What We Devour

by Linsey Miller

  Basil shrugged. “I like the stories. They tell us we can be more. If they overthrew the Noble and Vile, we can do this.”

  They gestured to my desk and the bowl of odd red dirt from the Door.

  “Stories say a lot of things and rumors even more.” Carlow groaned and shut her book, pressing her palms hard into her eyes. “Rumors say moss only grows on the north sides of trees, but I’m not stranding you in the forest to check.”

  “And I thank you very much for that,” Basil said.

  “It doesn’t matter what the Noble and Vile were,” said Carlow. “We must be whatever tools this world needs.”

  “Who the world needs,” whispered Creek. “You are a ‘who,’ Franziska, not a contrivance.”

  She stilled and nodded. “We should get back to work.”

  “Sure,” I said slowly. “Basil, could I see one of your contracts? I want to compare it to the Heir’s.”

  “Oh, of course.” They shuffled through a stack of papers on their desk. “Anything specific?”

  “You could say that.” I grabbed the Heir’s book of contracts and flipped to one of the attempts he’d made at destroying the dirt-like pieces of the Door. “How specific are your contracts?”

  “Fairly specific,” they said. “If what I’m creating is complicated, I have to state the makeup of what I want.”

  They showed me a page that included a steel beam for a bridge, and I frowned.

  “You can just specify steel?” I asked. “You don’t have to provide the percentage of iron and carbon?”

  “No, not so long as I have it in mind. Why?”

  “The Heir’s contracts are far more detailed.” I flipped through the book. Every single contract listed components and directions to an exactness that made my teeth ache. “I don’t even do what you do, but should I be doing this?”

  Basil sucked on their teeth and tapped their fingers against their desk. “Maybe. I’m not sure. I think you probably know what’s best for your vilewright, but you should talk to His Majesty about it.”

  The door opened, and the Heir stepped through, a book under one arm and a knife in the other.

  “Speak of the Vile,” said Creek.

  I froze, but the Heir only smiled.

  “Ah,” he said, “talking about me?”

  “It was either that or work.” Carlow jerked her head in the direction of his desk. “Lorena has been going over contracts and has some questions.”

  “Then I shall answer them,” said the Heir.

  I let him settle before approaching. He kept his coat on, buttoned from hip to throat. He adjusted his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose, and the shadows beneath his eyes were as black as his hair. I leaned against his desk so the others couldn’t see either of us and rested my hand on his arm. His muscles clenched beneath my fingers.

  “You care about them,” I whispered. It was hard to imagine this boy caring about anything with a heartbeat.

  “They are my wrought,” he said. “I have little choice.”

  He did, but I didn’t say anything.

  “All your contracts can’t be this convoluted.” I flipped to a random page from his book. The contract was three full pages, specifying the amount of red dirt to destroy down to the weight and exactly where it was in the palace. He had even written out what similar things his vilewright shouldn’t destroy. There were caveats in case his vilewright needed more of a sacrifice to accomplish it: take the first layer of flesh or one pint of blood. The precision felt unnecessary.

  “I have certain contracts that can be executed with only a word and a sacrifice,” he said. “Destroying bullets fired at me is doable because my vilewright is familiar with the wording of the contract. I need only know I have been shot at. Of course, my vilewright is only one wright. It can only destroy three to five. Anything more and I’m a mess for the healers to deal with. Bolts and other projectiles require a different contract and sacrifice. Sacrifices work best when the wrought enacts them, of course, but on those occasions, my vilewright will take the sacrifice without my having to lift a finger. I have it well trained.”

  Magic was always more powerful when the wrought did the sacrificing, cutting an arm or offering up a memory. It was why he had Hana—stabbing her was more powerful than his vilewright simply claiming the blood from her without the Heir’s intervention.

  My wrights weren’t as finicky as this though. A projectile was a projectile, and my vilewright would’ve known what to do with either a bullet or a bolt.

  “That’s all well and good, but what about this? The red dirt-like substance in the oak bowl in the center of the room in the east wing of my quarters,” I said and held up the journal. “What’s your vilewright going to do? Destroy the other wooden bowl full of dirt?”

  “It’s done similar things in the past,” he said. “It’s not me. It knows a bowl holds things, but bodies hold blood, do they not?”

  I shuddered. “Why do you care if it hurts someone?”

  He had killed so many. Did one more death matter to him, or did he simply not want to deal with the political consequences?

  “I’m not a monster,” he said slowly, as if the words were too heavy for his tongue. “I admit to having leveraged my past and the rumors about me to my advantage, but I take no joy in killing. Some deaths are simply necessary sacrifices. Why waste a life if I can avoid it?”

  “What about Hila?” I asked.

  “Hila was a tragedy of my own making, but I was told at the time it was a necessary one. I know what it’s like to fear your own home,” he whispered, shoulders stiff. “The peers fear me now, but that is a needed fear. They are the ones who can do damage, and through their fear of me, I get them to obey without question. Perhaps I am a monster, but what good are dreams if you’ve never known a nightmare?”

  I did not need to have been stabbed to know that I preferred not being stabbed.

  “You didn’t want a dog,” I whispered.

  A pale pink rose in his cheeks. “There are a few who, like you, do not fear me—Carlow, Baines, Worth—and I have no desire to harm them. They are as important to me as my vilewright. Sometimes it is nice to be accepted, not feared.”

  And yet everyone in this lab used his title and not his name.

  Twelve

  Three days later, the Heir proved Carlow correct. He was in the laboratory every morning with me. The two of us read through his past experiments with his vilewright over tea in the lab, our quiet meetings lasting anywhere from an hour to three. The others rarely showed up until well after, and Carlow, the only one I thought might interrupt us, preferred to work late and sleep later. She had set a series of experiments for me, and the Heir observed my contracts as I attempted to fulfill her tasks. He hummed as I failed again, tapping the feathery tip of his quill against his chin. I groaned.

  “I have to be able to see what I’m destroying,” I said. “This won’t work.”

  I was trying to destroy only the mechanism of a mechanical horse. The little horse had working legs that moved after a knob was wound, and Carlow had made it, working and painted, in little more than an hour. It was made out of the same type of wood throughout.

  “It’s a toy horse, not a torso.” The Heir handed me a cloth from his pockets and made another notation. “How did you destroy those memories in Felhollow, or do you have a better knowledge of the mortal brain than I give you credit for?”

  “I don’t,” I said and wiped my bleeding nose. There was not enough in me to sacrifice when I didn’t know what I wanted. My noblewright fluttered about me, all nerves. “That was different. We perform better under pressure.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” he said and closed his journal. “Rest. We’ll try again in a moment.”

  He slipped out the door to the laboratory. I slumped against the table, a dull ache forming behind my eyes. I wasn’t a
ny good if I couldn’t figure out how to perform all the time and not just when in danger, but my wrights understood danger. They knew that if I died, they died. They didn’t understand pressure. They didn’t understand ambition.

  The door opened, slamming against the wall, and heavy footfalls rumbled toward me. I rose, and Carlow shoved me back onto my stool. The mottled red light of dawn seeped into her inscrutable eyes.

  “The Crown knows His Majesty has an unbound dualwrought,” she said quietly, her tangle of hair a curtain between us and the rest of the room. “The Heir is arguing with her outside.”

  Gooseflesh rose on my arms, and the tea in my stomach rolled. “Is she angry?”

  The Sundered Crown Hyacinth Wyrslaine had only ruled for six years. She had been another nameless noble girl married off, a choice candidate given her wrights, and bound to the court so that she could only use her wrights for what they approved of. Then, she bribed enough of them to let her overthrow her husband and his supporters.

  She killed his personal guards first. There had been a standoff between her and them, leaving all of them dead and her victorious. The old Crown had barricaded himself in the courtroom with their children, and Hyacinth had confronted him there. In the chaos, their two daughters died, and Hyacinth was caught off guard by her husband’s most loyal guard. Knight Beatrice had struck out in that terrible moment, her sword sinking through Hyacinth’s scalp, cheek, and shoulder before lodging in her chest. Some said a Vile soul where Hyacinth Wyrslaine’s heart should have been stopped the blade.

  I figured it was her clavicle and a well-placed prayer to her wrights. Hyacinth Wyrslaine was one of the best healers in the world after all. That was all the court had allowed her to study.

  “She is never angry,” said Carlow. “She is at her deadliest when she is calm. Don’t underestimate her.”

  My wrights growled so low and so deep that my teeth shook. The door creaked open.

  “Franziska,” drawled a gentle voice, “you’re ruining the surprise.”

  Carlow dropped to her knees, coat splayed out behind her like bluebird wings, and pressed her forehead to the floor. I copied her and waited. My wrights covered the back of my bare neck.

  In the Wallows, royalty had felt like a distant dream. We all lived and died the same no matter who the Crown was because we had no way of changing the court. The peerage was unreachable. The Sundered Crown of Cynlira doubly so.

  “Franziska, darling, we will have words about this, but I understand your hesitance.” The Sundered Crown’s voice bounced slightly with amusement. “You may leave.”

  Carlow rose. There was a shuffling of steps, the click of the door, and silence. I held my position, legs all pins and needles. Silk rustled over the ground. The Crown sat atop the Heir’s stool.

  “So,” she said, “you have both a noblewright and a vilewright?”

  “I do, Your Excellency.”

  “Come here, Lorena Adler.” She patted the stool I had been sitting on earlier. “I have wanted another dualwrought my entire life, and now here you are. We must talk.”

  There were surely rules about looking at the Crown, but the moment I lifted my head, our eyes met. I froze.

  She was plain—a small nose, a thin mouth lined fuller with coral pigment, and brown hair streaked with white at her temples—and even though her cosmetics were more expensive than my whole life, I might’ve overlooked her in a crowded room. I would have.

  “Let us be honest with each other.” The Crown took my chin between her fingers and turned my face from side to side. I would’ve been as plain as her if not for my red hair. “Your mother was the one who told you to hide, yes? The one from the Wallows? Do you take after her?”

  “No, Your Excellency,” I said. My mother had always said I looked like my father, but I’d no memories of him. Angular jaw, downturned hazel eyes, and thin lips gave me a perpetually peevish look. “I don’t believe you would’ve ever seen her or my father though.”

  “No, I suppose I would not have.” She smiled, letting me go.

  I looked away. The two servants behind her kept their gazes down, but the guard kept their eyes on my hands.

  “Did you think I would be scarred beyond recognition?” the Crown asked with a lilting laugh. A servant added honey to her tea and stirred it for her. “Or perhaps that I would be beautiful beyond reason, reworked and remade perfect by my wrights?”

  There was a scar, a scar like any other, running from the center of her forehead, through her left brow and eye, down her cheek, and ending in her chest opposite the binding of green and white ink that the court and council used to keep her in check. Her dress was cut to show off both.

  “Peers always make their enemies ugly or beautiful, never the between, and always whatever their narrow views of appalling and appealing are. Such unimaginative gossips.” She laid her hands on the table and tapped the long, armored ring adorning her first finger against the top. The nail tips were sharpened for sacrifices. “But you, Lorena Adler, are neither beautiful nor unpleasing. You simply are. Like me. Overlooked. Underestimated. A simple girl amongst hungry wolves.”

  She said it so surely that I shuddered. She had healed a killing blow, which meant she was powerful enough to have healed the wound without it scarring. My skin was freckled with scars.

  “I thought you’d be prettier,” I said. “Rich people always looked prettier when they drove past the Wallows.”

  The Crown sat up straighter. “It’s the money. Money does wonderful things for confidence.”

  And clothes. And health. And everything else.

  “Now,” she said, peering into the cup that had been her son’s and holding it out. “What does my son have you working on?”

  One servant refilled the cup while the other dropped two spoons full of honey into it, never hitting the rim. This woman had never been overlooked or underestimated. She, like her son, was unlike anyone else in Cynlira.

  “He’s mostly testing the limits of my contracts and sacrifices now,” I said. There was no clause in my contract barring me from telling his mother what he wanted to do with the Door, but it was clear from our conversations that she didn’t agree with his intentions. It was better to lie, and doing so was second nature now. If she thought me untrained entirely, she’d underestimate me. “I wasn’t taught to contract my wrights, so my ways of working are quite different. It’s not even working today. I’m nothing like you.”

  “Indeed,” she said. “And what did my son promise you in exchange for this knowledge?”

  “Information and protection,” I said. “No more sacrifices coming from Felhollow. There aren’t enough of us to last a year, and we’re too far away to do much.”

  I needed to know more about her sacrifices and why she did them as she did if I was going to help Will.

  “You’re too far away to protest as well then,” said the Crown. She sipped her tea, and her servants retreated. “How did you escape notice while living here? I employed a number of noblewrought solely for the purpose of finding wrought children.”

  I swallowed. A sickly sweet bile rose up in the back of my throat. “I’m from the Wallows. I stayed out of the way and rarely used my wrights.”

  “Yes, Alistair said he was surprised by the speed with which you destroyed and created new memories for my warrant officers,” she said with a smile. “He does love a good puzzle.”

  I clasped my hands in my lap, nails digging into my skin. My noblewright whined. My skin felt too tight for all the fear rising in me.

  “How did you do it?” she asked.

  I swallowed. “I’ve always been better with bodies and memories. I’m an undertaker. I know the mortal form very well.”

  “Please, how does someone who has never been trained know how to so quickly and cleanly alter memories like that? You can’t see thoughts while preparing a body for funeral rites.
You can’t see feelings when observing mortal nerves. Those are all intangible things. Altering them requires practice.” She leaned in close until I could taste the honey on her words. “You have practiced, though, haven’t you? If you couldn’t perform the most basic creations and destructions, you wouldn’t be useful.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I told you. I haven’t been very useful today.”

  “I’m aware,” she said, gazing at me from over her cup, “just as I am aware that you are more dangerous that you have led everyone to believe.”

  She pulled a small pistol from the folds of her dress and pressed the muzzle into my gut.

  “I’m going to count down from three,” she said, “and you’re either going to figure out how to destroy the mechanism of this gun without being able to see it, or you will get shot. I can repair such a wound of course, but an untrained dualwrought is hardly of use to anyone.”

  Use—there it was again.

  “Three.”

  Destroy the bullet and gunpowder, I prayed. My vilewright tore from me and swept over her before I had even promised it a sacrifice. Could I even sacrifice anything? Would she fire if I stabbed her hand?

  “Two.”

  Take her nails and the blood that comes from losing them. Take her bangles.

  “One.”

  I flinched. She pulled the trigger, hammer striking with a sharp clank. Nothing happened, and she set the gun aside. The bracelets and rings that had decorated her hand were gone. She studied her bloody fingers.

  “Well,” she said and wiped her hands on the skirts of her dress. “You do work better under pressure.”

  “He told you to do this, didn’t he?” I asked through clenched teeth. “That was not fair.”

  “His little tests are much better than mine.” She bowed her head slightly, but I didn’t believe her bashful blush for a moment. “The world is not fair. It is best you learn that now. I survived and became Crown because I am strong, not because the world is easy. I earned this, and I enjoy helping others with promise earn worthy lives as well.”