by Sara Raasch
None of this mattered. Annalisa had died, just like Bianca had died. Lu hadn’t been able to save her.
Tears came, gushing down Lu’s cheeks on sobs.
Kari pressed her lips to Lu’s forehead. Deep in her throat, she started to hum, stroking Teo’s back. Lu recognized the song as one from the revolution. It had become Teo’s favorite since Bianca’s death.
“Dirt and sand, all across the land; the currents are ours, you see,” Kari sang like a lullaby. Teo quieted, his small body spent. “No god, no soldier, no emperor, no king, can take my current from me.”
Lu had listened to the revolutionaries sing this in the cramped darkness of safe houses, voices soft and breathy.
“Flow on, my friends, flow on with me; together we flow as one,” Lu started to sing along, her voice muffled in Kari’s shoulder. “No god, no soldier, no emperor, no king, can erode what we have done.”
9
THE WHISPERS ABOUT Ben grew.
Prince Benat frequents the University, he heard as he passed nobles in the halls, as he sat in pews during crowded Church services. Does it have anything to do with the incident during the burning? With . . . magic?
That word followed him like a shadow. Guards drew up to straighter attention when he neared. The aristocrats on the Inquisitor patrols gave him wide berth, their eyes saying they were watching him fall, judging the distance until he hit the ground, placing bets on whether the impact would shatter him or if there was a way, any way, he could be forgiven.
Elazar didn’t rescind his order for Ben to make a healing potion with Grace Loray’s magic. He didn’t have guards waiting to bar Ben from the University or destroy his plants. But surely, after the reaction at Grace Neus Cathedral—the fear, the rumors—Elazar would reconsider?
Every time Ben looked at his father, he saw the spark and spasm of the flames that had killed Rodrigu and Paxben. The unyielding way Elazar had stood on the Grace Neus steps, as though the screams of his brother and nephew would not keep him awake that night, because the Pious God had commanded it.
Ben didn’t trust that Elazar wouldn’t one day watch his son’s death with the same coldness.
When he was younger, Ben had been jealous that Paxben would grow up to take Rodrigu’s place. Now Ben was in Rodrigu’s place. He was trusted to sort plants—Healica, safe, used to cure any internal or external wound; Narcotium Creeper, evil, a hallucinogen that encourages the Devil’s evils of overindulging and intoxication. With the loan from the Mechts that had bought vials and mortars and other equipment, Ben had all he needed to prepare the plants and combine them into one tonic, maybe, or test them in different preparations—but he needed some modicum of protection to do so.
Which would cause the worst repercussions: dragging the Mecht to the University, or Ben going about his research alone? Either would bring scrutiny. The first, because the citizens of Deza knew the Crown Prince had pardoned a condemned raider, and now he was working with him. The second, because if Ben admitted to having a deep knowledge of Grace Loray’s magic, he would be proving himself to be what people had labeled Rodrigu and Paxben: heretics.
Would any number of healing tonics soothe Argrid’s hatred? Would it make peace with Grace Loray possible? Would it lead Argrid to tolerance?
Ben was trapped, grinding magic plants as he hunched in the back corner of the laboratory, too afraid to act, too afraid not to.
After three days of working on Elazar’s task, Ben had managed to break down most of the plants in the chest from the raider ship. Some were in a paste; some a powder; others didn’t need to be broken down. That he could remember, at least, from what Rodrigu had taught him.
But now that Ben had these ingredients, what to do with them? How to make them cure Shaking Sickness? Should he figure out some way to make them more potent, or combine them to see if their effects paired well? He didn’t have an endless number of plants, though. And whom would he test them on—would he be able to find any willing participants before Argrid became impatient with rumors of their prince at work on the Devil’s magic?
Ben sighed and packed up vials of plants.
A knock, and Jakes entered. “My prince, your carriage is—”
A door slammed in the hall, followed by braying voices.
The University’s entryway was narrow, with paneled wood and natural lighting. Defensors who had patrolled the entrance stood near the laboratory door, but they were outnumbered by what looked to be normal citizens, not University servants. Bodies poured through the open doors, some holding lanterns that shot unstable light around the walls.
Ben had only seconds to absorb it. As soon as he appeared in the doorway, people whipped to face him.
“Príncipe Herexe!” they cried. Heretic Prince.
The title stunned Ben immobile. The flashing flames in their hands. He couldn’t think.
The crowd dove for him over the defensors who shouted for order. Jakes cursed, barring the doorway with his body.
“You play with evil while the true danger grows every day!” one protester bellowed, his lantern shaking. Ben caught glimpses of the man’s crazed eyes as he listed with the crowd. The defensors had subdued a few of the intruders, but others came through the doors, and more stood out in the yard beyond, shouting threats in a wave of noise. “You are as covered in Grace Loray’s evil as your uncle was! We won’t stand for corruption!”
“I’m trying to help you!” Ben pleaded. He clamped his fingers on Jakes’s shoulder, his own frenzy a living animal he couldn’t tame. “I’m trying to stop the evil! I’m trying!”
“So you claim,” the man barked. “But Rodrigu claimed to be helping Argrid too, while he was secretly bringing Grace Loray’s evil into our country and freeing the monsters who peddled it. You are continuing Rodrigu’s work here, and soon the raiders will rise from their den of sin in Grace Loray to spread their depravity into Argrid. We will be lost because of you!”
“Enough!” Jakes roared, and slammed his fist into the protester’s jaw.
The man was launched back. The protesters grew more hysterical. Fists flew, legs kicked, voices tore the air to pieces with cries of Príncipe Herexe!
“Get the prince to safety!” one defensor called to Jakes.
Jakes pushed Ben toward one of the doors on the far wall that led to corridors and other exits. But Jakes’s back was to the crowd, and the protester flung himself through the line of defensors and into the laboratory. Ben yanked Jakes back as the man swung the lantern at his head, and the two of them flattened to the table behind them, barely missing the blow.
The protester’s eyes went to Ben’s work. Without a pause, the protester raised the lantern and smashed it onto the tabletop.
The glass shattered and heat roared in a burst of flames, feeding on the piles of supplies and harmless documents Ben had scavenged from Rodrigu’s old stores.
Ben twisted to the side, watching the fire spread. This dusty space provided plenty of fuel, and in one breath, flames covered half the table.
Jakes dragged Ben by his shirt toward the door at the rear of the room. The protester saw their attempted escape and took a step toward them, but flames raced down the table legs and over the floor’s cracked boards. The man shouted and stumbled back, defensors finally regaining enough control to grab him from behind.
Smoke clogged the room, obscured anything Ben might have been able to see. The fire was spreading too fast, as if it, too, disapproved of what Ben was doing.
Jakes had the door open, but Ben wrenched out of his grip. The chest of magic was still on the table.
“Ben!” Jakes screamed, the crackling fire trying to drown him out.
Ben snatched the chest seconds before the inferno reached that corner of the table. He turned, not dwelling on the sight of the laboratory in flames.
Jakes shoved him through the door and slammed it behind them. The two ran down empty halls, but smoke followed, from new sources now—other protesters had seen the fire and added their o
wn lanterns to the blaze.
Ben and Jakes looped through other wings, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the front of the University as possible. Finally Ben shoved open a side door, dumping him and Jakes in an empty northern courtyard. Night nestled over the unkempt shrubs and chipped fountain as if it had no idea of the destruction paces away.
Ben collapsed on a bench next to the fountain, hacking ash and smoke.
Jakes fell in beside him. “We can’t stay here,” Jakes said, his voice grating on a raw throat. He wheezed, coughed into his fist. “We have to get you somewhere safe.”
Ben gripped the chest. From the distant western wing that housed the laboratory, flickering orange still glowed. The soft, ethereal haze in the blue-black night was almost pretty.
He shoved the chest to the ground. “God, I was so stupid to think it might not come to this. Stupid to think I’d have time . . .”
Jakes dropped to his knees to take Ben’s hands. Soot streaked his face, blood trickling from a cut on his forehead. “You knew this would happen? Why?”
Numbness rushed over Ben. “It happened before.” He coughed, tears dredging up ashes. Rodrigu. Heretics burn, Jakes, we burn—
“Then we know.” Jakes didn’t ask for clarification. “We know to take precautions now.”
“What? You’re—you want me to continue?”
Jakes frowned. “You don’t? Your father gave you this job. The Pious God condoned it, and it will bring about a stronger Argrid. Why should you stop?”
Ben had a thousand reasons why he should stop. He’d repeated those reasons to himself since Rodrigu’s and Paxben’s deaths, to keep himself alive, to tamp down his misery. Every one stemmed from fear and self-preservation.
But Ben saw the flames in the distance, smelled his uncle’s university burning, and he knew none of his reasons mattered. Argrid needed the tolerance that would come from his work as much as they needed a peace treaty with Grace Loray. They needed to dislodge this fear.
Shouts came from the western wing of the University. Screaming. And that title, a chant on the wind, a summoning to hell: Príncipe Herexe.
10
LU AWOKE TO Teo’s soft snoring. Her eyes were raw but she pried them open, and sure enough, he was curled in a tight ball, sound asleep next to her. For how long, though, she didn’t know; he had awoken every hour last night in tears. Not that Lu had slept much herself—memories haunted what sleep she had managed.
The revolution had separated her and Annalisa more than not, shoving them together in safe houses or steamboats with other children. Lu had held Annalisa’s innocence as some sort of lighthouse to guide her, reminding her of what she was fighting for.
They had been together the night the revolution ended, in the safe house when Argrid overtook it. The soldiers hadn’t found Annalisa—but they got close. Too close. After that, Lu vowed never to let a consequence she deserved threaten someone innocent again. She would take the repercussions; let people like Annalisa be happy.
But now Annalisa was dead, no matter how Lu had once protected her, or thought in some misguided part of her mind that doing so would atone for the terrible things Lu had done.
Lu closed her eyes, focusing on Teo’s breathing. When she opened them again, her attention fell to her desk. The morning sunlight from the balcony doors gleamed on the barrel of Tom’s pistol.
There would be little chance to mourn Annalisa. The Council was in upheaval, Vex’s fate still to be determined, Milo’s fate to be avenged. Who was behind this turmoil?
Teo whimpered in his sleep. Lu pulled the blanket to his chin, and when he calmed, she slipped out of bed.
The pistol stayed on the edge of her vision until she opened her bedroom door and left.
Tom and Kari stood by the overstuffed couch near the windows that gave a view of Lake Regolith’s western coast. When they had first been given these apartments, the three of them had cuddled on that couch, looking out at their island, not saying a word. Just holding each other.
Lu grabbed the memory as though it was the only buoyant thing in her sinking world.
Until Kari’s harsh whisper brought her back to the present.
“We can’t tell her. Give her time. I may yet be able to stop it.”
Tom grunted in protest. “Better that she find out from us, before—”
“Find out what?”
Tom and Kari spun to her, surprise pulling their features.
“Adeluna.” Kari crossed the room and drew her into a hug. She wore her regular attire now, a cream-colored gown with lace edging on the bell sleeves and hem, her hair tucked back into a braided knot. Her skin glistened with that Tuncian oil blend, and a fresh wave of spiced coconut enveloped Lu in a velvet cocoon.
The pull to unravel was overwhelming. Lu drew back.
“What happened?” she pressed.
“Nothing, sweetheart—”
“There was a vote early this morning,” Tom said, kicking his buckle shoe in idle frustration on the floor tiles. Kari shot him a look, but didn’t do more to stop him, as though she knew the inevitability of it. “On Ibarra’s addendum to our treaty, that we eradicate the stream raiders. It passed.”
The tile floor shifted, or perhaps the island itself quivered far beneath Lu’s feet.
“What?” Lu asked. “How? Were you there? Did you—”
“The Argridians have been using the news of Ibarra’s disappearance to foster fear, saying any authority figure could be next so long as the raiders think they are outside the law.” Tom’s voice was worn. He slammed his foot still with a shake of his head. “The Council sent out search parties for Ibarra, set up alerts in every port, and called for information from posts across the island—but the Argridians say it isn’t enough. They gathered only the councilmembers who would vote in favor of their bill. They had the support necessary to pass it—more than half the councilmembers and two of the Seniors. It’s done.”
“It isn’t done.” Kari forced Lu to look into her eyes. “What we are negotiating is a draft of a treaty. Nothing has been signed. I will fight this—” She looked at Tom. “I will fight. You will too, Tomás. We will keep treaty negotiations going as long as it takes, stretch out the talks while we figure out some way to undo this. Peace with Argrid is not worth civil war here.”
“How long?” Tom asked. “How long will Argrid tolerate justice being delayed?”
“We won’t stop searching for Ibarra,” Kari said. “We’ll do everything we can to find him. But accusing the raiders without proof isn’t justice.”
Tom sighed but didn’t press further. The Argridian delegates wouldn’t care about nuances. They would demand action. And what would happen when news of Milo’s disappearance reached the king? A messenger had already left, no doubt. The Council had weeks, maybe a month, before a higher power added his weight to the call for action.
All Lu felt, watching her beautifully angry mother promise that war wouldn’t again come, was empty. Annalisa’s death had sucked Lu dry of every drop of emotion.
Argrid wanted Grace Loray to tear itself apart. They wanted the island to be as it once was, trapped beneath the constant threat of death. Ports controlled by curfews, people shot outright on the streets for any number of offenses. Rivers clouded with blood as soldiers tossed bodies out of the holding cells of Church missions. Hangings, and burnings when the humidity allowed—death, everywhere. But this time, the government Lu had fought so hard to put in place would be the one behind it.
Argrid would get the cleansing they wanted. But Grace Loray would be the one to do it.
Kari rubbed her hands up and down Lu’s arms, and she realized her mother had been telling her something. When Lu blinked up at her, Kari’s face fell.
“Tomás, send our best to the Council,” Kari said. “We have other responsibilities today—neither of us will be—”
“No!” Lu almost shouted, remembering Teo sleeping nearby. But the panic of Kari or Tom not being at any Council m
eeting, now more than ever, planted desperation in her. “Grace Loray needs you.”
“You need us more,” Tom said as he came around the couch, and Lu swallowed a sob.
“Go. I’ll be fine. Besides, today is—” She thought for a moment. “It was to be the first day of Devereux Bell’s interrogation. Though I suppose now—”
Kari’s jaw worked, and she looked at the ceiling. “They’ll move to kill him. Soon.”
Vex’s fate was as good as sealed—even if the treaty was not yet signed, the Argridians could push for his hanging. They had gotten the Council to approve Milo’s proposition. Vex would be dead by week’s end.
The likelihood of him being an Argridian pawn faded more and more. Would Milo have bothered with Devereux Bell’s imprisonment and the theatrics of his trial if Argrid were planning to stage an abduction? Doubtful.
The barest plan sprouted in her mind. If Lu could call it a plan—her idea was one part logic, five parts madness.
Devereux Bell knew Grace Loray better than any other stream raider on the island. At least, that was his reputation. He would be dead soon—which meant he was a man with nothing to lose but much to gain. And he had already proven he was willing to make deals.
“Reports of the search for Milo will come in today as well,” Lu pressed.
“Yes,” Tom said. “We’ve already received some. Nothing new, as of yet.”
“Nothing at all?” Lu asked. “Isn’t that suspicious—”
Kari put her hands on Lu’s cheeks. “Not now, my sweet girl. We worked too hard for peace here. I will fight this until Argrid concedes, or until we reveal their plot.”
Lu heaved a sigh. “You think they’ve planned this, too.”
Kari pressed her lips together and glanced at Tom. “We have councilmembers, loyal to us, who are looking into it. They are investigating the Drooping Fern and attempting to trace it, as well as other leads. But not now—care for Teo.” She kissed Lu’s forehead. “And yourself.”
