by Kaylin Lee
The fomewagon swung to a halt. “Out! You know what to do.” He shot Lucien a warning look. “Wait until we’ve secured the building before you bring her in. Andrei, make sure he cooperates.”
They were only gone for a few minutes when someone must have given a signal outside, because Andrei growled, “Let’s go.”
Lucien hauled me to my feet.
We climbed out of the fomewagon’s back door. Outside, it was just past dawn, and the street was nearly empty.
My heart sank as I recognized the familiar alley in front of Grandmother’s apartment building. Lucien followed Andrei and pulled me through the building’s entrance and up the stairs to her suite. My chest was tight. I’d done this. I’d failed her. I’d never met her standards, not once, but this particular failure—trusting Lucien with her life—had to be the worst thing I’d ever done.
I ripped my arm from Lucien’s grip as we rounded a corner and Grandmother’s apartment door came into view. He didn’t hold me back. Perhaps he knew what I was thinking.
A Wolf guarded the door. He opened it and waved us through.
“Grandmother.” My damaged throat hurt, and my voice broke. “I’m so sorry.”
Her hands, feet, and mouth were bound. She shook her head at me, her eyes wide, but I didn’t know what she was denying. She sat on the floor of the sitting room, her hair in a long, white braid, her nightgown wrinkled and disheveled.
I stumbled toward her, but Demetrius stepped between us. “Come over here,” he barked. He yanked me to the center of the room and forced me to my knees in front of Grandmother. Then he drew his knife and put it to my throat.
“Hey!” Lucien protested.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware of Andrei and Lucien arguing behind me and coming to blows. But the sounds of fighting and shouting were dim compared to the sharp pain at my throat. I’d felt this once before, in the Badlands outside the north gate. It was a poetic end to the whole trip.
“Mmmph!” Grandmother cried out.
Demetrius pressed harder, piercing the skin of my neck. Blood dripped onto my shirt. I wanted to sob, but all my attention was on the pressure of that blade.
“I’ll only say this one more time,” Demetrius growled. “I want the assassin. Get Zel here now, or I’ll cut your granddaughter in two.”
“Mmm! Mmm!” Grandmother nodded rapidly.
A Wolf I didn’t recognize stepped forward, cut the bindings on her wrists, and untied her gag.
“I will, I will! Please, just put down the knife!” Her voice was more panicked than I’d ever heard it.
The Wolf pressed a piece of paper and pencil into her hands.
“No, Grandmother! Don’t—”
Demetrius dug the knife into my throat. I couldn’t help squealing from the pain.
She wrote quickly. “See, I’m writing the note, just like you wanted.” Her voice shook, and her words jumbled together. “She is staying in the palace under Prince Estevan’s protection, but if I tell her to come here alone, she will trust me. Everyone trusts me. Please, just leave my girl alone. Please!”
She finished the note and held it out with a trembling hand.
The Wolf took it from her and held it up in front of Demetrius.
He nodded curtly. “Go now. Hurry. Andrei will tell you how to reach one of our men in the palace guard.”
My stomach lurched. He had a way into the palace. He could draw Zel out of hiding. And since she was so powerful, she wouldn’t fear danger. She would never expect that Demetrius possessed special magic to capture her.
What did the Masters want with her? And what would happen when Grandmother and I had outlived our usefulness?
Demetrius let me go. I dropped like a sack of rocks, my legs too weak to support me.
Lucien appeared in my blurry field of vision, his expression tortured. He stripped off his sweater, shoved my damp hair away from my neck, and pressed the sweater to the wound.
I should have stayed in the cell. I’d thought I could warn her. Instead, I’d just given Demetrius the leverage he needed to force her to contact Zel. You never think. I’d set out to save Asylia, and now I was the reason the Masters would get what they wanted.
Lucien lifted me into his arms and carried me to the wall by the window, He sat, cradling me on his lap. His hand shook as he pressed his sweater against my neck.
Grandmother crawled over to us, her legs still bound. She knelt beside Lucien and brushed my forehead with her hand.
I shut my eyes, her gentle touch quieting the chaos within me.
“My girl,” Grandmother said. Her sobs were quiet. “My girl, my girl. What have I done?”
Chapter 42
We stayed in that position for less than an hour. The bleeding from my neck slowed and Lucien finally removed his sodden shirt. I wanted to roll away from him, but I couldn’t make myself move. Why hadn’t I listened and stayed in the cell?
“I’m here, Wolf.” The woman’s voice was clear and confident. Zel.
The Wolves in the room jumped to attention and dove for their weapons.
Zel entered the room where we waited, her expression calm, her hands up. Three Wolves had crossbows trained on her. Another two shut the apartment door, locked it, and stood guard in front of it. Zel was trapped, and it was all my fault.
Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of me, Lucien, and Grandmother sitting against the wall, but after a moment, she shifted her focus to Demetrius.
“It’s you.” His voice was raw. “After all these years. It isn’t right that you should still look so young and pretty, just like back then.”
Zel nodded slowly. “I know. It isn’t right.” She stepped closer.
The Wolves with crossbows shifted uneasily.
Demetrius held up one hand. “Don’t come any closer.”
She clasped her hands in front of her and stayed where she was. “I’m sorry, Demetrius. For what I did to your clan leader. Your … father?”
After a moment, he nodded, his jaw tight.
“Sorry is not enough. I know that. But it’s all I can give you.” Zel’s cheeks were wet with tears, but her expression was frozen, as though it hurt too much to move. “And I want you to know that I am very, very sorry.”
The room was silent for a moment. Then Demetrius released a long sigh. “You’re right. It’s not enough.” He removed a crystal vial from his jacket pocket. “But for what it’s worth, Zel, I’m sorry, too.” He opened the vial and flung the contents at her.
Zel stilled, a strange look coming over her face. Silvery sparkles floated off of her skin. “So that’s what it is,” she murmured. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, her eyebrows lowering into a frown. “It hurts.”
Demetrius scowled. “Good.”
Zel held out her hand and watched the silver light pulse from her skin for a moment. Then she pulled something from her pocket and pressed it between her hands. The glow flared, then disappeared completely, like a light being snuffed out. She smiled. “Well, that was easy.”
“What did you do?” Demetrius asked, his voice wary. He gestured to his men, who lifted their crossbows.
Zel opened her fist. “I broke their curse.” A small, pink crystal sat in the palm of her hand. A fabulator crystal?
“How—”
There was a loud rush of wind outside. A man’s horrified scream echoed in the hallway. Demetrius edged toward the window and blanched at whatever he saw in the street.
“Rapunzel.” The woman’s high, piercing voice hurt my ears. “At last, we shall meet.”
Demetrius backed away from the window and turned toward the door.
Zel faced the apartment door, too. Her fists were clenched, her back stiff.
The Wolves who’d had their weapons trained on Zel shuffled nervously as if they couldn’t decide where to point their arrows.
Lucien urged me off his lap, lurched to his feet, and stood in front of me and Grandmother, his knife out. I gripped Grandmother’s hand in mi
ne and held my breath.
“Rapunzel,” the voices said again. Closer. Shriller. “Join us, Rapunzel. You are Death’s Master. We will spare you, Sister. You belong with us.”
Demetrius stumbled backward, away from the door, jerking away from Zel, who still stood motionless in the room’s center. He glanced over his shoulder at Lucien.
There was another deafening snap and another man’s hoarse, pained cry. The Wolves standing guard outside were dying.
“Demetrius,” hissed a man outside the door, “Worthless servant, we knew you would fail. We have waited long enough to reveal our glory.”
A thud hit the front door. There was a muffled groan. Another thud. Another cry, this one oddly familiar. They were hurling the Wolves’ bodies at the locked door.
Andrei had been stationed in the hallway after his fight with Lucien, hadn’t he? It sounded like the chosen son was dying at the hands of the Masters outside. I glanced at Lucien, but his stiff posture was unflinching.
He’s not a slave anymore, Andrei had said that morning in the Wolf clan library, his arrogant tone turning wistful for a fleeting moment. He’s become one of them.
I shuddered and squeezed Grandmother’s hand. Andrei had been cruel and dangerous, but he’d been an orphan on the streets of Draicia before being brought up in the harsh, violent ways of the Wolf clan. He hadn’t been protected from Demetrius’s influence, unlike Lucien, whose father had provided a buffer.
Demetrius found his voice at last. “You said I’d have justice,” he shouted through the door. “You said she would pay for what she did.”
“Foolish creature.” The woman outside sounded amused. “Rapunzel is worth a thousand Wolves. Surrender, or we will rip your men apart until there is nothing left to bury.”
Andrei screamed again, and Demetrius jerked as though feeling the pain himself. He looked back at Lucien again. “I did this for the clan, Luc.” His eyes were wild. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples. “I swear it. My father was a good man, seeking to unify the city. He deserved justice.”
“You unified the city for him, did you? For us?” Lucien growled, shifting his knife in his hand, his shoulders tense. “You just made it easier for your Masters to take it over. All they had to do was control you.”
Another man screamed.
“Surrender, Demetrius,” Zel said, her voice cool. “Let them in.”
“You’ll go to their side?” Demetrius looked tortured. “You’ll join the Masters?”
Zel lifted her hand toward him in a clear threat. “I said let them in, Wolf. You brought this on us. Now let me finish it.”
I shivered and gripped Grandmother’s hand tighter.
Demetrius gave Zel a long, searching look. Then nodded curtly. “I’m sorry, Luc,” he said over his shoulder. He strode to the door and unlocked it. Before I could flinch, the door opened, and a blast of magic flung Demetrius against the far wall. He crumpled to the floor, lifeless.
“No!” Lucien shouted hoarsely.
Wind rushed into the room with the Masters. Six pale men and women appeared in the small sitting room around Zel. They wore the same pallid, old-fashioned robes I’d seen last night, and their skin glowed silver—their faces were almost too bright to look at directly.
Zel stood stock-still as they gathered around her.
“Join us, Sister,” they whispered hungrily. “We have longed for one such as you for centuries. The one born to carry on our Master’s rule—the Master of Death itself. You destroyed the Crimson Blight, those weak, foolish mages. We alone are your equals. You may rule with us. We will share our power with you, and you will live forever with us. Join us. Join us. Join us.” The words echoed in the room, growing in volume until they ended with an ear-splitting shriek.
I saw Zel’s finger’s twitch around the pink crystal. “I will not join you,” she said, her voice as clear as a bell. “But I will kill you.”
There was an awful pause. “So be it,” the glowing figures shrieked.
The male figure in the center of the six opened a vial and tossed the contents on Zel. “Come with us, Rapunzel. You are ours now.”
Silver light enveloped her even quicker than Demetrius’s borrowed curse had. This time, Zel didn’t wait. She lifted the pink crystal and pressed it between her hands. The light flared, flickered, and disappeared—their curse had broken again. “I am not yours. Never will be.” She lunged toward the man who’d cursed her. A moment later, he crumpled to the floor, dead.
She darted to the next and a third, before the other three reacted.
They shot magic toward her, but she dodged each blast with ease.
SNAP. The three living Masters winked out of the room, evading her Touch.
She rushed to the window. Grandmother, Lucien, and I joined her and stopped short at the horrifying sight.
The surviving Masters stood in the street, surrounded by unmoving men and women who packed the entire street, from one footpath to the other. Each one glowed with aurae’s silver halo, their expressions placid. It seemed as though the whole of Asylia had gathered outside, from ragged river dwellers to uniformed quarter guards to Procus ladies wearing their mage-craft finery. All glowing, and all utterly still.
“Rapunzel!” The Masters stared up at the window with venom in their eyes. “You will pay, traitor. You will pay!”
Someone down the street shouted. I craned my neck. Men in black, nondescript uniforms pushed their way along the edges of the throng. But instead of fighting the aurists, they were holding pink crystals like Zel’s and pressing them to each person’s chest.
One by one, the aurists’ silvery glows flickered then disappeared. As their lights were snuffed out, their curses broken, the glow coming from the Masters dimmed.
The Masters looked around wildly, taking in the sight. They screamed as one—a deep, piercing, wordless cry of rage. Then they lifted their hands.
A blast of magic knocked out the aurists closest to the Masters. The same blast rushed at us, and the window shattered in our faces.
A sudden, bright light flared out from the crowd. SNAP.
The Masters were gone.
The street outside Grandmother’s apartment held nothing but the corpses of hundreds of dead aurists.
Chapter 43
I woke up crying.
“Shhh, Ruby. Shhh.” Someone warm held me. She smelled of ink and spiceberries. “You’re safe, my girl.”
I cracked open my swollen, wet eyes. “Grandmother.” Someone must have healed my bruised throat because the word came out clearly and without pain.
She sat on the bed beside me in a dim, unfamiliar room and pushed my hair out of my eyes. “Ruby. How do you feel?”
A scream of rage. Shards of glass exploding in my face. Limp bodies, piled in the street.
“I’m so sorry.” My throat may have been healed, but it tightened up. I pulled away from her. “All those people—” I pressed my hands to my eyes, wishing I could block out the memory of those unfortunate people collapsing in the street. “I failed, and now they’re gone. I’m so sorry, Grandmother. I tried so hard. I swear I did. But it wasn’t enough.”
“Ruby!” Grandmother uncovered my eyes. “What are you talking about? You saved thousands of lives!”
I stared at her. “What?”
She smiled, looking more like herself. “I got your note.”
“But I didn’t even—”
“I took it straight to Prince Estevan. We figured out what you were trying to tell us. We’ve spent the past four days preparing the crystals. Well, I’ll let them explain.”
“Them?”
Grandmother squeezed my hand. “You’ll learn all the facts soon enough. The important thing is, you should be proud. You did it, Ruby. You saved our city. I don’t know what those awful mages wanted with us, but thanks to you, they failed.”
I thought of Astrid, shaking from cold and fear outside my cell window on the Wolf compound. I can sneak. “Not me,” I whispered, my voice thick.
“There’s a little girl in Draicia. Astrid. She sent the note for me. I was trapped, and sh-she risked her life for me.”
The tears fell afresh. I should have found a way to get the truth to Grandmother without putting Astrid’s innocent life at jeopardy. “All I’ve done from the beginning is fail everyone who counted on me. I came here to warn you, but instead, Demetrius used me to force you to trap Zel—” My voice broke. “I’m so sorry.”
Shocking me, Grandmother scowled, snuggled closer, and wrapped her arms around me. “I’d trade ten cities for you, Ruby. A hundred cities. I never should have let you think differently.”
Wait. What? “But I failed,” I repeated. “I ruined everything.”
Grandmother fell silent. When she finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. “Did you know your mother was like a daughter to me?”
I stilled. “My mother?”
“When she married my son, I gained a daughter. A daughter and a friend, a dear, wonderful friend. Then the plague …” Her grip around me grew tight. “I lost my husband, my son, my daughter-in-law, and the reporters at the Herald. My family. My friends and colleagues. You were all I had left. Sweet and innocent yet so trusting, so fragile. If I ever lost you, I didn’t know how I’d—”
She sniffed. “I didn’t know what I’d do. It was easier to push the thought away than to face it head on, to face how much I needed you. How much I loved you. I wish I’d been brave enough to admit that, but I wasn’t. I’m the one who failed you.”
After several breaths, I relaxed, awed at the way her honest words soothed me. “No, you didn’t,” I said after a moment of reflection. “In Draicia and in the Badlands, whenever I was frightened, I thought of you. I think the only thing that kept me moving forward was to do what you’ve always taught me to do. Without that, without you, I don’t think I would have survived.”
Grandmother laughed under her breath. “Then something good came of my failures. Can’t ask for any more than that.” She kissed the top of my head. “I’m glad to have you home. Asylia has missed you.”
My peace of mind fled. “No, it hasn’t.” The vehemence of my words surprised me. “This city hates me. It always has.”
