Except she had been born a different sort of strong than us—noble and rich, noblewrought and vilewrought. If this world were a war, she had been born in armor with a sword in her hands, and we had been born with nothing but our teeth and nails and grit. She couldn’t see our truth for the visor she had been born in.
“Do you really think that’s why you survived? That’s why you’re the Crown?” I asked before I could stop. “Because you’re stronger than all the people who work for Cynlira?”
The question struck her. She reared back and laughed, a chiming sound. The Crown rose from her chair, white dress brushing along the floor like a low, shushing voice, and I stood. She was a full head shorter than me, but when she walked, all the presence I had thought she didn’t have took my breath away. She moved as if the world was the one moving and it only moved for her.
“Lorena.” Her hands closed around my shoulders, fingers curled over them as a mother might hold her child still before a mirror. Her blood dripped down my chest. “You may, of course, continue to aid my son, but the Door and who I sacrifice are none of your concern. The Door cannot be destroyed. Your deal with Alistair may stand since the contract is signed, but I would suggest being more honest with my son and steering his research toward something more useful.”
I nodded.
“If you lie to me again, the name Felhollow will only be uttered in dark corners of this world as a word of warning—we don’t want to end up like Felhollow. Do you understand?” she asked. “Do not lie to me again.”
I bowed my head.
“No, no,” she said and clucked her tongue. “I want to hear it this time, darling. You lied so well. Let’s see how much feeling you can put into three words. Do you understand me?”
Three. Not one.
“Yes,” I said. “Your Excellency.”
“Oh, Lorena Adler, do be more careful.” She squeezed my shoulders and let go, and one of her hands drifted to the top of my head. She tucked a few strands of hair behind my ear. “I hope you’re useful for a while. I would hate to find you dead without me having a hand in it.”
Thirteen
“Well, I’m alive,” I said as the Heir entered the laboratory. “Does that satisfy your curiosity about my abilities to work under pressure?”
He didn’t even have the decency to blush. “To an extent. She was going to speak with you regardless. Now she knows you’re capable at least.”
“I hardly think that’s in my favor,” I muttered and dumped the tea she had been drinking over one of Creek’s potted ferns.
“It is,” said the Heir. “She, and I by extension, have no need for anyone less than capable.”
So she would’ve let me bleed out on the floor if I hadn’t destroyed the bullet because I wasn’t good enough.
“She might have killed me!”
“But she didn’t.” He picked up the pistol. “Concise way to solve the problem. What was the contract?”
I’d no idea if this was better or worse than the forced flirting.
“Destroy the bullet and powder, and take her nails, blood, and jewelry as sacrifice.” I winced. “She didn’t even mention the sacrifices.”
“She’s sacrificed worse,” he said and wrote everything down. “The two of you were alone. She knew who you would have to sacrifice.”
I collapsed onto the stool near my desk, far from him, and pulled the mechanical horse to myself. The Heir glanced up once and straightened his glasses. I shrugged.
“You wouldn’t have died. You’re too good for that,” he mumbled. “Your contract is hardly precise though.”
“She was going to shoot me,” I said, drawing out each word. “I’ve had bandits give me more of a chance.”
He bristled and shook his head. “You could have healed yourself.”
“But you and she didn’t know that.”
“We inferred it.” He finally looked up at me, glasses hiding his gaze, and gestured to the stool next to him. “Please. We need to discuss your contracts.”
I relented. His desk was better for work anyway, the neat precision of his contracts reflected in the perfectly labeled shelves and boxes. Clean penknives and scalpels were aligned in neat rows at the back of the table, and on a shelf above them was a small box of quill nibs. The shelf above him was bending beneath the weight of all his journals and books. I picked up one.
The hand-painted illustrations on the first few pages of a Vile with strangling vines for a tongue retreating unhappily into a cave and a Noble with eyes like the sea locking itself away behind the moon were enough to tell me what it was about.
“You’re very careful. Exacting,” I said. “The Vile were creatures of pure chaos made to unbalance the world so that the Noble had something to balance. You’re overcompensating.”
The Heir’s handwriting, each letter as if made by a press, was as ordered as his desk.
“Chaos is vile,” he said. “I find there is beauty in the rational.”
I set down the book on the edge of the table. His fingers tightened around his quill, leaving splotches on his paper. I looked away, and when I looked back, he had returned the book to its rightful place.
“Who didn’t like that you were vilewrought?” I asked.
“It’s nothing like that,” he said quickly. “My father loathed mess, and I’ve never broken the habit. He feared chaos would lead me to Chaos, especially after Hila, but I am not some errant vilewrought. I will be better than he thought I was.”
I knew so many rumors about him and his mother, but there were so few about the previous Crown. The Heir’s grandfather was the one who had started the sacrifices. The Heir’s father had carried it on “with great trepidation for the future of his country.” The Heir’s mother had no such hesitancy.
It didn’t matter if I saved Will. It didn’t matter if I made sure no more sacrifices would be taken from Felhollow. Cynlira was a mine threatening to collapse, and the Sundered Crown was taking a pickax to it still. She would destroy this nation.
“If I had used the contract you did with my vilewright, it would have destroyed one bullet.” He picked up the pistol and opened the chamber, letting five more tumble to the tabletop. “There would be no guarantee it would be the one necessary to save me, and it might have taken the powder from another casing. This shouldn’t have worked.”
“It inferred what I needed,” I said, and he scowled. “My vilewright’s known me long enough to know what I mean, and it definitely knows that if I die, it gets no more sacrifices from me.”
“But is it really aware of that?” He dropped his quill and leaned back.
“I don’t know, and I don’t know how to test that,” I said. “How binding are your contracts? Could she break it for you if she wanted to sacrifice Will even if he were innocent?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“But what if she does?” I asked.
“Then I would most likely die, and she would have no Heir. She is fond of me, despite popular belief.” He glanced at me over the rim of his glasses. “My mother, the court, and the council believe that replacing the Door will cause it to open permanently. My mother is many things, but she does not want all Cynlira to die.”
I snorted.
“The dead can’t bow, Lorena.”
“How am I supposed to work then? I’m not you. You could say one word, and my whole town would be wiped from the map. Explain to me how I am supposed to trust you when I am a chick among foxes?” I asked. Kara, Ines, Old Ivy, Mack’s family, everyone I had ever known—the Crown knew Felhollow mattered to me, and I couldn’t save the whole town from her. “We’re taught the only resource we have in excess is obedience, and you might pluck one of us up for sacrifice at any time. I trust our contract. I trust your mother’s words far less.”
I took his hand in mine, and he stared at our interlaced fingers.
&nbs
p; “I understand,” he said. “That is fair.”
Sexual attraction and I might have been strangers, but I knew how it worked and that half of the Heir’s attraction to me was our shared knowledge. He had nearly died when I told him I understood him that first time in the carriage. There was a yearning in his gaze that I could barely meet. He wanted closeness in body and mind. He wanted consumption. Coalescence.
“I understand your hesitancy,” I said, squeezing his hand, “but I cannot live with it.”
We had met, and now we couldn’t resist the pull. Miscible, he would’ve called us.
“I will ensure that she understands that Felhollow is off-limits.” He swallowed, throat bobbing, and did not pull away. “She would not anger you so though. She let you use her as sacrifice and left smiling. She is not happy about our contract, but she has not attempted to change it. That alone means she has accepted it. Please try not to worry.”
“I will try,” I said and slipped my hand from his. “I’ve skimmed the documents from Will’s original warrant. Why would she care about him acquiring old factories?”
He pushed his glasses higher up his nose and tugged the tie from his long hair, letting it fall before his face. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”
He was lying.
“I’ll have to keep reading then, and I might not have time to do more tests. Julian can’t accept that Will might not be perfect.” I sighed. “I had forgotten how hard it is to get over.”
The Heir stiffened.
“My father’s parents are still alive, probably, but they never approved of my mother and definitely not of me. I went to them once after my mother died, and they turned me away. I always thought family had to love you,” I said.
The Heir leaned toward me.
“It’s enough to make you hate yourself even though you really hate them.” He reached out, fingers shaking, and let his hand hang above mine. “It is difficult for some to see depravity where they naturally assume devotion.”
“I look like my father, and I hate it.” I closed the distance. “You look like your father, don’t you?”
He nodded and pulled off his glasses. Curling strands of inky hair hid his eyes, rustling with his breaths, and I ran my thumb across the back of his hand. I did not look at his eyes.
“You don’t hide yourself because of that, do you?” I whispered.
He laughed. “I would hardly call any part of my life hiding.”
The door creaked. He tore his hand from mine, turning back to his books. I held back my laugh and slipped from the stool. Carlow hesitated in the doorway to the room, her goggles hanging about her neck, and she glanced up once. I had never thought of her as small, but she was. Even short and stout Basil seemed looming compared to her.
“Is she gone for today?” asked Carlow, clutching a notebook to her chest.
“So far as I know,” the Heir said, voice rough. “You have my permission to leave for the day though.”
Carlow darted back out the door.
“She’s really scared of her,” I said, and it was the most I had ever understood Carlow.
The Heir nodded. “I am, as always, the lesser of two evils.”
“She’s dualwrought, not immortal,” I muttered. “Right?”
“She is very mortal. Using her wrights tires her out, just like us,” said the Heir. “Mortals gained magic through a contract. Any mortal could do magic so long as they consumed a Noble or Vile. Through the conjunction of mortal and immortal came a contract, so pieces of immortal souls—wrights—attached to mortal souls—wrought—and did the bidding of those who had devoured them.”
“You’re making it toothsome. We mortals grew tired of our demigod rulers, so we ate them, body and soul, to obtain their powers. This new warfare so horrified the gods that they banished what was left of the Noble and Vile from this world.” I twirled one of the knives from his collection between my fingers. “Good story. The powerful eat us slowly, so we have to eat them bite by bite to get back the power they stole from us.”
He frowned. “For all our faults, my mother and I have never cannibalized anyone.”
“It’s a metaphor using very real history,” I said, “and if I hadn’t been able to stop that shot, if I hadn’t been of use, she would’ve let me die.”
“I know what a metaphor is,” he said and frowned. “Soon after, as the original noblewrought and vilewrought began to die, their power cropped up in new children. Pieces of those Noble and Vile souls attached to new mortals at birth. Do you ever wonder—”
“Which Noble and Vile were devoured to create my wrights?” I took his hand in mine and pushed back his sleeve. “We understand each other too well for you not to know the answer to that.”
The Heir grinned and offered me his arm. “You work better under pressure, don’t you?”
I narrowed my eyes and cut into his arm and let his blood drip onto Carlow’s mechanized horse.
Destroy the inner workings of this, and have Alistair Wyrslaine’s sense of pain and blood.
My vilewright lapped up the blood that spilled from the Heir, hummed, and took a whole minute to sink into the horse and figure out which parts were the mechanisms. They vanished as if they had never been there at all. The Heir made a notation in his ledger.
“I will make sure you have time to research and tests.” He stared at my fingers curled around his wrist. “It took longer than with the gun.”
My wright rumbled against me.
I set the knife aside and let go. A headache pounded behind my eyes. “I took away your sense of pain. You should note how long that lasts.”
“A better sacrifice, and yet it still took longer.”
“Perhaps it’s full,” I said softly. “What was the first time you sacrificed something other than someone else’s blood to your vilewright?”
He stilled. Licked his lips. Set the knife aside. “I sacrificed my sisters’ fear.”
A more merciful act than I’d have guessed.
“My father thought me unlucky. He wasn’t pleased I was the oldest,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “My sisters were far better than me in every way. They always felt terrible he preferred them to me. They shouldn’t have.”
“What happened to them?”
“Our mother.” The Heir adjusted his glasses. “My father threatened to kill me. I was always her favorite. She threatened to kill them. He didn’t believe her.”
She had to be stopped. Even if Will survived, we’d all still be doomed if the Crown took a liking to me. She could kill them at any time. The Door didn’t matter. The Sundered Crown had to be stopped.
And I would need the Heir to stop her.
“Let me call the healer,” he said quickly. “You should rest, and she can heal my arm.”
“We should keep testing.” I pulled the Heir’s hand back into my lap, my fingers loose around his wrist. “We’re working together quite a lot. May I call you Alistair?”
Fourteen
The next day, I wrote a note for the Heir that I would be visiting Julian to go over the case against Will Chase. I meant to leave it in the laboratory, but the way was blocked. A member of the court had Carlow cornered against the door.
“Do not interrupt my work for such a banal request again, Franziska. Such desultory behavior is unacceptable. His Majesty may indulge your appetite for disobedience, but do not forget that you and every other wrought are at the mercy of the court and council. You do as we instruct,” the courtier was saying. “You don’t know how to obey.” She ripped open Carlow’s coat and grimaced at the ooze of ink and blood covering her binding. “It’s unbecoming.”
“My dear Carra Shearwill,” said Carlow with a grin, “I have not even begun to unbecome.”
The courtier stalked away, and Carlow punched a tree.
“Enjoy the show?” she asked.
I shook my head. “She one of the twenty-five?”
Twelve councilors and thirteen courtiers, with the input of the rest of the council and court, controlled what the wrought could do with their wrights. Even the Sundered Crown was bound to prevent her from doing anything untoward. She’d only survived killing her husband and taking over because she had the twenty-five on her side. The split was to keep it fair and make sure the peers and common folk had a say in what work wrought did. “The Crown does some of our bindings now, you know. She decides what new wrought can study. Even before she was the Crown, she was one of the wrought in charge of binding new.” Carlow brought a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. “I wanted to be a healer, but Cynlira needed more noblewrought good at building and supporting industry.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing nothing would ease her pains. She’d no choice in any of it.
“I didn’t want to be a healer and undertaker. I went through it and came out fine. It builds character,” mumbled Carlow in a terrible, nasally impression of the Crown. She took a deep breath, drew herself up, and ripped open the door to the laboratory. “Come on. We have work to do.”
Death or destruction was the only thing that could break the bonds.
“Not today,” I said but followed her in anyway. “I’m going into the city to deal with some things.”
“May I come with you?” Basil, standing at their desk, dropped their quill. “I need to requisition some things, and the walk to the Wheels is so much nicer with a friend.”
“Sure.” I smiled.
They beamed and led the way. By the time we reached Noshwright, Basil was in the middle of a delightful story about their parents, who ran a bar out west. I stopped at the doors to the large inn.
“…my parents are lovely, but I’m thrilled to be away from my more traditional neighbors,” they said softly. “We’ve been cut off from the rest of the world for decades, but people can still be so isolationist.”
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