“He’d still have been doing bad things though,” I said.
Sometimes, I looked at Julian and he was home, but other times, there was a deep, dark loss; the boy he used to be was so different from the man he was. There was nothing wrong with it. We grew. We bloomed.
The world was a garden, and we’d grown apart despite all our care and tending.
“I’m sorry.” Julian took my hands in his and kissed each scar. “I really am. I wish he’d not done it.”
“Done what?” I asked, stuttering.
“He committed treason,” said Julian, wiping his tears on his shirt. “He hired some vilewrought girl and her friends to kill Alistair Wyrslaine, except they failed, panicked, and tried to get to Felhollow to tell him.”
Mack doubled over and grumbled into his hands.
“That girl,” I whispered. “Those bandits weren’t bandits at all. He set them up to get them killed.”
“They were going to take the money and leave even though they failed and led Alistair Wyrslaine right to him,” said Julian as if that explained everything.
“How long have you known?” I asked. How long would he have let me stew in my contract with Alistair?
“Few days. Not before.” Julian sniffed, his eyes red. “Took me a while to think about it. I couldn’t believe he’d do this to me. To us. He stood there and let you deal with that boy. He knew he was guilty, and he let you defend him. I hated him at first, then I was sad. It is what it is.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d thought the same thing, screamed it, when my mother was dying. Grief left no ugly emotion unturned.
“Maybe he’s right. Maybe someone should kill the Heir.” Julian snorted. “The Crown. It’ll get you out of that contract.”
Mack, eyes wide, turned to me. “Does him dying even get you out of it?”
The vilewrought girl had failed at killing Alistair, and he’d been chasing her. He’d known about the treason from the start, even when writing up my contract. He’d known I’d never be able to save Will.
“Fuck,” I said. “Alistair trapped me.”
Twenty-Six
Court was in session and the new Crown on full display. He stood where his mother had died, the crown still stained. Blood flaked from the gold as he spoke, the peers flinching each time he moved and it rained, and I watched it all from the back of the room with the servants. Fear would only get him so far, but the peerage was listening. The Wyrslaine guards had flocked to him. Mori had let the change in rule occur without revolting.
Once court was done, I waited in the wings. Alistair moved through the motions of conversations, but even from this far away, I could tell his expression was hollow. It only made me angrier.
I took a breath and tilted my head back to keep any tears from showing. We were too high up for even the mountains to block the light, and the stained-glass dome above me had a clear view of the sky. Red and blue, green and white, and smoky black danced across my eyes. From here, only the moon could look down on the peers.
“Lorena?” asked Alistair.
I hadn’t heard him approach, and my wrights hadn’t so much as shifted.
“Do they ever hold court at night?” I asked. “Did you ask your mother that once?”
“I did,” he said with a low laugh. “She said it was best we worked during the day so that the leftover Noble, banished to the worlds beyond the moon, couldn’t look down on us.”
I shrugged, lowering my face. His red glasses were bright smears, and I blinked. Alistair frowned.
“Lorena? Are you all right?” Alistair smiled, a soft and slightly crooked thing, as he approached and dismissed the courtiers vying for his attention. Soon enough, it was only us in the room. “I did as you wanted. No one can pay to get out of being sacrificed, and as of tomorrow, fines are the first response to safety violations in Mori factories. The second is closure and inspection.”
Another way I had played right into his hands. Now Will couldn’t buy his way out of dying. At least one good thing had come from my meddling with Alistair and the court—fewer children would lose their parents or themselves to accidents.
“I’m not all right at all.” I hated knowing my truths. I hated having to reveal my truths to him. “You knew Willoughby Chase was guilty the moment you got to Felhollow.”
Julian’s apathy over his father’s faults disgusted me, and I couldn’t reconcile him with the boy I’d fallen in love with years ago. That Julian Chase would never have preferred not knowing his father was sowing evil, and he was reaping the benefits. Red hands were still red even if you hid them under gloves, he’d have said.
But Alistair’s betrayal reached deep into the heart of me—the little, hopeful part I’d tried to bury—and ripped it out. I’d thought we had an understanding. I’d thought I understood him.
“Ah.” Alistair hemmed and hawed under his breath, the light in his glasses hiding his expression. “Yes, I knew Willoughby Chase was guilty of treason when we wrote the contract.”
I had thought I could be the one to drive Alistair toward a better path, lure him with understanding, but Alistair was only another boy with blood on his hands and lies on his lips. My arrogance had undone me.
“You let me write that contract knowing I was doomed to fail,” I said.
“Yes,” said Alistair, “and you never asked.”
Hadn’t I? I knew he had filled in the warrant then and there, but I couldn’t remember if I had asked him outright.
“That hardly matters.” The words came out in a rush, and he arched a brow. “Don’t patronize me!”
My wrights loomed, and he lurched back.
“We were using each other.” He ground his teeth together and studied me. “We understood that. We started from the same point of understanding.”
“Don’t be intentionally oblivious,” I snapped. “You ensured I started with one foot in the grave. There is a difference.”
“Is there?” he asked, taking one step toward me. “I ensured I had a dualwrought by my side as I took on the Door. You ensured I killed my mother and took her crown.” He took another step and cocked his head to the side. “How much of that did you plan?”
I wouldn’t have done any of it if I hadn’t been here, but still, I had chosen this. I knew who I wanted holding the knife.
“It was foolish of me to think we had an understanding.” I stepped back from him, and he did not follow. “I will work with you. I will help you. I will uphold our deal. I cannot be your friend.”
What did it say about me that I had trusted him, if even a little? That I had wanted the understanding I thought we had?
“Lorena, please.” He reached for me.
“Don’t touch me!” I darted back. “I thought we were on even footing, but I know better now. I need time to figure out where I stand with you.”
“Next to me. I want you next to me.” He lowered his hands and kept them in my sight. “What can I do to make this right?”
“You’ve thoroughly destroyed my trust in your deals,” I said, smiling when he flinched. “There is nothing you can do except wait for trust to rebuild.”
He hated his vilewright; he hated that he could only destroy.
“Would you pardon Willoughby Chase?” I asked.
“If I did, would you stay?”
“Yes,” I said and hated knowing that it was the truth. Mortals weren’t made to know their terrible true selves. “I have nowhere else to go.”
My tongue didn’t curl and my throat didn’t clench, and I knew myself.
He shook his head. “He wanted me dead.”
“So he did.” I bowed to Alistair and turned to leave. “I will see you in the laboratory, Your Excellency.”
I did not see him again until that evening. The moon rose, and we descended into the depths of the palace. Basil drew in a sharp breath as
we entered the cavern, and Carlow dug her nails into the binding on her chest. They paced before the Door, Creek’s ghost following after Carlow and glaring at me, and I set down three pieces of Creek—bone, blood, and flesh—on the Door’s boundary. His bones lasted the longest.
“It’s odd,” said Alistair, studying the boxes we had made of Creek. The granules had reformed this morning and worn a hole in the boxes to rejoin the others. “The Door never leaves behind the bones of the sacrifices.”
“Have any been wrought?” I asked.
He had, true to his word, not approached or touched me. He treated me like Basil.
“No.” He made a note. “No wrought and none cursed. Carlow is the last of her kind.”
“Joy,” she muttered, and Creek’s ghost laid his cheek upon her scalp. “Another thing to set me apart.”
“Through no fault of my own,” Creek’s ghost said, but only I heard him.
“We shouldn’t tell anyone else.” I studied the Door, remembering how easily it had tricked me that night so many days ago. The door to my mother’s sickroom still creaked and warped as if it breathed.
Alistair nodded. “Agreed.”
Within an hour, we learned not to touch the Door with our wrights. Basil attempted to create a small lock on the Door, and the cuts on their arms tore wider. Carlow ran to get Safia, her goggles forgotten, and I cared for Basil as best I could. I’d never learned how to ease the pain of sacrificial wounds or even if I could. Safia was the only person I knew who could, and she’d spent years studying the ways sacrifices affected healing. The Sundered Crown had never seen a reason to build a lift to the Door, but Alistair had already asked Carlow and Basil to design it. We would need healing to tackle this vile thing.
“It takes anything left near it,” said Alistair, gesturing to the empty spots where Basil’s blood had splattered the ground. “It’s always hungry and always wants more.”
Like our wrights. Like him.
“We were like cattle to the Noble and Vile. Would we take the threats of a steer seriously?” Carlow approached and adjusted my coat, straightening the collar and unbuttoning it until the lack of binding on my chest was clear. “The councilors won’t take a Wallower seriously unless you look as good as they do.”
I laughed. “Why should they take cattle seriously?”
Twenty-Seven
Within eight days, we knew that whatever the Door was—one of the Vile, most likely—it existed like our wrights. It could affect us and the world around us even though we couldn’t affect it.
“What do you see?” Carlow asked and chucked another rock at the Door. It didn’t even waver as the rock sailed through it.
“The door to my mother’s sickroom,” I said. “She died there.”
“Grim.” She sipped from a mug of tea. “I see the door to your room. It was Poppy’s before it was yours. She was too young to be away from home. Used to come running to Creek or me every night when the Door gave her nightmares. Next time I love someone, they’ll be cursed and I’ll be dead.” She downed what was left in her mug and shuddered. “At least she’s not cursed.”
Basil grabbed Carlow’s hand, lacing their fingers together when she tried to shake them off. “The door to the courtroom when I was bound. I want to rip it open and stop myself from letting anyone known I’m noblewrought.”
“It’s odd,” said Carlow. “I know Poppy’s dead, but I still want to open that door and see her.”
I’d sacrificed so many things over the years to heal the folks in Felhollow—my mother’s laugh, my first memory of her, and the feel of her hand against my cheek. She was a smear in my mind, a slightly blurred hodgepodge of emotions. My only clear memories of her were the ones my noblewright had never wanted. Losing them would have been a mercy, not a sacrifice.
“I only have bad memories of that room,” I said. “The Door’s not as smart as it thinks it is. I burned that room and the building around it. What do you think I’ll do to you?”
Darkness seeped into the cracks of the wood, swallowing up the door I knew too well, until there was nothing but jagged splinters like teeth hanging before me. Carlow gasped.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you offended it.” Basil leaned closer to the Door and glanced back at me. “It can’t get offended, right?”
My noblewright reared up behind me, and I rose. Our wrights were only pieces of what the Noble and Vile could do. The Door didn’t need a contract or sacrifice to act.
“Of course it can,” I said and licked my lips. “It’s one of the Vile, and look at what it’s been reduced to.”
Within ten days, we had fashioned Creek’s bones into a new door with a sturdy lock. His bones thrummed the same way my wrights did, a low sound that was more uneasy feeling than sound. Carlow drew up a blueprint of the mechanisms needed, and I worked the bones into it. She couldn’t, because her binding to Order prevented her from working with bone, something only healers were allowed to do. Safia couldn’t, because her binding to Life prevented her from doing anything with bones that would kill a person.
“It’s a miracle either of you can manage to do anything,” I muttered.
Carlow grunted. “I manage nothing.”
“We manage fine,” said Basil with a sigh, “so long as all we attempt to do is what they say to do.”
They kept bridges, roads, and buildings safe—keeping folks happy with the council and court—and made beautiful homes and trinkets for those who could pay—keeping the council and court wealthy.
“I’m shocked none have argued for my binding yet,” I said and settled Creek’s reworked bones over the Door. A high-pitched whine pierced my ears. The Door trembled.
“They have,” said Basil, glancing around the cavern and our makeshift laboratory. “His Excellency threatened to strip them of their titles and let them try to destroy the Door.”
“They’ll take you seriously now,” Carlow said. “Good luck with that.”
Within twelve days, the lift was made and Safia joined us in the cavern. She took a shallow breath when she saw the Door and wrung her gloved hands so violently the seams ripped. Hana rubbed her shoulder.
“It can’t hurt you,” Basil said to Safia, “so long as you don’t cross the chalk line.”
Hana would have said it, but Alistair had sacrificed her voice the day before, and it hadn’t yet returned.
I beckoned him off to the side while the others showed Safia around. He came immediately, stayed at least one step away from me. He hadn’t touched me since our argument, and he kept his hands always at his sides when nearby. He never even stood behind me.
“There is a law the council has put forth, but the majority opposes it,” I said. “However, I think you should override it if they vote it down.”
“What’s the law?” His expression was inscrutable behind the red glasses.
“It demands noblewrought, not just healers, be in residence at munitions factories in the event of an accident and would lift some of the restrictions on their bindings.”
“Consider it done,” he said, waving his hand. “I will broach it during a coming meeting.”
“Your Excellency!” Safia’s voice echoed. “I’ve never seen the Door before.”
Alistair turned, scowling. “Yes, that’s why you’re here now.”
“No, I mean that it’s taking the form of something no one here, including me, has seen before.” Safia yanked a journal from her bag and flipped to a clean page. “It’s the door to Mother’s church. I’ve only ever heard about it. Look.” She sketched a large set of stone doors with a line of Madshavi carved atop it. “The Madshavi is correct. Does it know the language, or does it use my knowledge of the language?”
“It’s never duplicated languages before,” said Alistair, tugging the paper from Safia. “Is this replication accurate?”
“I’ll have
to ask my mother,” Safia said. “I’ve never been to In-the-Presence-of-Wrights, but it looks right.”
“If it is, does that mean it’s good at extrapolating information it gains from us?” asked Carlow softly.
“Or that it’s seen the door?” I turned to it, exhaustion slowing me down. For days, the Door had taken up every thought and movement. It was one of the Vile, the only one left in this world, and all that was holding its fellows back. It conjured up our greatest wants to tease us into freeing the Vile. It accepted whatever we offered, devouring all without a care. “I’ve heard of that town before. Why have I heard of that town?”
“Ipswit?” Safia shrugged. “There’s nothing much there anymore except for the church. The whole town’s abandoned.”
“I will have someone travel to In-the-Presence-of-Wrights and sketch the door so that we can compare.” Alistair glanced at me. “And check on whatever is bothering you?”
“Nothing there but the church?” I clucked my tongue. Will had bought land in Ipswit, and I needed to know why. “Yeah, I need to know what’s there.”
In twelve days and one night, I had spent no time alone with the Door. I returned that night after the others left, slipping into the Door’s cave with only the dim light of my hand lantern. The Vile had possessed magic we couldn’t imagine, and yet the Door could do little outside this cave. Alistair’s vilewright, if asked to destroy the infection in a wounded arm, would destroy the whole arm. The Door devoured whatever was offered to it.
“You’re more discerning,” I muttered to my vilewright, and it trilled, acknowledgment fluttering in my chest.
As a child, I’d fed my wrights when I was lonely. They had grumbled and stretched, and I had felt them there within me. Without me. The only creatures in existence to never leave me. I asked for nothing, just wanting to know they were still there. I liked to think they understood and did small things for me without a sacrifice first because of it.
The Door was like wrights in a way; maybe it could be trained like them too.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
What We Devour Page 18
