The Crown came to my room the next day at noon. She did not knock or ask to enter. She looked at the papers on my desk and my exhausted face, her expression clearly implying that I had been found wanting.
“Do you know why I like you?” she asked.
I bowed my head. “No, Your Excellency. To be honest, His Majesty and I thought you would kill me.”
“See? My reputation precedes me.” She glanced at me over her shoulder and smiled. “I might have if you were less interesting, but under all that bluster and fake honesty, you’re as furious as me. Was Felhollow ever what you wanted?”
I was nothing like her.
I had wanted my family. I had wanted Julian and Will. I had wanted Mack. I had wanted a home.
“Yes,” I said, and she looked disappointed. “I wanted to survive.”
“And you were happy like that?” In the chair at my desk, her dress fluttering around her as she crossed her ankles, the wisps of her hair curling around her face, the soft slant of her mouth as her smile fell, she didn’t look threatening. She gestured for me to sit on the bed. “There was nothing else you wanted from life?”
“I don’t mean for this to sound like an insult,” I said slowly and sat across from her. That was true enough; I didn’t want it to come across as an insult. “All I ever wanted growing up was safety and someone to trust. A home. Family. You always had that. You couldn’t understand.”
Speaking uncomfortable truths always put people like her on the defensive. It was insulting that there was something she couldn’t understand.
And she had killed her family.
She took a deep breath, the muscles of her forehead tensing. I carried on before she could speak.
“Your life was always this unreachable dream,” I said and gestured around me. “This was unreachable.”
“You are dualwrought,” she said. “Nothing is unreachable for us.”
“My mother feared what would happen to me if more than one peer wanted me. She was worried they would bind me too strictly or do something worse.”
“She was right to fear.” The Crown’s tensions eased. “They would have bound you so tightly that every contract could have left you bleeding. They would have worked you to death by now or trained you up to assassinate me.”
I would have failed, she didn’t say. She couldn’t be killed by the likes of me. It was the truth the same way gravity was.
My mother would’ve loved this, killing the Sundered Crown. She’d killed enough of us. It was only fair.
“You’re allowed to want more than surviving,” she said and unwound her spiraling bracelet, small joints snapping as it straightened. It unfolded into a long needle. “You have power many would try to deny you because they fear it or want it for themselves. You must stop fearing yourself. I can see it in your eyes when you sacrifice to your vilewright. Don’t be afraid to take power.”
I took the needle and asked, “How did you get over the fear?”
“I realized that without sacrifice, Cynlira would be torn apart by the squabbles of my peers and the council. They needed a strong figure to corral them. The people we sacrifice to the Door are hardly worthy of carrying on Cynlira’s legacy if they die so easily. Do not mourn them. Rejoice in what their sacrifice is building.” She held out her hand to me. “Destroy my memory of breakfast today. I ate alone and went over my correspondence. Losing it will be of no consequence. Don’t be afraid.”
I pushed the tip of the needle into the vein in the crook of her elbow. There was no need for violence with sacrifices. My vilewright would claim what it was owed no matter what.
Take her blood, I prayed, and destroy the memory she spoke of.
My vilewright glided from me to her arm, and the Crown, for the first time I had seen, shuddered. It would have been easier using something intangible for the sacrifice. She thought violence a solely physical act.
Wait. Do it slowly. Let her underestimate us.
We sat in silence, my fingers loosely gripping her wrist, and she stared. I squeezed my eyes shut and moved my lips. Pretending wasn’t a lie.
Now.
Her eyes glazed over. She shook her head, using her free hand to pull a scrap of paper from her pocket.
“Good,” she said, reading the note that must have listed what she ate this morning. “That was good, but we can improve it, especially the speed. Your vilewright is slow. It will learn, and you will get used to the sacrifices.”
My vilewright growled deep in the pit of my stomach, and I set the needle aside. Distantly, I thought I heard Creek laugh.
“Have you stopped researching the Door like I instructed?” she asked.
“I have stopped researching the Door,” I said. I hadn’t researched anything since yesterday, only experimented. She was not pedantic enough for this game.
Or perhaps so many feared her that she had never needed to consider the importance of words.
“Good.” She smiled and stood, her stout frame blocking the light from the hallway. “Do I terrify you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I love the truth.” She touched my chin and tilted my head up. “Alistair will need someone to look out for him once I’m gone. Will you still be here when he is the Crown?”
This was all I and every other Liran was to her—a tool to be shaped and used regardless of what we wanted.
“Yes.” Though that time would come sooner than she thought. “I will be.”
“Good.” She said, “You will join Alistair and me in court tomorrow. Prepare yourself.”
No lies—she had handed me the perfect way to trick her and everyone else.
“Of course, Your Excellency.” I didn’t breathe again until she was gone. “Prepare myself.”
The door shut, and behind it stood Creek. The knife was still in his chest. Blood dripped down his front.
“You’re not real,” I said. “You’re dead.”
“Thanks to you.” He clucked his tongue and waggled a finger at me. “Quaint little Lorena Adler, who had never been trained and had never killed before. What would your mother say if she saw you now?”
“Creek was annoying,” I said and turned away to my desk, “so you’re a bad manifestation of my guilty conscience.”
I had dreamed about him last night too. This was exhaustion. A trick of—
He was sitting on my desk. “You wound me.”
“You’re the Door, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Am I?” He brought his hand to his ruined chest and fluttered it over his heart, except I had cut his heart from his corpse not a day ago. “Shouldn’t I be telling you to ‘open the Door’ or something trite then?”
“I wouldn’t want to tell you how to do your job.” I pushed him from my desk.
My hands shot through him and smacked the wall. Creek laughed.
“I thought she would hurt Franziska,” he said, “and you used that care. So devious.”
“Necessary,” I whispered and stepped back. “It’s necessary.”
He vanished from my desk. I sat in the chair, stiff and uneasy. My stomach rebelled, and I gagged, panic sticking in my throat. I covered my eyes and breathed.
“What’s your number, Lorena?” Creek asked.
“Not real. Not real.” I grabbed a sheet of clean paper and quill. “You’re not real. You’re the Door or my guilty mind and neither—”
“Is of any consequence?”
My hands shook as I wrote.
Julian and Mack, Stay inside tomorrow. Don’t worry about me or anything you hear. Don’t leave unless you must. I love you both. Lorena
That was vague enough, and it was reasonable for them to worry about me being present for court. I slid it under my door for one of the palace messengers and laid my forehead against the warm wood.
“Lorena,” said Creek, his mouth near my ear, “open the Door.”
Someone pounded at my door. I stumbled back, crashing against my bed. Creek was gone, nothing to prove he’d ever been here, and my door rattled in the wall. They rapped another three times.
“Lorena,” the Heir called, “open the door. We need to talk.”