f you wish to live, girl, then let them think you dead.”
Above the sudden din of the crowd, I barely hear the Augur’s
panting whisper. Mystified by the fact that a Martial holy woman wants, for
some reason, to help me, I’m stunned into silence. As her weight crushes
me to the dais, the dagger Marcus has flung into her side is jarred loose.
Blood se eps across the platform, and I shudder, chillingly reminded of how
Nan died, in a pool of blood just like this one.
“Don’t move,” the Augur says. “No matter what happens.”
I do what she says, even as Elias shouts my name and tries to pull her off
me. The messenger announces the E mperor’s assassination; Elias is
sentenced to death and chained. Throughout, I remain still. But when the
Augur named Cain announces the coronation, I stifle a gasp. After the
coronation, the death cell prisoners will be executed — which means that
unless the Resistance gets him out of prison, Darin will die tomorrow.
Or will he? Mazen says Darin’s in Bekkar’s death cells. Elias says
Bekkar doesn’t have death cells.
I want to scream with frustration. I need clarity. The only one who can
give it to me is Mazen , and the only way I’m going to find him is if I get
out of here. But I can’t exactly stand up and stroll out. Everyone thinks I’m
dead. Even if I could leave, Elias just sacrificed his life for mine. I can’t
abandon him.
I lay uselessly, unsure of what to do, when the Augur decides for me.
“You move now, you die,” she warns, pulling herself off me. When all eyes
are on the tableaux beside us, she lifts me up and staggers toward the
amphitheater door.
Dead. Dead. I can practically hear the woman in my head. Pretend
you’re dead. My limbs flop, and my head lolls. I ke ep my eyes closed, but
when the Augur misses a st ep and nearly falls, they fly open of their own
accord. No one notices, but for a brief moment, as Aquilla swears her fealty,
I catch a glimpse of Elias’s face. And though I’ve seen my brother taken
and my grandparents killed, though I’ve suffered beatings and scarrings and
visited the night shores of Death’s realm, I know I’ve never felt the type of
desolation and hopelessness I see in Elias’s eyes at that moment.
The Augur rights herself. Two of her fellows close around her, the way
brothers flank a little sister in a rough crowd. Her blood soaks my clothes,
blending into the black silk. She’s lost so much that I don’t understand how
she can muster the strength to walk.
“Augurs cannot die,” she says through gritted teeth. “But we can bleed.”
We reach the amphitheater gates, and once through, the woman sets me
on my feet in an alcove. I expect her to explain why she chose to take that
dagger for me, but she just limps away, her brethren supporting her.
I look back through the amphitheater gates to where Elias kneels,
chained. My head tells me I can do nothing for him, that if I try to help him,
I’ll die. But I can’t bring myself to walk away.
“You are unhurt.” Cain has slip ped away from the still - packed
amphitheater, unnoticed by the jabbering crowd. “Good. Follow me.” He
catches the look I cast at Elias and shakes his head.
“He is beyond your aid right now,” Cain says. “He has sealed his fate.”
“So that’s it for him?” I’m appalled at Cain’s callousness. “Elias refuses
to kill me, and he dies for it? You’re going to punish him for showing
mercy?”
“The Trials have rules,” Cain says. “Aspirant Veturius broke them.”
“Your rules are twisted. Besides, Elias wasn’t the only one who violated
your instructions. Marcus was supposed to kill me, and he didn’t. You still
made him Emperor.”
“He thinks he killed you,” Cain says. “And he revels in the knowledge.
That is what matters. Come, you must leave the school. If the Commandant
knows you survived, your life is forfeit.”
I tell myself the Augur is right, that I can’t do anything for Elias. But
I’m uneasy. I’ve done this before. I’ve left someone behind and lived to
regret it every moment after.
“If you do not come with me, your brother w ill die.” The Augur senses
my conflict and presses. “Is that what you want?”
He heads toward the gates, and after a dreadful few moments of
indecision, I turn away from Veturius and follow him. Elias is resourceful —
he might still find a way to avoid death. But I won’t, Laia. I hear Darin. Not
unless you help me.
The legionnaires manning Blackcliff’s gates seem not to see us as we
pass out of the school, and I wonder if Cain has used Augur sorcery on
them. Why is he helping me? What does he want in exchange ?
If he can read my suspicions, he doesn’t let on, instead leading me
rapidly through the Illustrian Quarter and de ep into the sweltering streets of
Serra. His route is so con voluted that it seems for a time as if he has no
destination in mind. No one looks twice at us, and no one speaks of the
Emperor’s death or of Marcus’s coronation. The news hasn’t yet leaked out.
The silence between Cain and me stretches until I think it will fall and
shatter on the ground. How will I get away from him and find the
Res istance? I dash the thought from my head, lest the Augur pick it out —
but then, I’ve already thought it, so it must be too late. I look askance at
him. Is he reading all of this? Can he hear every thought?
“It’s not really mind - reading,” Cain murmurs, and I wrap my arms
around myself and lean away, though I know doing so won’t shield my
thoughts any better.
“Thoughts are complex,” he explains. “Messy. They are tangled as a
jungle of vines, layered like the sediment in a canyon. We must weave
through the vines, trace the sediment. We must translate and decipher.”
Ten hells. What does he know about me? Everything? Nothing?
“Where to begin, Laia? I know your every sinew is turned toward
finding and saving your brother. I know your parents were the most
powerful leaders the Resistance ever had. I know you’re falling for a
Resistance fighter na med Keenan but that you don’t trust him to love you
back. I know you’re a Resistance spy.”
“But if you know I’m a spy — ”
“I know,” Cain says, “but it matters not.” Ancient sadness flares in his
eyes, as if he’s remembering someone long dead. “Other thoughts speak
more clearly of who you are, what you are, in your de epest heart. In the
night, your loneliness crushes you, as if the sky itself has swooped down to
smother you in its cold arms — ”
“That’s not — I — ”
But Cain ignores me, his red eyes unfocused, his voi ce jagged, as if he is
speaking his own innermost secrets instead of mine.
“You fear you will never have your mother’s courage. You fear your
cowardice will spell the doom of your brother. You yearn to understand why
your parents chose the Resistance over their children. Your heart wants
Keenan, and yet your body is alight when Elias Veturius is near. You — ”
“Stop.” It’s unbearable, this knowledge of me from someone who isn’t
me.
“You are full, Laia. Full of life and dark and strength and spirit. You are
in our dreams. You will burn, for you are an ember in the ashes. That is
your destiny. Being a Resistance spy — that is the smallest part of you. That
is nothing.”
I scramble for words but find none. It is wrong that he knows so much of
me and I know nothing of him in return.
“There’s nothing to me that is worth anything, Laia,” the Augur says. “I
am an error, a mistake. I am failure and malice, greed and hatred. I am
guilty. We are, all of us Augurs, guilty.” At my confusion, he sighs. His
black eyes meet mine, and his description of himself and his kindred fades
from my mind like a dream upon waking.
“We are here,” he says.
I look around uncertainly. A quiet street stretches in front of me with a
row of identical houses on each side. The Mercator Quarter? Or perhaps the
Foreign Quarter? I can’t tell. The few people on the streets are too far away
to recognize.
“What — what are we doing here?”
“If you wish to save your brother, you need to speak with the
Resistance,” he says. “I have brought you to them.” He nods t o the street
before me. “Seventh house on the right. In the basement. The door’s
unlocked.”
“Why are you helping me?” I ask him. “What trick — ”
“No trick, Laia. I cannot answer your questions exc ept to say that for
now, our interests align. I vow to you by blood and by bone that I do not
deceive you in this. Go now, quickly. Time will not wait, and I fear you
have little enough as it is.”
Despite his calm expression, there’s no mistaking the urgency in his
voice. It fans my own unease. I nod my thanks, wondering at the
strangeness of the last few minutes, and go.
«««
As the Augur predict ed, the back door to the house’s basement is unlocked. I
take two st eps down the stairs before a scimpoint meets my neck.
“Laia?” The scim drops, and Keenan moves into the light. His
red hair sticks up at odd angles, and a bandage wrapped haphazardly
around his bic ep is stained with blood. His freckles stand out jarringly
against the sick paleness of his skin. “How did you find us? You shouldn’t
be here. It’s not safe for you. Quick” — he glances over his shoulder
— “before Mazen sees — go!”
“I discovered an ent rance to Blackcliff. I have to tell him. And there’s
something else — a spy — ”
“No, Laia,” Keenan says. “You can’t — ”
“Who’s there, Keenan?” Footst eps clump toward us, and a second later,
Mazen sticks his head in the stairwell.
“Ah. Laia. You tracked us down.” The older man shoots a look at
Keenan, as if he must be responsible for this development. “Bring her.”
The tone of his voice raises the hair on my neck, and I reach through the
slit in my skirt pocket for the dagger Elias gave me.
“Laia, listen to me,” Ke enan whispers as he ushers me down the stairs.
“No matter what he says, I — ”
“Come now,” Mazen cuts Keenan off as we enter the basement. “I
haven’t got all day.” The basement is small, with crates of goods in one
corner and a round table in the center. Two men sit at the table‚ unsmiling
and cold - eyed — Eran and Haider.
I wonder if one of them is the Commandant’s spy.
Mazen kicks a rickety chair in my direction, the invitation to sit obvious.
Keenan stands just behind me, shifting from foot to foot, an animal ill at
ease. I try not to look at him.
“Well now, Laia,” Mazen says as I take a seat. “Any information for us?
Other than the fact that the Emperor is dead.”
“How did you — ”
“Because I’m the one who killed him. Tell me, have they named a new
Emperor yet?”
“Yes.” Mazen killed the Emperor? I want him to tell me more, but I
sense his impatience. “They named Marcus. The coronation is tomorrow.”
Mazen exchanges glances with his men and stands. “Eran, send out the
runners. Haider, get the men ready. Keenan, deal with the girl.”
“Wait!” I stand as they do. “I have more — an entrance into Blackcliff.
That’s the reason I came. So that you can get Darin out. And there’s
something else you should know — ” I mean to tell him about the spy, but he
doesn’t let me.
“There’s no secret entrance into Blackcliff, Laia. Even if there was, I
wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to attack a school of Masks.”
“Then how — ”
“How?” he muses. “A good question. How do you get rid of a girl who
blu nders into your hideout at the most inopportune moment, claiming to be
the long - lost daughter of the Lioness? How do you appease an essential
faction in the Resistance when they stupidly insist you help her save her
brother? How do you make it look like you’re helping her when in fact you
don’t have the time or the men to do so?”
My mouth goes dry.
“I’ll tell you how,” Mazen says. “You give the girl a mission she won’t
come back from. You send her to Blackcliff, home of her parents’ killer.
You give her imp ossible tasks, like spying on the most dangerous woman in
the Empire, like learning about the Trials before they even occur.”
“You — you knew that the Commandant killed — ”
“It’s nothing personal, girl. Sana threatened to pull her men from the
Resistance over you. She’d been looking for an excuse, and when you
walked in, she had it. But I needed her and her men more than ever. I’ve
spent years building up what the Empire destroyed when they killed your
mother. I couldn’t let you ruin all of that.
“I expected th at the Commandant would be rid of you in days, if not
hours. But you survived. When you brought me information — real
information — at the Moon Festival, my men warned me that Sana and her
faction would consider the bargain met. She’d demand your brother be
broken out of Central. Only problem was, you’d just told me the very thing
that made it impossible for me to put up the men to do so.”
I think back. “The Emperor’s arrival in Serra.”
“When you told me of it, I knew we’d need every last Resistance fighter
we had if we wanted to assassinate him. A much worthier cause than
rescuing your brother, don’t you think?”
I remember then what the Commandant told me. Those Scholar rats
know only what I want them to know. What were they up to the last time you
met them? Were they planning something significant?
Realization strikes me like a blow. The Resistance doesn’t even know
they’ve played into the Commandant’s hands. Keris Veturia wanted the
Emperor dead. The Resistance killed the Emperor and the most important
members of his house, Marcus st epped into his place, and now there will be
no civil war, no struggle between Gens Taia and Blackcliff.
You fool! I want to scream. You walked right into her trap!
“I needed to ke ep Sana’s faction happy,” Mazen says. “And I needed to
ke ep you away from them. So I sent you to Blackcliff with an even more
impossible task: Find me a secret entrance into the most well - guarded,
heavily fortified Martial fort outside of Kauf Prison. I told Sana that your
brother’s es cape d epended on it — and that giving any more details could
imperil the jailbreak. Then I gave her and every other fighter a mission
greater than one foolish girl and her brother: a re volution.”
He leans forward, his eyes glowing with fervor. “It’s only a matter of
time before word gets out that Taius is dead. When it does — chaos, unrest.
It’s what we’ve been waiting for. I only wish your mother was here to see
it.”
“Don’t you talk about my mother.” In my rage, I forget to tell him of the
spy. I forget to tell him that the Commandant will know of his grand plan.
“She lived by Izzat. And you’re selling out her children, you bastard. Did
you sell her out too?”
Mazen rounds the table, a vein pulsing in his neck. “I’d have followed
the Lioness into a fire. I’d have followed her into hell. But you’re not like
your mother, Laia. You’re more like your father. And your father was weak.
As for Izzat — you’re a child. You have no idea what it means.”
My breathing stutters, and I reach out a shaking hand to the table to
steady myself. I look back at Keenan, who refuses to meet my eyes. Traitor.
Had he always known that Mazen didn’t mean to help? Had he watched and
laughed as the foolish little girl went off on impossible missions?
Cook was right the whole time. I never should have trusted Mazen. I
n ever should have trusted any of them. Darin knew better. He wanted to
change things, but he’d figured out it couldn’t be with the rebels. He’d
realized they weren’t worthy of his trust.
“My brother,” I say to Mazen. “He’s not in Bekkar, is he? Is he alive?”
Mazen sighs. “Where the Martials took your brother, no one can follow.
Give it up, girl. You can’t save him.”
Tears threaten to spill down my cheeks, but I fight them back. “Just tell
me where he is.” I try to ke ep my voice reasonable. “Is he in the city ? In
Central? You know. Tell me.”
“Keenan. Get rid of her,” Mazen commands. “Elsewhere,” he adds as an
afterthought. “A body won’t go unnoticed in this neighborhood.”
I feel as Elias must have felt only a short time ago. Betrayed. Desolate.
Fear and panic threaten to strangle me; I knot them up and shove them
away.
Keenan tries to take my arm, but I dodge him, pulling out Elias’s dagger.
Mazen’s men rush forward, but I’m closer than they are, and they aren’t fast
enough. In an instant, I have the blade at t he Resistance leader’s throat.
“Back!” I say to the fighters. They lower their weapons reluctantly. My
pulse pounds in my ears, and I have no fear in this moment, only rage for
everything Mazen has put me through.
“You tell me where my brother is, you lying son of a whore.” When
Mazen says nothing, I dig the blade in de eper, drawing out a thin line of
blood. “Tell me,” I say. “Or I’ll slit your throat here and now.”
“I’ll tell you,” he rasps. “For all the good it will do. He’s in Kauf, girl.
They shipped him there the day after the Moon Festival.”
Kauf. Kauf. Kauf. I force myself to believe it. To face it. Kauf, where my
parents and sister were tortured and executed. Kauf, where only the foulest
criminals are sent. To suffer. To rot. To die.
It’s over, I realize. Nothing I’ve endured — the whippings, the scarring,
the beatings — none of it matters. The Resis tance will kill me. Darin will die
in prison. There’s nothing I can do to change it.
My knife is still at Mazen’s throat. “You’ll pay for this,” I say to him. “I
swear it to the skies, to the stars. You’ll pay.”
“I very much doubt it, Laia.” His eyes dart over my shoulder and I turn
— too late. I catch a flash of red hair and brown eyes before pain bursts in
my temple and I fall into darkness.
«««
When I come to, my first feeling is that of relief that I’m not dead. My next is
of blunt, consuming rage as Kee nan’s face swims into focus. Traitor!
Deceiver! Liar!
“Thank the skies,” he says. “I thought I’d hit you too hard. No
— wait — ” I fumble for my knife, every second I’m conscious
making me more lucid and, thus, more murderous. “I’m not going to hurt
you, Laia. Please — listen.”
My knife is gone, and I look around wildly. He’s going to kill me now.
We’re in some sort of large shed; sunlight se eps through the cracks between
the warped wooden boards, and there’s a jungle of gardening implements
leaning against the walls.
If I can es cape him, I can hide out in the city. The Commandant thinks
I’m dead, so if I can get the slaves’ cuffs off, I might be able to leave Serra.
But then what? Do I go back to Blackcliff for Izzi, lest she be taken by the
Commandant and tortured? Do I try to help Elias? Do I try to make my way
to Kauf and break Darin out? The prison’s more than a thousand miles
away. I have no idea how to get there. No skills to survive a country
swarming with Martial patrols. If, by some miracle, I do make it there, how
will I get in? How will I get out? Darin might be dead by then. He might be
dead now.
He’s not dead. If he was dead, I’d know.
All this passes through my mind in an instant. I jump to my feet and
lunge for a rake: Right now, what matters most is getting away from
Keenan.
“Laia, no.” He grabs my arms and forces them to my sides. “I’m not
going to kill you,” he says. “I swear it. Just listen.”
I stare into his dark eyes, hating myself for how weak and stupid I feel.
“You knew, Keenan. You knew Maz en never wanted to help me. And you
told me my brother was in the death cells. You used me — ”
“I didn’t know — ”
“If you didn’t know, then why did you knock me out in that basement?
Why did you just stand there while Mazen ordered you to kill me?”
“If I hadn’t gone along with it, he’d have murdered you himself.” It’s the
anguish in Keenan’s eyes that makes me listen. For once, he’s holding
nothing back. “Mazen locked up everyone he thinks is against him.
‘Confining them,’ he says, for their own good. Sana’s under full guard. I
couldn’t let him do the same to me — not if I wanted to help you.”
“Did you know Darin had bee n sent to Kauf?”
“None of us knew. Mazen played the whole thing too close. He never let
us hear the r eports from his spies in the prison. He never gave us details of
his plan to get Darin out. He ordered me to tell you your brother was in the
death cells — maybe he was hoping to goad you into taking a risk that would
get you killed.” Keenan lets me go. “I trusted him, Laia. He’s led the
Resistance for a decade. His vision, his dedication — those are the only
things that k ept us together.”
“Just because he’s a g ood leader doesn’t mean he’s a good person. He
lied to you.”
“And I’m a fool for not seeing it. Sana suspected he wasn’t being
truthful. When she realized that you and I were . . . friends, she told me her
suspicions. I was sure she was wrong. But then, at that last meeting, Mazen
said your brother was in Bekkar. And it didn’t make any sense because
Bekkar’s a tiny prison. If your brother was there, we’d have bribed someone
to get him out ages ago. I don’t know why he said it. Maybe he thought I
wouldn’t no tice. Maybe he panicked when he realized you wouldn’t just
take him at his word.”
Keenan wipes a tear from my face. “I told Sana what Mazen said about
Bekkar, but we rode to attack the Emperor that night. She didn’t confront
Mazen until afterward, and she made me stay out of it. A good thing, too.
She thought her faction would get behind her, but they abandoned her when
Mazen persuaded them that she was an obstacle to his re volution.”
“The re volution won’t work. The Commandant’s known from the
beginning tha t I’m a spy. She knew the Resistance was going to attack the
Emperor. Someone in the Resistance is r eporting to her.”
Keenan’s face goes pale. “I knew the attack on the Emperor was too
easy. I tried to tell Mazen, but he wouldn’t have it. And all the time, the
Commandant wanted us to attack. She wanted Taius out of the way.”
“She’ll be ready for Mazen’s re volution, Keenan. She’ll crush the
Resistance.”
Keenan digs around in his pockets for something. “I have to get Sana
out. I have to tell her about the spy . If she can get to Tariq and the other
leaders in her faction, she might be able to stop them before they walk into
a trap. But first — ” He pulls out a small paper packet and a square of leather
and hands them to me. “Acid, to break off your cuffs.” He explains how I’m
to use them, making me r epeat the directions twice. “No mistakes on this —
there’s barely enough. It’s very hard to find.
“Lay low tonight. Tomorrow morning at fourth bell, get to the river
docks. Find a galley called the Badcat. Tell them you have a shipment of
gems for the jewelers of Silas. Not your name, not my name, nothing else.
They’ll hide you in the hold. You’ll go upriver to Silas, about a three - week
trip. I’ll meet you there. And we’ll figure out what to do about Darin.”
“He’ll die in Kauf, Keenan. He might not even survive the journey
there.”
“He’ll survive. The Martials know how to ke ep people alive when it
suits them. And prisoners are taken to Kauf to suffer, not to die. Most
prisoners hold out for a few months; some hold out for years.”
Where there is life, Nan used to say, there is hope. My own hope flares, a
candle in the dark. Keenan’s getting me out. He’s saving me from
Blackcliff. He’ll help me save Darin.
“My friend Izzi. She’s helped me. But the Commandant knows we talk. I
have to save her. I swore to myself that I would.”
“I’m sorry, Laia. I can get you out — no one else.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “Please, c onsider your debt to my father paid
— ”
“You think I’m doing this for him? For his memory?” Keenan leans
forward, his eyes nearly black with intensity, his face so close that I can feel
his breath against my cheek. “Maybe it started that way. But not now. Not
anymore. You and I, Laia. We’re the same. For the first time since I can
remember, I don’t feel alone. Because of you. I can’t — I can’t stop thinking
about you. I’ve tried not to. I’ve tried to push you out — ”
Keenan’s hand travels ever so slowly up my ar m and to my face. His
other hand follows the curve of my hip. He pushes my hair back, searching
my face as if for something he has lost.
And then he is pressing me against the wall, his hand at the small of my
back. He kisses me — a hungry kiss, unyielding in its desire. A kiss that has
been stored up for days, a kiss that has been stalking me impatiently,
waiting to be released.
For a moment, I stand frozen, Elias’s face and the Augur’s voice
swirling in my head. Your heart wants Keenan, and yet your body is alight
when Elias Veturius is near. I push the words away. I want this. I want
Keenan. And he wants me back. I try to lose myself in the feel of his hand
tangled with mine, in the silk of his hair between my fingers. But I ke ep
seeing Elias in my mind, and when Keenan pulls away, I can’t meet his
gaze.
“You’ll need this.” He hands me Elias’s dagger. “I’ll find you in Silas.
I’ll find a way to Darin. I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”
I force myself to nod, wondering why the words bother me so. Secon ds
later he’s out the shed’s door, and I’m staring at the packet of acid he gave
me.
My future, my freedom, all here in a little packet that will break me from
these bonds.
What had this envelope cost Keenan? What had passage on the ship
cost? And once Mazen realizes he’s been betrayed by his former lieutenant?
What will that cost Keenan?
He only wants to help me. Yet I take no comfort in what he said: I’ll find
you in Silas. I’ll find a way to Darin. I’ll take care of everything. I promise.
Once, I’d have wanted that. I’d have wanted someone to tell me what to
do, to fix everything. Once, I’d have wanted to be saved.
But what has that gotten me? Betrayal. Failure. It’s not enough to expect
Keenan to have all the answers. Not when I think of Izzi, who even now
might be suffering at the Commandant’s hands because she chose friendship
over self - preservation. Not when I think of Elias, who gave up his own life
for mine.
The shed is stifling suddenly, hot and close, and I’m across the floor and
out the door. A plan forms in my head, tentative, outlandish, and mad
enough that it just might work. I wind my way through the city, across
Execution Square, past the docks, and down to the Weapons Quarter. To the
forges.
I need to find Spiro Teluman.