The first thing that registered for Fie was the pounding of her own heart, a war drum in her ears.
The second were the crows, crying from the rooftop above.
Tavin knew. He’d—known.
How long had he—
Her veins were fire, her bones were ash, and he was gone, gone—
She stumbled over to a bench tucked in the garden’s corner, crashed down on it, tried to think, tried to breathe. He’d known. He’d known. But—answers, she needed answers, she needed to scream, she needed to burn this tower down and pull him from the embers.
Crow-song rattled above.
Fie’s hands were shaking almost too bad to pry Tavin’s tooth from the bit of rag she’d kept it in, but then she had it clutched in a shaking hand, her other scrambling for an Owl tooth. The spark of a long-dead clerk plodded out in her mind, a grandmother cracking her knuckles as Fie woke Tavin’s tooth next.
She saw flashes of memory, tried to shut them out; the Owl clerk politely stepped in and whisked them away.
I need—I need—
Fie tried to muster her thoughts into some semblance of a request but couldn’t pare it down. I need help.
The Owl clerk went to work. After a moment, she said: It seems the question you have is: How? From what I can tell, these are your answers.
Fie blinked, and the garden was gone.
He was nine, and someone was speaking to him: “If you truly love something, you’ll do whatever is best for it. You’ll give everything you have for it. You understand that, right? Love means sacrifice. It’s why your job is so important.”
Tavin nodded, though the idea scared him.
“You love your brother. And you love your country. You should be ready to protect them, no matter the cost. Can I trust you to do that?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he mumbled.
The king smiled down at him. “Good.”
He knelt by the side of the road, by a dead body in the green grass, an empty leather bag at its side.
He could have stopped this. He could have saved her if he’d pushed harder, if he hadn’t waited for his mother’s permission—he could have saved her—
Fie was dead because he’d failed. He hadn’t given enough.
“You’re hardly a fool.” The Black Swan spy regarded him with a piercing stare. “You know the queen has to be preparing a strike, right?”
Tavin knew better than to answer right away. It had been clear Khoda was nowhere near close to being completely honest with them earlier, in his mother’s tent. If there were truths he’d squirmed out of stating in front of a small crowd, Tavin had come to pry them out.
But this was a test. Would he accept anything Khoda said because he was an all-knowing spy, or would he reject it because Khoda was clearly untrustworthy?
The way to play these games was neither. He’d survived the palace long enough to know. “She already struck at Fie, who wasn’t a threat. It doesn’t make sense to just ignore the small army marching behind Jas. But we’re all aware.”
Khoda nodded, tight-lipped but approving. “Rhusana doesn’t do things by halves, so when she hits, we’ll know. But that’s all I have for you, I swear. Like I said, we can’t get anyone embedded close enough to her.” His gaze narrowed. “You’re not a fool. So I want you to think about this: an army isn’t the only way Rhusana can be defeated. If she makes her move, and it doesn’t look like there’s a way out … We need someone on the inside.”
“I’m not a spy. Besides, Fie and Jas would never let me take that kind of risk.”
“They don’t have to know,” Khoda said.
“No.” Tavin felt the ugly fire in him bristle and hiss at that. “I won’t do that to either of them.”
“Then do it for both of them.” Khoda looked genuinely unhappy. “This is all still purely hypothetical. But we both know what Fie’s capable of. What she and the prince can do together. And we know what lengths they’ll go to save what they love.” He grimaced. “So if it looks like Rhusana’s going to win, if it looks like there’s no way out … Think about it. You could be what we need to take her down from the inside.”
Tavin didn’t answer. He didn’t want to think about it; he wanted Jas on the throne, and Rhusana in prison, and to stay with Fie as long as she abided him, which was hopefully the rest of their lives. “I’m going,” he muttered.
“Just in case,” Khoda called after him. “If you think it’s a good idea … might want to get a haircut.”
They were in his mother’s tent, Rhusana gloating and sauntering around like she did when she was sure of victory. He hated it, hated her, hated how easily she’d done it.
And now she was gripping his chin, whispering in his ear, and offering him the throne on a white-gold platter.
It was just as Khoda had said. There was no way out.
There had never been a way out. This was what he was supposed to do. This was sacrifice. This was love.
He just hoped that when Fie killed him, it would be quick.
He just hoped this was enough.
The Owl clerk’s voice broke through the fog. Is this enough? she asked. Or would you like to see more?
More, Fie answered.
Whoever had nearly broken into Jas’s prison was smart, but they were a terrible spy.
Then again, if Fie hadn’t just yelled that the only Sakar child was dead a few days ago, he wouldn’t have known. He suspected the person wearing her face now was banking on that.
“Is there an exit over here?” the spy asked, stepping toward the back of the statue. “I’ll just leave this way.”
“No—!” He seized her arm, reading the caste in her blood to know what he was dealing with—
A Crow.
A witch.
It hadn’t even taken her seven days to break into the royal palace and find a prince hidden in a secret prison known only to Phoenix monarchs.
She was absolutely going to murder him by the end of the week.
He’d never been more delighted.
Then he realized: if she had so much as a notion—if she knew the danger he was in, spying on the queen—she would kill herself trying to bring it to an end.
She already had to hate him for the choice she thought he’d made. He had to make sure she kept hating him.
It took everything in him to let her go.
The firebird roared over Tavin’s head, smashing into the wrought-gold sun behind the thrones. He liked to think that somewhere, Fie was laughing. He’d made sure she had the best view possible.
It had been a risk, giving Khoda the schedule for the coronation, but the Black Swan had assured him that whatever happened wouldn’t be traced back to him. He’d been right.
Fie had made it look like the work of an angry god, of Ambra’s ghost. For all he knew, it was.
It was night, and he was alone. Not in that hideous bedchamber—when his escort had hurried him up there the night before, after the disastrous coronation, he hadn’t precisely been able to sneak away. Tonight was different. He was in his own room, the one he’d spent the last nine years of his life in.
And he was lying on his own bed, face buried in the blanket he’d made sure to take with him from Draga’s camp, because it was the only thing in this entire damned palace that still smelled like Fie.
Rhusana had tried to make him kill her today. Not that the queen had known; she’d just tried to make an example of a dissident, with the added bonus of reminding him he was as much on a leash as her ridiculous pet tiger. But he’d seen it, the look in Fie’s eyes, when she realized how easily he could end her life at the edge of that terrible well.
She missed him throwing up after.
Now the only thing that gave him even a moment of peace was the salt-smoke-mint smell still lingering in the blanket they’d once shared.
He didn’t know how many times he could cry into it before the smell of her would be lost for good.
More? asked the Owl clerk.
More, Fie said.
Khoda’s instructions had been simple: Fie would want to go into the catacombs, and Tavin would take her there. They would both be looking and listening for anything strange, and if he found anything, he was supposed to act surprised.
That had been the plan.
It had not involved Fie kissing him.
He should have known better, but she’d looked ill ever since stepping into the catacombs, and it was his own damn fault for fussing over her until she decided to shut him up, and twelve hells, he’d missed this. He’d missed her more with every heartbeat. It could all be nothing, it could just be her playing along, but he wanted to believe she missed him, too, he wanted it like a drowning man wanted air. If he didn’t look at the glamour on her face, he could pretend all was as it had been, that there were no lies, no secrets between them.
He could pretend she might forgive him.
And now he was inches away from committing a blasphemy with her on Ambra’s casket. Though, admittedly, blasphemy had been something of a hobby of his as of late.
She was supposed to hate him. He was supposed to make her hate him so that when this all came to a bloody end, it would hurt less—at least for her.
It was selfish, this, in the most terrible way. And it was one more sin she would never forgive.
“Do you see the problem?” he asked.
His mother looked at the repulsive decrees spread across her desk, delivered from the queen’s footman not an hour ago. “First off, I won’t approve a single one of these. She’ll have to wait until after the coronation to exercise her right to command the military.”
Tavin had taken a gamble, reaching out to his mother after Aunt Jasindra’s room had burned. From Rhusana’s panic, whatever had been in there was critical to her, and from the shift he’d seen in people around them, he had a hunch what that was.
His mother had all but confirmed it, the loss of Rhusana’s influence, as she’d merrily issued orders to light the plague beacons.
“Look closer,” Tavin said.
Draga did. Then she covered her mouth.
“It looked close enough. Rhusana didn’t check further.” It was one of his prouder moments: every single order Rhusana had put in front of him was signed not with Jasimir but Jasindra. Every one was worthless.
Except for one. He pulled a parchment from his sleeve, one signed by both Jasimir and Rhusana and bearing the royal seal. “I have a proposal,” he said. “And I think you’ll approve.”
“You know this is it,” Khoda said.
It was only hours before Rhusana’s final ball. He was ready, or at least he thought he was.
He’d done everything he could.
“The master-general won’t chase you. But getting out, that’s on you. Fie and Jasimir will have their hands full.” Khoda shook his head. “If you can make it to the Shattered Bay, give my name to the ferrywoman who works the sundown shift. She can make arrangements to get you across the sea. But there will be no place in Sabor for you after tonight.”
Tavin let out a short, harsh laugh, one that made Khoda give him a sidelong look. “Did you think there ever was?” he asked.
He’d done everything he could, given everything he could. He had no more left to sacrifice.
By every dead god, he hoped it would be enough.
The teeth did not offer her more, and Fie did not ask this time.
She sat in the garden, teeth clenched so tight in her palm that a distant part of her thought she might draw blood.
All along, Tavin had been helping her. Undermining Rhusana. Dying by inches. All along.
She’d thought he’d given up. She’d thought he didn’t believe they could win against Rhusana, that she was not enough.
But he’d never once stopped believing.
She wanted to sing. She wanted to howl. She wanted to weep and laugh and tear the garden down. She wanted to strangle Tavin and kiss his wretched fool face until her lips fell off.
She needed to—
Stick to the plan. That’s what Khoda would tell her. She had every intention of booting him off the nearest suitable cliff for putting her and Tavin and Jasimir through this, but it would have to wait.
Rhusana still needed Tavin. He would play the fool and get away from the queen when he could, and—and he would find her, and—
The hour-bell began to toll.
Fie set the teeth down on the bench and ran her hands over her face, over her hair, until the thunder in her skull retreated enough for her to think. She needed a new face, a new gown, a steady heart. The Peacock glamour shifted, the fabric bleeding from delicate teal to the same crimson as the lantern-lilies, the illusion of Niemi’s long braid weaving instead into one that sat over her head like a crown. When Fie stood and caught her reflection in the glassblack window, she realized the face she wore now was none other than Ambra’s.
The one upshot of this all, Fie thought grimly to herself, was that, being dead for so long, the artists never got Ambra’s face right.
She heard the commotion of Peacocks gratefully fleeing the swamp of the Tower of Memories and slipped back inside, falling in with the crowd. They shuffled out and into the late-afternoon haze, then up the steps to the Hall of the Dawn. Hawk war-witches were at the doors, testing caste.
Fie got in line for the one from Draga’s office, who had recognized Jasimir. Draga had said they would be stationed at the door to make certain Fie made it in, and as the war-witch’s hand clasped Fie’s wrist, she saw their eyes sharpen.
“You may enter,” they said, and then added under their breath: “Fortune’s favor to you, Lady Crow.”
It was a small thing, a scrap of faith, and once it had felt like a burden. Now it felt like another tooth in her arsenal.
Fie gave them the same slight smile they’d given Jasimir, and headed into the Hall of the Dawn.
It was not the same place it had been on the solstice. Layers of whitewash had been slapped over the once-vivid walls, the rich tapestries replaced with filmy gauze of silver, gold, white. The lanterns within the great iron columns had not been rekindled. Instead, fresh white oleander blossoms had been stuffed into the gaps, making each towering Phoenix’s portrait look almost as if it had gone rotten and molded over. White petals carpeted the marble floor, the dais, even the thrones, though Fie dearly hoped Rhusana had had the sense to order flowers less poisonous than oleanders for that.
Even the wreckage of the golden sunrise behind the thrones had been twisted and threaded through with garlands of more white blossoms. If Fie squinted, she thought it could be a swan now, but a sickly one for certain.
Servants were picking their way across the flowers with trays of wine and sweets, but there were markedly fewer than at the coronation. All of their sleeves were buttoned above the elbow, displaying arms free of the Sinner’s Brand. They all looked worn to near bone—doubtless the work of making over the Hall of the Dawn had fallen on them, too, for no one else could.
It was no secret that Sparrows were fleeing the palace rather than wait to see what would kill them first, Rhusana or the plague. It was a trap Fie knew too well.
Fie wove her way around the knots of uneasy Peacocks, who looked unsteady and garish in their bright garb against the bleak whites and blacks of the hall. Even the music sounded timid, strained, the few musicians clustered on the ground floor.
It felt like when she’d walked the empty halls of the royal quarters at night—too still, too lifeless. It felt like crawling through a glittering corpse.
Fie marked Draga near the head of the hall, looking more than ever like a tiger ready to make a kill. If the master-general had not had a reputation for loathing parties, it would have been perhaps a bit too obvious, but her scowl was perfectly typical.
Jasimir was not out among the servants yet. They couldn’t risk him being dispatched on an errand and missing his cue. Khoda, however, was winding through the crowds, his glamoured face the picture of servile serenity.
A swell of simmering fury boiled in Fie’s backbone at the sight. Some even-headed part of her knew he’d done what he’d done for her sake, for Jasimir’s, for Sabor’s.
The rest of her was ready to tear his throat out.
Not yet, her Chief voice ordered. Not here.
Fie wandered until she was close enough to the head of the hall to have a clean view. It would be just like the coronation: wait for the right moment, conjure another firebird, throw in a sign that the Covenant favored Jasimir once he was revealed.
She just had to wait for the right moment.
Her heart drummed, drummed, drummed in her ears.
Minutes ticked by. The musicians played on. The sun crept toward the horizon. The queen was late.
Fie saw no sign of Tavin.
He was fine, she told herself, and ran her fingers over his tooth to feel his spark leap for her. Tavin was her clever, brave, wretched fool, and he was not allowed to leave her before she could call him that to his face.
His spark still burned. She didn’t know what she would do if it went out.
The Peacocks murmured and whispered as the queen did not show her face. Even Khoda’s calm mask was beginning to peel as he held a tray of tarts out to Lord Urasa.
Then a low blast rolled through the hall as two servants blew into the matching hollowed mammoth tusks on either side of the thrones. Mutters of confusion rippled through the crowd: the tusks were to announce the entrance of the monarchs. They were meant to stay silent for another week.
Rhusana glided out onto the dais, alone but for her white tiger still on its leash. On her head sat a familiar golden crown. It took Fie a moment to place—then she realized the last time she’d seen it, it had been fused to Ambra’s skull.
“Friends,” Rhusana called into the hall, her smile a little too bright, a little too sharp. “A great day is upon us. Prince Jasimir has done me the great honor of entrusting Sabor to my leadership. He has abdicated the throne, and we will make you wait for your monarch no longer. The Phoenix Priesthood has declared me your new—”
“TRAITOR.” Draga’s voice thundered across the stunned hall.
Rhusana stared at her. One hand twitched toward the black embroidery of her bodice—then fell.
Hair. She’d stitched her fine gown with hair. Fie near spewed.
But Draga’s hair had burned with the rest of Queen Jasindra’s room, and now the master-general took a spear from a nearby Hawk and strode to the middle of the hall, facing the thrones dead on. “What did you do with him?” she demanded.
Fie felt for Tavin’s spark again. It burned yet—but suddenly that felt all the more tenuous.
“It’s a crime to raise a blade against your queen,” Rhusana said in answer.
Draga deliberately pointed the spear her way. “I’ll remember that when I see one. Where is he?”
Gasps swept through the hall.
“You are clearly unfit for your rank,” Rhusana said swiftly. “I hereby remove you as master-general and—”
Draga took a step forward. “You killed Surimir. You killed Jasindra. You tried to pass off an imposter for Prince Jasimir to give yourself the barest whiff of legitimacy. You let this palace be overrun by the Sinner’s Plague because your only master is the Oleander Gentry. You are a coward and a traitor and you cannot command me.”
“Arrest her,” Rhusana ordered the Hawks at the walls.
No one moved.
“I order you!” she repeated, voice climbing, choking at the edges. “I’ll have you all hanged for treason, and you can feed the damned crows! Arrest her!”
The Hawks traded glances, as uneasy as the Peacocks backing away from the dais.
Fie felt it, the reign of Rhusana balanced on a knife’s edge. This was not what they’d planned; this was not how it was supposed to go.
But she could wait no longer. A conjured phoenix was not enough.
She pressed Tavin’s tooth to one palm, the Owl clerk’s tooth to another. This time she knew square what memory to ask for. Then the Peacock song joined the dance, shifting her glamour once again into something terrible and new.
Fie hoped against hope that Jasimir was not watching. Then she began to push through the crowds.
Peacocks twisted, saw what Fie had woven, stumbled away with ashen faces. Servants dropped their trays, splashing broken crystal and wine into the white petals. Even Draga gaped in open horror.
The crowd split until she could see straight to Rhusana. She knew what Rhusana saw, what they all saw: the specter of Queen Jasindra as Tavin had last seen her, staring down the thrones.
Fie had, of course, taken a few liberties. Jasindra’s eyes burned, stark finger-shaped bruises barred her neck, and her hair and robes floated on an unseen phantasmal tide.
Fie drew a breath, pointed at Rhusana, and, in her deepest Chief voice, she called: “MURDERER.”
She could see it on Rhusana’s face: fear, yes, but wrath, too, and desperation. The Swan Queen knew it was naught but a glamour, because she knew the power of an illusion.
Rhusana knew there were no omens, no ghosts, no Lady Sakar—only a Crow girl with a grudge and a bag of teeth. One who was about to cost her a crown.
Rhusana twitched her hand with a hiss. The white tiger shuddered, then leapt for Fie.
“NO—!” Draga threw herself in its path. Fie heard a terrible crack as Draga hit the ground, pinned beneath the great beast. Red splattered across the white petals.
Lord Urasa started toward the dais, bellowing, “Protect the queen!”
The room erupted in chaos. Hawks rushed in from the walls, some flocking to Draga, others to guard Rhusana. Most Peacocks rushed to nowhere and nothing but the exits. If any noticed that the specter of Jasindra was bizarrely solid when they crashed into it, they paid no heed.
Fie let the glamour go anyway. It felt oddly exposed, to wear her own face, let her teeth show plain, but there was precious little point in subterfuge now.
A hand locked around Fie’s elbow: Khoda. “We need to get out,” he shouted.
“But Draga—” Fie twisted to try to see through the pandemonium. She heard the tiger snarling, clashes of blades, shrieks and shouts of guards. Someone had the master-general’s arm around their shoulders—the war-witch. Their bloody hand was laid on Draga’s head. Fie saw gaps of pink in the crimson and realized the master-general’s gashes went to the bone.
“She can manage,” Khoda said, shoving them onward. “We need to find Jasimir and get to safety.”
“We need to find Tavin,” Fie spat. “How long did you think it would take me to find out?”
Khoda made a face. “Honestly? I was hoping for one more week. I know you’re angry with me, but we need to focus—hold on.” He yanked her and they popped through a side exit, stumbling into the south wing of the Divine Galleries.
Jasimir was waiting by one of the statues, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“It’s all rutted,” Fie said, “and Tavin has been on our side the entire time, and Khoda’s been hiding it from us, and I’m pretty sure Rhusana just figured it out.”
“What?” Jasimir’s jaw dropped.
Khoda looked pointedly over his shoulder at the Peacocks flooding past. “Can we do this somewhere else?”
“No. Not a one of them gives a damn.” Fie bent down and started tearing away the bottom half of her gown. “Rhusana’s done something to Tavin. I’m going after him.”
“Why … why would you…?” Jasimir was staring at Khoda like he’d drawn a dagger on them.
Khoda’s face almost seemed to break open, furious and guilty all at once. “Because this is exactly what I was afraid of! Hells, you didn’t even have to know he was working with us before you started trying to save him! But this is what ruling is about, it’s about sacrifice. Someone always has to pay the price. Rhusana was going to make it the Crows. I gave Tavin the option to choose himself.”
Fie kept tearing the gown. The open air was welcome on her knees. “Funny,” she said, frosty, “the ones who always say there’s a price never seem to be the ones paying it. You know what my pa says?” She ripped the last of her skirt away. “He says even Phoenixes need ashes to rise. But I reckon you know that, aye. Because it’s your job to make sure they’re never the ones who burn.”
She pulled Tavin’s sword free, scabbard and all, and handed it to Jasimir. “The master-general’s hurt, and it’s a mess in the hall. They need your help. I’ll be back with Tavin.”
“You can’t put yourself at risk.” Khoda put a hand on the prince’s elbow—
—and the prince threw it off. “I’ll decide that.”
“Jasimir, please.” The note of desperation in Khoda’s voice sang so clear, it shook Fie. It wasn’t duty, it wasn’t agenda, it wasn’t born of long-laid schemes.
She wondered when, precisely, the Black Swan had realized his devotion to the crown prince’s welfare ran deeper than a throne.
But if Jasimir heard it, too, he had no time for it.
“We can’t do nothing, so make yourself useful or make yourself scarce.” The prince thrust the scabbard through his sash. “Fortune’s favor to you, Fie.”
“Fortune’s favor,” she echoed. Then she dove back into the fray, let it carry her out of the Divine Gallery, calling first a Vulture witch-tooth, then a Pigeon witch-tooth. Wishing for fortune was one thing. She needed more than wishes now.
Tavin’s own tooth stayed clenched in her fist, an anchor for the Vulture Birthright as it traced his trail. It wove north, dead west, straight down through the gardens—
Dread shot through Fie’s gut.
Her Hawk’s trail ended in the catacombs.