I held Alistair back after the sacrifice with a look. He sent Hana on her way with the courtier and councilor, cleaning the needle on a white handkerchief the whole while. Red streaks crisscrossed the white and smeared against his black gloves. They were all the better to hide the blood, and he kept cleaning long after the needle was spotless. We all had our tells.
“Alistair,” I said, “did you think I would run?”
“I’m not completely oblivious. Of course you would have.” He scoffed and slid the needle back into its hidden holster. “But then you gave me the perfect way to keep you. I didn’t even have to suggest the deal.”
“No, I blurted it out and handed you the knife for carving.” I rolled my eyes, and from the Door, I heard a squeak of hinges that might have been laughter. “All that’s left is to live with the consequences of what we’ve done. Do you know why Will Chase wanted you dead?”
“The usual reasons, I suppose.” He raised one shoulder and slowly let it fall. “Who doesn’t want me dead?”
“I don’t want you dead,” I said. “Right now.”
He chuckled. “Fair. No, I do not know the particulars of his reasons. You will have to ask him. The vilewrought girl was one who’d disappeared several years ago, and my mother had a bounty out for her. She made more money for the folks she fell in with than they would’ve earned turning her in. Her vilewright was no match for mine, but I had never met another. I hadn’t really met her; I’d only felt her trying to destroy me.”
“So you gave chase?” I moved around him to glare at the Door.
It was my mother’s sickroom door again, the cracks filled with watching pale-brown eyes.
“I did,” said Alistair, following my gaze. “I wanted a vilewrought, but instead I found you.”
“And your would-be assassin,” I said.
“I knew she was returning to who hired her.” He inclined his head to our long worktable and placed himself between the Door and me. It was the closest we had been in over two weeks. “Willoughby Chase was the only councilor in Felhollow.”
“Perhaps his treason is justifiable.” I smiled as Alistair frowned. “There aren’t enough sacrifices left to last us two months, much less the three Carlow predicts we’ll need.”
“Perhaps it is,” he said evenly. “Yes, what is something you would do to solve this? Volunteers?”
I could already imagine the courtiers promising to fund whole families so long as someone volunteered.
“No, it’s far too easy to make someone volunteer,” I said, but the answer needed to be logical. It needed to suit Alistair’s hunger for order. “Drawing lots would work so long as we ensured no one cheated.”
And it would infuriate the peerage. Luck was the only thing they couldn’t control.
“If we can’t shut the Door or create a new one, what do we do then?” I asked.
He frowned, eyes crinkling at the corners of his glasses. “Die.”
“I would hope not,” I said. “Could we move everyone to consecrated ground? The Formet district could work.”
“It wouldn’t be large enough.” He tilted his head back and forth. “Noblewrought would be the best defense against the Vile, but not for long.”
“We will try.” I stood on tiptoe to stare him in the eyes. “If it comes to that, we will try.”
“Agreed.” He held out his hand to seal the deal and didn’t flinch when I took his hand. “Or a nonbinding contract? You are passionate about these things, Lorena Adler. You won’t be satisfied with only my word.”
“No more contracts,” I said, the warmth of him seeping into me. “Not between us.”
His smile was the most honest—crooked and quick—that I’d ever seen from him.
He knew me well enough. He hadn’t touched me since I’d asked. He hadn’t tried to change my mind. Even now, he waited for me to set the pace of our conversation. It was refreshing.
I pulled away from him slowly. “You’ve kept your distance.”
“You took my request seriously.” He nodded toward the mouth of the cavern. “It’s only fair, especially now, that I take you seriously.”
Julian never took me seriously and never at my word. He didn’t think I was passionate either, always pairing the word with intimacy. He thought, one day, passion would take me, I would take him, and all would be well if he just kept working at it. He’d have never left me to my own devices.
“Thank you, Alistair.”
What did it say about me that I understood Alistair Wyrslaine so well and he understood me better than anyone else?
He offered me his arm, sighed when I took it, and led me away from the Door. “You were right, of course. I trapped you here. Haven’t you ever wanted something so much that you’d do anything to get it?”
“Wanting I understand,” I said softly as we wove our way back into the palace and toward his quarters. “Taking I don’t.”
People like Alistair, and even Julian, didn’t understand the dangers of wanting. They already had power, Alistair by birth and Julian by his father. Cynlira dangled power and wealth before its citizens, hooked them with the promise that one day, we, too, could be like those at the top, and then used every part of us to fuel their aims. They worked people to the bone or forced bound wrought to sacrifice until there was nothing left of them and told us we might make it if we worked harder. If we sacrificed more. If we obeyed better. If we followed the rules and made them their money, all while tearing ourselves and one another down.
“Alistair.” I splayed my hands between us, the scars of every sacrifice on clear display. “Do you know why I’m upset about this?”
“I lied to you,” he said and drew out each word. “I took away your choice.”
I nodded. I’d not thought he would know in full. “I didn’t want to be bound, because I wanted to choose exactly what sacrifices I made and for whom.”
People at the bottom were allowed to want but never to take.
“You asked me once if you were allowed to say no to me,” said Alistair.
The powerful didn’t need to carve bindings into chests to keep rebellion at bay; they only needed to keep pay low and hours long.
“You are. My word may mean little, but it’s true. I do not want to be seen as one of the Vile, making tricky deals designed to ensnare the unsuspecting,” he said, nodding to a pair of guards as we passed into a part of the palace where I’d never been. “I am certain that if you killed me, I would accept it.” He smiled but didn’t look at me. “Surely, you would have a good reason.”
This part of the palace was almost entirely carved into the dark stones of the mountains with thin vents letting in fresh air and little light. He led us to a set of tall oak doors carved with the creation story of Cynlira. I touched the rippling waves of the Tongue, its waters splitting this older, neater version of Mori. Alistair pushed one of the doors open.
“Sit,” he said and ushered me inside. “If you want.”
I didn’t. The room was long and wide, the walls lined with wooden shelves. A plush rug of red and blue cushioned my feet, and at the opposite end of the room, Alistair rustled through the drawers of a large desk. I dragged my feet through the lush threads and pressed my hips against the desk. He held out our original contract so gently he nearly dropped it.
“I understand. What do you need?”
The contract fluttered back to the desk, and Alistair pulled a pair of shears from the desk drawers. He reached out with his other hand, gloved fingers curled. I let him grasp my braid.
“Not a sacrifice,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb down the braid. “Only something of yours and mine.”
He snipped off the bottom of my braid and the ends of his, and the red and black strands tangled atop the contract. In one swift slice, he destroyed the contract and our hair. The smog of burnt hair stung my nose.
“Thank you,” I said.
Now I could save Will, even though he was guilty.
Alistair came around to my side of the desk. “I hope that we—”
“We are good, Alistair.” I laid my hand flat against his shoulder, his shudder running through me, and tugged at the uneven ends of his hair. “Needle?”
He handed it to me without question, and I pricked his thumb.
Take his blood as sacrifice, I prayed to my vilewright, and destroy the too-long pieces of his hair. Make it even.
My vilewright fluttered over him. He closed his eyes, and his hair evened out until it hung about his shoulders. I ran my fingers through it.
“You are the Crown of Cynlira,” I said and brushed his hair from his face. “They will expect you to look the part.”
“They will expect the same of you,” he muttered and pulled a small brooch from his pocket. It was gold twisted into the shapes of two phoenixes devouring each other, and their eyes were a ruby and a sapphire. The knot of their bodies was so tight and the feathers so detailed, I couldn’t tell how the goldsmith had woven it. He undid the pin and pulled me down by my shirt collar. “This is for voices of the Wyrslaine family—advisers, generals, peers, and the like. They will listen to you so long as you wear this.”
He pinned it over my heart where my binding would be if I had one.
“Why haven’t you tried to break your binding?” I asked, covering his fingers with mine.
He rolled his lips together. “It would interfere with my work. To break it, I would have to break all of them by killing the noblewrought who bound me and the court and council members who hold the bindings. For now, I am content.”
“With you,” he didn’t say, but I could feel the words in the way he leaned against me. It was almost a pity that I would have to break this delicate bond between us to save Will. Julian would never understand.
I wasn’t the same Lorena he had loved—I might never have been that Lorena—but this new one got things done.
“Fascinating.” I placed one finger beneath his chin, tilting his head back till our eyes met, and smiled. “You weren’t what I was looking for, but you’ll do.”