hunt traitors. I’m as tenacious as a hound when I get a scent in my nostrils.”
“So I see. Well, as you say, there’s no harm in trying. I’m curious to know if we can even contact someone as far away as Marienne. It will be hard to find one mind among so many on whose dreams we can knock. Wouldn’t it be something if the only mind we could find in such a jumble is this usurper of yours?”
Katya shuddered. “If that happens, I suggest you walk away. Are you the best dream walker?”
“Rarely is someone a leader because he’s best at anything but being a leader, as Horsestrong said. No, I’m afraid you need look no further than Redtrue.”
“Fabulous,” Katya said before she could stop herself.
He chuckled. “She can be hard to get along with, but I believe you’ll be good for each other. After dinner, we’ll discuss it.”
When Katya and Leafclever approached Redtrue later, she was arguing softly with Castelle. Castelle put one finger under Redtrue’s chin and tilted her face up. Katya was about to turn away, but Leafclever cleared his throat.
Redtrue jerked her head free. “What can I do for you, Leaf?”
“I need to speak with you a moment.” He led her away a few steps.
Katya stepped closer to Castelle. “Trying to get her into your bed again?”
“Some have been known to find comfort there.”
“Apparently not everyone.”
“She’ll come around.”
Katya didn’t think so, but she didn’t mention it. Redtrue was getting heated during her quiet discussion with Leafclever, but since they spoke Allusian, Katya couldn’t understand them. By the end of their conversation, she seemed resigned if still unhappy. Katya could live with unhappy; whatever got the job done.
“This is a waste of time,” Redtrue said as they all joined one another.
Katya shook her head, for once not angry at all. “Love is never a waste of time.”
“Horsestrong could not have said it better,” Leafclever said.
Redtrue frowned, but she seemed too smart to argue.
“If you say you’ll help me, I know you will,” Katya said. “I sense that about you, and I’m rarely wrong about people.”
Redtrue eyed Katya as if she didn’t know what to say. Maybe she was revising her less than stellar opinion yet again. “We’ll have to wait until it’s been dark long enough for the denizens of Marienne to be asleep.”
“Denizens? You make them all sound like Fiends,” Castelle said.
Redtrue just gave her a haughty look.
“Do you need to be asleep as well?” Katya asked. “Is that a stupid question?”
“As Horsestrong said, we could not seek the truth if we did not question all that surrounds us,” Leafclever said.
“No, I must be awake.” Redtrue’s gaze flicked toward Castelle. “And so I must find a way to stay awake until then.”
Castelle’s lips quirked up, and she studied the desert night.
“Can I be there?” Katya asked. When both Castelle and Redtrue gave her wide-eyed looks, Katya nearly laughed out loud. “When you try and reach Starbride?”
“You will see nothing besides me sitting there. Why would you want—”
Leafclever patted her shoulder. “You may be present.” Redtrue stared at him in confusion. “Ah, my young friend, you’ve never been in love. Trust me. She’s needs to be there.”
Redtrue sighed but nodded. Katya was tempted to throw her arms around Leafclever and slap him on the back. “Thank you both.” She walked away, her spirits lifting for the first time in days. It would work. It had to work. Maybe not the first time; there was no use in getting her hopes as high as they could go, but Redtrue would reach out and find someone. Every pyradisté in Marienne would be Roland’s enemy. Redtrue would find someone who could then find Starbride and tell her about the dream magic and then…
Katya nearly held her breath. It felt so good to hope at last, to hope that even through a surrogate she would hear Starbride’s voice again.
Chapter Twelve
Starbride
Starbride studied Captain Ursula and Lieutenant Rhys with their disguise pyramids active. She saw through the illusions, of course, but if she concentrated, she could almost see Katya and King Einrich standing before her. She cupped her chin. “Not exactly perfect.”
“Good enough, I’d say,” Hugo said. “Uncanny, really.”
“I wouldn’t be fooled,” Starbride said.
Ursula snorted. “I won’t be taking my trousers off, so I won’t have to fool you. These are good enough. We’ll wear our cloaks to the marketplace, reveal ourselves, and stir up the crowd.”
Starbride looked back and forth between them. “You’ll both have to talk.”
Rhys shrugged, his eyes more half-lidded than Einrich’s ever were. “I can speak well when I want to, and if not, I’ll let Cap do most of the talking.” He stood up very straight, going for haughty, but he looked as sleepy as ever, and he was still a few inches too short.
Starbride sighed. Maybe the crowd would think Einrich was just a little slouchy…and drunk. “Here, this is a fire pyramid. It won’t kill the corpse Fiends, but it should slow them down long enough for you to attack if you need to.”
“And the Fiend king?”
“It might catch him off guard, but I recommend you stay out of his path. As soon as he’s close, take the disguise pyramids off and throw them somewhere.”
Ursula nodded. “Are you ready?”
“Almost,” Starbride said. Pennynail waited for her outside. They’d thought about taking Master Bernard, but his injured arm made him slower and less agile than the rest of them. Instead, Starbride loaded her satchel with Fiend suppression pyramids, detection pyramids that could cancel anything Roland had left for them, plus so many destruction pyramids she was afraid her satchel might blow up. She and Hugo collected Dawnmother on their way. Dawnmother wasn’t a fighter, but she knew the servant’s corridors of the palace better than any of them.
They hurried through the streets as night fell, headed in the opposite direction of Ursula and Rhys. Though only the four of them were going into the palace, they had watchers stationed around it to tell them when Roland left. Other watchers would rendezvous with Ursula and tell her that Roland was on the way.
Luckily, they didn’t have to wait on anyone. Shortly after Starbride and her party settled in, Roland rode out of the royal stables, his human face on, but in the torchlight, his brow was pinched and angry. Two corpse Fiends loped behind him, and Starbride clutched the necklace that masked her pyradisté abilities. The corpse Fiends didn’t even sniff the air. She had to be careful and make sure her creation never fell into Roland’s hands or he’d surely find a way to counter it.
Pennynail led them to his old secret entrance. He helped them scale the false wall, and they ran down the narrow hallway to the actual side of the palace. Starbride focused on her detection pyramid. The pyramid embedded in the door shone like a beacon to her enhanced eyes. As far as she could tell, the door hadn’t been retuned, but according to Pennynail, when Roland had been part of the Order, he and Crowe hadn’t found this little door yet. Pennynail had explored every inch of the secret passageways and had discovered more secret doors and tunnels than even Crowe had dreamed of.
When Starbride tapped Pennynail’s arm, he slipped his glove off and pressed it to the pyramid guarding the door. It swung silently open, and they hurried inside. They moved slower than Starbride liked as she searched for traps or alarms. The others held candles to light the way. It wasn’t until they approached the dungeon that Starbride found a pyramid that would have alarmed its creator of her presence.
Of course, if she disabled it, Roland might sense that, too. All she could hope was that he was far enough away to miss it. She disabled the pyramid as quickly as she could, and they hurried through to another lightless, stone-covered passageway. Starb
ride had to disable two more pyramids before they reached the dungeons, and her hopes began to soar. Why would Roland want the dungeon so secure unless he had important prisoners to protect?
The door to the dungeons was still tuned to only accept Fiends. Hugo opened it, and they all listened, waiting to see if anyone waited in the dungeon halls.
When they heard no one, Hugo and Pennynail moved through, candles held high and weapons out. Starbride waited with Dawnmother and fought not to hold her breath. She heard the clatter of doors opening and then feet on stone. She clenched her fists, praying to Horsestrong to let Katya come through those doors. At that moment, she didn’t care about the rest of the Umbriels, as long as Katya made it out alive.
Four people stumbled out of the doorway, led by Hugo and Pennynail, two women and two men. Starbride’s shoulders slumped as she recognized two of them as heads of the Pyradisté Academy. They’d been her teachers. Bruises decorated their hollow cheeks, and she could see their ribs and collarbones through their torn clothing. The second man she didn’t recognize, but when the second woman lifted a dirty face, Starbride almost fell to her knees.
“Averie!” Starbride hurried forward and helped her to stand. She hadn’t known Katya’s maid well, but Averie was as loyal to the Order and to Katya as anyone could be.
Averie sagged in Starbride’s arms, so light Starbride nearly lifted her. “Is that…Starbride?” Her bloodshot eyes blinked sleepily in their bruised sockets.
“Yes, Averie, you’re safe now. We’re going to get you out of here.”
“Forgive me…Princess Consort.”
Starbride blinked away tears. “It’s all right, I—”
“We have to move,” Dawnmother said. She held up the unknown man who introduced himself as Claudius, the head of a blended discipline at the academy, alarms and traps.
The others were Effie, the head of utility magic, and Ansic, the head of destruction. As they ventured into the secret passageways again, the captives told of how Roland had imprisoned them and tried to get them to tell him all they knew about their respective areas of expertise.
Starbride wondered if Roland trusted the information he’d gotten through torture, or what they could have told him that he didn’t already know. But what did he hope to learn from Averie?
“I think,” Averie said when asked, “he hoped to use me as a lure…somehow…for Katya.”
Starbride breathed a sigh. Katya wasn’t in the palace. But if not the palace, then where? In the city? The country?
In a ditch somewhere?
She shook off that thought. Starbride wanted to ask Averie’s opinion but feared she’d lose consciousness. The others, even for all their injuries, seemed in better shape. Maybe Roland had simply dropped Averie in a cell and forgotten about her. It was a wonder she hadn’t starved to death.
In their favor, Roland hadn’t bothered to trap most of the secret passageways. Perhaps he’d only done the hallways and didn’t think anyone who knew the secret passages would be crazy enough to sneak into the palace.
Still, it was slowgoing. Pennynail finally touched Starbride’s arm, then pointed up as if at the moon. They were taking too long. She eyed the freed captives. “We split up, cover more ground.” She gave detection pyramids to the other three pyradistés, and then sent one each with Hugo and Pennynail, keeping one for herself, Dawnmother, and Averie.
Effie came with Starbride, and they made quick work of the pyramids they discovered. She bet Claudius and Pennynail did even better.
Starbride’s old apartment looked much as she’d remembered it, just as tidy as when Dawnmother had left. The looters hadn’t been able to get past the pyramids that guarded the royal hallways. Effie and Averie sat while Starbride and Dawnmother ransacked the room. Dawnmother took their hidden money and Starbride’s jewelry box and stuffed it all in a bag. Starbride collected any pyramids she’d been working on, and then they took anything valuable they could sell. The dishes and linens were decorated with the royal seal, and they couldn’t have Roland tracking them that way. Luckily, the silver wasn’t so marked. They stuffed candlesticks and trays in their bags
“It has to have been an hour by now,” Dawnmother said.
They wouldn’t have much more time than that. They met Hugo and Ansic in the passageways again. “We looted Katya’s and Reinholt’s rooms,” Hugo whispered.
“We’re headed to Crowe’s office,” Starbride said.
Dawnmother tapped Hugo’s arm. “Come with me. We’ll see if we can get anything from the servant’s cupboards.”
He left with her and Ansic. Starbride kept going with Effie, who managed to walk on her own. She even helped support Averie a little. As they tried to get close to Crowe’s office, they encountered alarm after alarm, and time started to slip away. Soon enough Pennynail caught up with them.
“We couldn’t get near the king and queen’s quarters,” Claudius said. “There were too many pyramids. I’m ashamed to say that some of the things I told the Fiend king probably helped him make them better.”
“Same here,” Starbride said. “I think Crowe’s office is a lost cause. Damn, and I was hoping to take some of his books.”
“Maybe there are still some in my house in the city,” Claudius said.
“Or mine,” Effie added. “We didn’t keep everything of importance at the academy.”
Dawnmother, Hugo, and Ansic caught up to them as they spoke. “We took everything we dared,” Dawnmother said. “We didn’t want to venture far from the passages.”
Starbride nodded. “That just leaves the capstone.”
Claudius blinked at her in the wan light from her pyramid. “What are you talking about?”
“Do we have time?” Hugo asked.
“The capstone on top of the academy?” Effie asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Ansic echoed.
Starbride chewed her lip. The fewer people who knew about the capstone under the palace, the better; telling Ursula had been enough of a risk. Some secrets still had to be protected, even with everything. Yanchasa’s prison couldn’t be widely known. “Pennynail, you and Hugo take everyone else out. Dawnmother and I will catch up to you.”
Hugo protested just as Pennynail shook his head. “Please don’t argue with me,” Starbride said. “I don’t know the passages as well as you, Pennynail, but I’m certain I can find my way.”
Probably.
“That’s not our worry,” Hugo said. “How will you handle a pack of enemies on your own? What if the Fiend king comes back?”
Starbride bit off a curse and wished they’d stop worrying about her and just get on with it. Before she could lash out at them, Dawnmother took Averie from Starbride’s arms. “I know the way out. I’ll guide the pyradistés and Averie.” She brushed Averie’s matted brown hair away from her forehead, and Starbride recalled that they’d been in the process of becoming friends when the world had gone to Darkstrong.
“Thank you, Dawn,” Starbride said.
“Hurry.” Dawnmother waited until Starbride had given the heads a few pyramids, and then they were off through the dark, the light pyramid with Effie as she led the way.
Starbride jogged down the passageway with Pennynail and Hugo beside her. They had to really hurry now. Who knew if Roland had figured out their ruse yet, or whether he was headed back to the palace. Starbride thought of all the times she and Katya had been on the other side of this fight, chasing ghosts while Roland ran circles around them. It felt good to be the ones striking out for a change, but it was just as nerve-wracking waiting to be caught. She wondered if Roland ever worried about it.
Most likely not. There was something to say for the confidence of the Fiend, the surety that came with the emergence of the Aspect.
The door to the capstone’s cavern was more guarded and alarmed than any of the doors they’d yet encountered. Starbride cursed. She should have brought Claudius with her. They couldn’t get through to the king and queen’s quarters or Crowe
’s office, but they had to try harder here. The capstone was too important.
Freddie shoved the mask on top of his head. “Starbride…”
“I know.” She worked faster. From down the dark hallway, they heard the scrape of feet on dusty stone.
Starbride tried to put the sound out of her head. She disabled another trap, then another alarm, working as fast as she could, but these were powerful. She saw them in her head as golden bubbles to be popped, but they seemed stronger, more opaque than anything she’d ever encountered.
A wave of cold brushed against Starbride’s back. Keeping her mind on her task, she heard Hugo grunt and then the ring of steel on steel. She risked a look over her shoulder. Hugo and Freddie stood shoulder to shoulder, facing off against three corpse Fiends. Luckily, the Fiends got in each other’s way as they tried to stand together in a hallway that was too narrow for them.
Starbride went back to her task, not knowing if these creatures had been alerted by her tampering or if this was some sort of random patrol. If it was the former, Roland could be on their heels. If it was the latter, more might come around the corner any moment.
She popped another alarm bubble, then a trap, then an alarm so tiny she almost missed it. The fighting behind her continued, but neither Freddie nor Hugo called out in pain. Starbride faced the last trap, a huge, roiling gold bubble that protected the door itself. Sweat rolled down her forehead as she concentrated. The pyramid on the door was ancient; it had guarded its secret for generations, and it wasn’t tuned to her anymore or she was a horse’s uncle. She couldn’t disable it. She’d have to retune it.
Starbride rested her hand against the lock and focused. With a final mental shove that made pain reverberate through her head, Starbride imprinted herself upon the pyramid, sharing that honor with Roland himself. Starbride pushed the pyramid, and the door swung open.
Inside, bathed in the soft glow of the capstone, corpse Fiends packed the cavern. They perched atop the stalagmites or roamed the rocky floor. There had to be at least fifty. As one, they turned and opened their mouths, letting loose their ghastly howl.
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