CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Caledon

OUTSIDE, CAL SEES THE WEDDING party preparations going up—green and purple cloth banners and huge canopies, upholstered chairs being carried in by a parade of workers, silver torches being installed to line the property for the evening reception.

He wonders what Shadow is doing at that very moment. Is she looking out her window at this scene, too? Does she wonder where he is?

Cal watches from the window as workers install the stage where the marriage ceremony will take place. Where Shadow will become King Hansen’s wife. How can he let her do this? How can he let her go?

No one questions him as he makes his way through the palace down to the catacombs; they are too busy with wedding preparations to bother with another Renovian in their midst. The steps down to the dungeons are damp and slimy, and Cal takes a torch from the wall to light his way. Even if the duke was unmasked as a conspirator, he was still an aristocrat, and Cal counts on his body being entombed underneath the castle along with other dead nobles. There are statues depicting their former visages: kings, queens, dukes, duchesses, earls of every stripe. Knights buried with their swords.

He walks between the tombs, reading names, looking for the final resting place of the evil duke.

“He’s not here,” a small voice says.

Cal swings the torch over and sees a boy hunched over by an empty tomb. “Jander?” he asks, startled.

The boy nods. “You can call me that for now.”

“Where is he?”

“We were too late,” Jander tells him. “The sun went down. So he came back. As did I.”

Cal sighs. “He was the one who cursed you, didn’t he?”

Jander nods. “A long time ago.”

A very long time ago, Cal knows now. For he finally remembers where he’s seen the duke before, in a painting at the royal palace when he was called to see the queen. The hawkish visage, the angry eyes. The duke is none other than the Tyrant King himself, King Phras of Avantine.

“I found this,” he says, showing Jander the obsidian key. “Any idea where the lock may be?”

“I might,” says Jander. He stands up.

It’s time to go then. They leave the catacombs together; Cal stops at his room to gather his things. He packs lightly, and finds a few things for Jander on the road. But there’s only one thing from Montrice he wants to keep. The lilac handkerchief. He tucks it into his back pocket alongside the other one.

Jander picks up a satchel and follows him out.

Cal smiles. He has lost an apprentice, only to gain a new one.

They leave the palace as musicians rehearse the wedding march. He doesn’t look back.