47

THERE WAS NO POINT IN RETURNING TO THE PALACE. I COULDN’T fight, and with the reinforcements running to the atrium now, it would be over in minutes. I didn’t need to see any more nobles or Red Caps killing one another. How had it come to this? I buried my face in my hands and let out a low moan. My people, my countrymen, killing each other.

I had used the last of my energy in the sprint across the palace grounds. Pulling the curse, dissipating it, and everything that followed had left me a hollow shell. I leaned against the wall, breathing as evenly as I could. In. Out. In. I stared at the lantern suspended from a hook on the wall, swaying slightly, the light casting variable shadows on the wall. In. Out. In.

Theodor found me swaying along with it.

“Sophie?” He dropped next to me, fear clouding his eyes. “Sophie, talk to me.”

I realized how bad I must have looked. “I’m all right. Is it over?”

“The palace is cleared and guards are posted. The Red Caps didn’t breach the rooms with the noblewomen and the queen, and the king still lives.” He hesitated, and I saw the truth he wasn’t telling me.

“Still lives?”

“Injured in the fight. I’m not sure yet—the cutlass slash he took might have been a surface wound, but maybe not.” He apologized for having to tell me without saying a word. My chest felt like it was going to implode, to constrict my heart so severely that I would cease to be. What I had come to do—I might have failed. The king could still die. I gasped for air.

“Was this it? Are they—”

“There is still fighting in the streets. I’ve no doubt the soldiers stationed at the Stone Castle will put it down. It will all be over, whether the king lives or—this revolt won’t succeed.”

He was so sure of himself that I almost believed him.

“If we slip out through the servants’ entrance, we can leave,” he continued.

“Leave?” The headache pounded in my temples. I didn’t want to move, let alone face the battle in the streets.

“They will put this rebellion down. But you’re not safe. If someone reveals that you worked with Pyord? The king may demand a level of justice that will have your head along with your brother’s and Pyord’s.”

I drew away from him. “That’s my risk,” I said.

“It’s mine, now, too. I can hide you. If it comes to it, help you get out of the country. Fen or Pellia or Serafe. Somewhere you’ll be safe.”

He paused and pulled on my hand. I didn’t budge. “We need to leave now.”

It didn’t matter how many times I saved the nobles, how many lives were beholden to me, if it was discovered that I was complicit in the plot. If Pyord was captured and gave them my name.

In that moment, it hardly seemed to matter. I would have let them arrest me if it meant I could sleep. But I couldn’t do that to Theodor.

“All right,” I said, forgetting as best I could, for the moment, that leaving meant leaving my shop—my livelihood, my successes and my goals, who I had styled myself to be. Tonight I didn’t have the luxury of identity, only survival. Theodor arranged for his carriage to pick us up at the servants’ entrance. I let him half carry me there, where several servants gathered, shocked and terrified, under the eaves. The housekeeper recognized me and caught my hand in her plump paw. “Safe travels for you, miss.”

I thanked her and all but collapsed on Theodor once we were inside the carriage. A thousand questions swirled around me—how to stay safe in the streets? Where would we go? How in the world were the First Duke and a woman in a stained court gown going to avoid detection?

In the distance, torchlight bobbed in the square and in the avenues along the river. We drove past small knots of people who eyed the carriage suspiciously but let us pass.

“We’ll head for the harbor,” Theodor said as a particularly menacing group of young men wearing red hats stared us down as the carriage rattled past. “There’s a ship in my father’s employ. The captain will answer to me. We can hide you there until we know more.”

I murmured something like an assent and leaned on his shoulder.

I was wrenched fully awake as the carriage skidded to a stop. A single voice shouted at the carriage from the empty street in front of us. Empty, except for one person blocking the carriage. I knew that voice.

Kristos.

“I want to see Sophie.”

Theodor stiffened. His sword hand raised the blade, letting the light glint off its clean edges and show the shadow where blood still clung to it. “Not a chance. You’re a traitor and I should turn you in to the soldiers immediately.”

“I don’t want to fight with you. But I will if you try to stop me.” Kristos’s words were heavy and resigned, but he unsheathed the sword he wore just enough to let the steel wink at us.

“Don’t,” I said, my voice weak. I laid a steady hand on Theodor’s arm. “Kristos, I don’t want to speak to you. I don’t want Theodor to turn you in. I just want you to leave and never come back.”

Kristos took off the red cap he was wearing—the charmed one I had made. He didn’t deserve it. I wanted to tear it out of his hands and throw it in the river. “I didn’t think you’d be at the palace. I’m sorry. I never would have—”

He never questioned risking my life in another way, tying me to their revolt, forcing my collusion in regicide. Even now, if found out, I would die by the gallows, and he had been willing to risk that. “That doesn’t matter anymore.” My voice was hollow with exhaustion.

He hesitated. “Maybe not. I can’t—I can’t ask you to forgive me for putting you in danger. But trust me now. There’s been a … shift. In the plans for tonight.”

Something in his tone made me colder than the icy wind whipping under the carriage and through my clothes, through my very bones. “Kristos, what do you mean?”

“Our intention was always a vacuum in governance—with the king gone and the nobility in disarray, we could assert an elected government. We decided, long ago, on a temporary council of the League’s leadership—”

“You and Jack and Niko?” I said with a flagging, painful smile.

“And Pyord,” he shot back, defensive. “Yes. We ran a revolt; we could run a government. Then open elections. Once things … calmed down.

“But Pyord never intended to turn the governance over to us. We disagreed on … oh, plenty, from frequency of elections to the process of writing a national charter. I thought we’d come to agreements,” Kristos said, the words and his breath forming an angry cloud. “We hadn’t. Pyord and Niko always pushed for a complete coup, before I agreed, before Jack went along with it. They pushed the people past where I would have, were I alone in this.”

“Too late for that,” I said. “They’re already fighting in the streets.” And he had never, I thought bitterly, had any qualms about regicide.

“Maybe not. I found a few letters. In his study. I was editing a few manuscripts in case … if I fell, I wanted more pamphlets and broadsides ready for printing.” Of course—on the eve of war, Kristos was still sharpening his pen instead of a sword. “He should have burned them, but I suppose the academic in him was saving them for his memoirs. As the Savior of Galitha, the bringer of democracy.” I could swear that in the dim light I saw his lip tremble, just slightly, before he clenched his jaw. “His letters indicate that any of us who didn’t conform, he intended to dispatch. Including me.”

I couldn’t muster any surprise. Pyord had been willing to dispose of anyone in his path—a nameless messenger boy or his own pupil. “Kristos, you idiot.”

“That’s fair. I should have seen. But now you have to trust me.”

“For what?” I flared. “You’re the defunct leader of a revolution that’s run away without you.”

“The people are still loyal to a cause, and to the leaders who pulled them into that cause. For many of them, that’s me and Jack. We’re one of them—Pyord, well, I think he always wanted to be accepted as one of them but he’s …”

“He’s like me, Kristos,” I said, the last of my restraint whittled hollow. “Just elevated enough to seem outside their world.”

Kristos hesitated, but he agreed. “From what I can tell, Niko is still with him, and Pyord trusts him. But what they plan—it’s not the cause I pulled people into the movement over. Pyord intends to take governance for himself, and it seems Niko supports him doing so. There’s several squads of Kvys patrician-paid mercenary cavalry waiting on the other side of the border, under Pyord’s orders. We thought they were reinforcing us. No. He’s paid them to follow his orders alone. I knew we should have all been involved in the negotiations, but he understands Kvys customs better than we do and—” Kristos shook his head, enmeshed, certainly, in more regrets than that decision alone.

“It’s already begun, Kristos.” I thought of what Jack said, of the people being like beaten dogs set free from their cages. An ugly metaphor, but was it possible to cajole them into parley now? Or was it too late?

“I still have more clout in the League than Pyord or Niko. I’m going to try to stop the fighting tonight,” Kristos said. “Even if Pyord’s intentions are good, a dictatorship won’t serve Galitha. Not long.

“Which is why you need to trust me now. In order to be sure that Galitha will be without leadership, they’ll be trying to eliminate all the immediate heirs. The plan was for the king to be killed at the palace, but it was unlikely that the rest of the heirs would be eliminated in the fight there. Clearly they were unsuccessful,” he said with a smile that mixed regret and gratitude, “and so there will be assassins looking for you, First Duke of Westland.”

Theodor stiffened. “I should say something noble and aristocratic about having nothing to fear from this rabble, but I clearly do. What do you suggest we do?”

Kristos seemed, momentarily, taken aback, surprised by our lack of resistance. “The one place that the Red Caps have no plans to attempt to breach is the Stone Castle. They can’t. Not without reinforcements.”

“Then we’ll make our way there,” Theodor said, resolutely wrapping an arm around my waist, as though I were the one who needed protection.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.

“Penny said you were at the shop late this afternoon, and that you took a court gown. It was too late to stop you from getting to the palace.” Damn it, Penny, I cursed silently. I should have counted on her inability to keep quiet—even if it did benefit me, unexpectedly.

“Kristos—the king isn’t dead,” I said in a rush. “The assault on the palace is over, and the Red Caps there are beaten. The soldiers know about the revolt now and they’re fighting back. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find Jack and our sergeants, and then together—”

“Jack is dead, Kristos.” My voice was cold, hanging in a cloud of frozen air.

Kristos’s eyes closed, briefly, and then he recovered. “Our sergeants and those loyal to us, then. If we can call it off from underneath Pyord, we can stop this tonight. We were willing to fight and die for a government of the people, but only done the right way. Most of the laborers in this city feel the same.” He glanced at Theodor. “No offense meant to present company.”

“Sophie, we have to go,” Theodor said, low, urgent.

“Don’t worry about me,” Kristos added. “Just get to the Stone Castle. Don’t stop for anyone—promise me.”

“I promise,” I whispered. I wavered, then threw myself into his surprised arms. “Please stay alive. Please. Run away from here.” I broke away and turned back to Theodor.

I gathered the now-soiled skirts of the court gown in my hand and let Theodor help me back into the carriage. I felt as cold as the fine flakes of snow that fell on us from a bitter sky.

I looked back to the street, where Kristos stood alone, looking lost. “We should make haste,” I said. “Forget the harbor. Get to the Stone Castle.”

“I promised to keep you safe, and I will. We’ll get you out of the country somehow.”

“No, not now. I’m not safe if I’m killed by a rabble between here and the harbor or thrown off a ship by an assassin looking for you, am I?”

“I won’t trade my life for yours.”

“Hardly an even trade. The danger to you is here, now. Assassins hunting the heirs? That’s a more immediate threat than the potential to be tried for treason later. Who knows what tomorrow morning brings?”

Theodor sighed. “If anything happened to you—it would be my fault.”

“It’s no more your fault than any of this is. We can outlast it together.”

“Tomorrow I’ve no doubt this revolt will be put down,” Theodor said. “But tonight is a no-man’s-land.”

When I looked back out into the street, Kristos was gone.

We had to pass near the center of town, near Fountain Square. As the torches grew denser in the streets and I began to see side roads barricaded and, to my horror, guarded, I wondered if we’d made a mistake in leaving the palace. But no—Kristos said the safest place would be the Stone Castle.

“This doesn’t look promising,” Theodor said, voice low. I looked outside.

The carriage was surrounded by people.

Lanterns and torches swarmed around us, a rising tide of angry voices. Some carried scythes and pitchforks—agrarian workers. Others had made clubs or carried kitchen knives. I saw the light glint off more than one gun barrel, probably supplied by Pyord’s Kvys contacts.

“Let us pass,” the carriage driver said, trying for authority. But we ground to a halt nonetheless.

“Nothing stands between us and the government buildings,” a gravelly voice replied from deep within the crowd. “We’re under orders.”

“Whose orders?” The driver fought to keep control of the horses.

“Straight from the top.”

Theodor tested the handle on the door. “No,” I hissed, shaking my head. They would know him, far too quickly, by his sword and his family crest pinned to his coat.

He pressed his lips into a firm line, steeling himself to either hide in the carriage or open the door and face them. I wasn’t sure which.

Then the carriage rocked precariously on its wheels.

“Hoy! Leave ’em be!” the driver called. I heard high whinnies, and then the crowd parted as the horses trotted away. They had been cut from their yokes. I was sure Kristos would have some eloquent metaphor comparing hacking through horses’ leads to what the people were doing tonight. Breaking the reins of nobility.

He wasn’t the one trapped in a carriage and surrounded by a crowd that wanted to kill him.

We both heard the shouts as the driver was pulled from his seat. “Just saving you a hard fall, brother,” the gravelly voice insisted. “You’re not one of them.”

I was fairly sure I heard the driver protest, but his voice was drowned out by the shouts and cheers outside. The carriage rocked again.

“We can’t just sit here,” Theodor said, resting his hand on his sword hilt.

“No,” I said, pulling his hand into mine. “You can’t. You’ll be killed.”

“We’ll both be killed.” He yanked open a compartment in the wall of the carriage and produced a pistol. Already, I was sure, loaded. “We have a better chance if they don’t know who I am, which they haven’t figured out yet. They might be imprisoning nobles who don’t fight, but if I’m slated to be killed …”

“We need to get out of here before they discover that you’re an heir.” I looked out over the people gathered. I didn’t know any of them, but I could have. They were laborers like my brother, dockworkers and sailors and farmhands and bricklayers. I couldn’t believe it of them, that they would hurt someone for the sole crime of being noble. But I couldn’t believe it of my brother, either, and he had helped plan regicide.

My gaze caught something else, however. We were south of Fountain Square, pressed into a side street that spliced into River Street.

River Street. My hand flew to my pocket, burrowing into my skirts to find what I had hidden there before the ball.

The key to the secret tunnel into the Stone Castle.

“Theodor,” I said carefully, forcing my words past the tremor in my voice. “Do you think, with a little luck and some swordplay, we could make it from here to River Street?” There were fewer people on the south side of the carriage—the street was narrow here and most people poured in from the north.

“A lot of luck,” he said, holding the door closed as someone outside tried to jimmy it open. “Fat good it does us.”

“I can get us somewhere safe,” I said. “With this.” I produced the key.

“Brilliant,” Theodor said. “We can get back inside the Stone Castle.”

“How do we—” I hiccuped as the carriage rocked again, this time violently.

“No time,” Theodor said. “Look. I’m going to open the door and fire this.” He checked the pistol’s priming and cocked it. “That should give them a bit of pause—then I jump and you run.”

“You run, too.” There wasn’t time for heroics like single-handedly fencing an entire crowd of armed revolutionaries.

“I run, too.” He gripped my hand, pulled me roughly toward him, and kissed me full on the lips, then put his hand to his sword. “Now.”

He flung open the door and fired the pistol into the crowd. I didn’t have time to wonder if he’d hit anyone before his sword was drawn and he was on the rails of the carriage. I jumped past him and dashed through the rent the pistol shot had torn in the crowd.

I wanted to know if Theodor followed me, if someone else followed me, but it took all my strength to keep my feet pounding the cobblestones. I couldn’t slow myself by turning. I reached River Street and swung wide, diving down the little side street with the door. My breath was ragged, and my dress felt like a hundred-pound weight.

As I slid the key into the keyhole, I finally turned. No one was there.

My hand shook and I nearly dropped the key. What was the point, I wanted to scream, if Theodor hadn’t come with me? The strength of my reaction shocked me—if he wasn’t there, I wasn’t opening the door. I wasn’t going to save myself without him.

Then his sky blue silk suit tore around the corner.

“Open it! For heaven’s sake, Sophie, open it!” A half dozen large men followed him.

I fumbled briefly with the key—it stuck in the cold lock—but then I felt the sheer relief of the tumblers clicking into place. I flung the door open, all but fell inside, and Theodor clattered in behind me. I slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock on our side.

Fists made contact with the door on the other side. We didn’t wait to see if they would try to tear it down or if they’d move on to easier targets. Instead, we picked our way carefully down the pitch-dark tunnel together.