I stumbled to my feet. Julian appeared in the doorway of the church, a broad shadow cut in two by the rifle on his back. I was sitting on the edge of the pool by the time he got to me, my head in my hands, and he crouched down before me. His calloused fingers pried my face free, and the warmth of his hands was uncomfortably sticky in the late summer sun. He glanced at the vilewrought girl, fingers flinching toward his knife. I shook my head.
“She said someone was coming.” I sniffed, drowning in death, and gestured to her. “She destroyed their tracks leading here—”
“So she told you,” said Julian with a scowl.
“—and told me to run if ‘he’ found me.”
“She’s got a piece of Vile soul attached to her. Who knows if she was truthful?” he said and grabbed a rag. “Chin up. If anyone was chasing her, we can take them.”
Felhollow could handle most bandits, and Julian’s father, Will, was in the good graces of enough peers to keep them from doing anything untoward. He was the richest person in town and kept it flush with munitions. Not that anyone ever came to Felhollow.
“I should know what she meant.” I rubbed my face. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“You’ve been awake since yesterday morning.” Julian kissed my cheek, knelt before me, and gently cleaned the blood from my hands and legs. “Go rest. I’ll handle this. I can sleep through the funeral tonight, but you can’t.”
“You should be there. Rylan looked up to you,” I said. I’d never be able to rest after what that vilewrought said.
Julian tossed the rag into the compost pile and wiped his hands clean. “I wish you hadn’t sent me away. She could’ve hurt you.”
“My noblewright could have handled her if she tried. Or my knife.” I cracked my neck. “You sure no one needs me?”
“I need you to pretend you’ve got reasons for keeping me around,” he muttered and helped me stand. “Or are you just with me for my money?”
Standing, we were eye to eye, and his smile was tight.
“You got any other good qualities I don’t know about?” I asked and took his hand. Seven years I’d known him, and it still wasn’t enough. We’d been best friends long before we started stepping out. He was kind and comfortable, the first spring rain after a dreary winter. “Stay with me. Ivy and the others can handle the rest.”
Julian stripped off his coat and draped it over me. “Deal. Let’s—”
The sharp cry of Felhollow’s warning whistle cut him off. Julian spun, hand going to his rifle. I grabbed one of my bone saws and took off running for the center of town. He sprinted after me. My noblewright hummed in anticipation. I shivered. Magic was never sated.
We ducked between the houses to the center square. A crowd was gathered around the water pump, forming one solid block of shoulders that barred the way for a group of soldiers. Old Ivy, the head of the guards and town council, stood before the five soldiers with her arms crossed. Her wife was behind her, an ax in her hands. The soldiers each held a rifle and carried a sword on their belt. None, so far as I could tell, were wrought.
Behind them, a carriage black as pitch blocked the road leading out of town.
“—killed a twelve-year-old this morning,” Ivy was saying with her mortar-on-pestle voice. “We want nothing to do with you.”
Julian and I nudged our way to the middle of the crowd. Will hooked one arm through Julian’s, forcing him to sling his rifle back on his shoulder. They were two of a kind, same corn silk hair and green eyes, and they scowled as the soldier sneered at Old Ivy.
“Thought you ordered all the bandits executed?” Julian asked.
Will nodded and whispered, “They’re here for someone else. Do not antagonize them.”
“Bandits don’t concern us,” said a soldier with a gold collar on his long red coat. I’d not seen a warrant officer since leaving the capital. Almost all of them were the second and third children of peers who hadn’t inherited the title. “We have a warrant for Willoughby Chase, and we won’t be leaving without him. If you do not present him, we are allowed to acquire him by any means necessary.”
Julian stiffened next to me. Will didn’t so much as flinch.
“Which peer did you piss off?” I whispered.
“Suppose we’re about to find out,” he whispered back, hand slipping around Julian to squeeze my arm. “Don’t worry.”
How often had he said the same for me? Will had treated me like kin since I got here, keeping me fed and sheltered till I earned enough healing and undertaking. Twelve years ago, he’d finally done what most of Felhollow dreamt of and cut a deal with several peers for lumber, and now he had a seat on the common council. He was Felhollow’s point of contact with the rest of the world and rich enough to get out of jail time, surely. He’d breathed life into Felhollow and me. I grabbed his hand.
“Here is the warrant,” said the officer, pulling a thick letter from the inside of his coat. “Read it for yourself if you doubt me.”
He tossed it to the ground before Old Ivy, and she passed it back to Will.
Will picked it up with trembling fingers. The smooth paper was bleached to pale ivory and stippled with gold flakes. Blue ink so dark and thick my skin grew cold just looking at it lined the front, and the colors of the wax seal bled into the envelope. I’d never seen the seal of the Sundered Crown of Cynlira in person—red and blue phoenixes twisted together in a writhing circle and eating each other’s tails. Inside the ring was Will’s name. No one in Felhollow had ever received a royal summons. There was only one reason anyone would.
“A sacrificial summons,” I whispered.
Will ran his thumb across his name, and the ink smeared. I reached out and touched the wax. Still warm.
“From the desk of Her Most Serene Excellency Hyacinth of the House Wyrslaine, the Crown of Cynlira and What Else Remains,” Will read aloud, a flush speckling his face like watered-down blood on fresh snow. “Information has been laid before the Peers’ Court that Willoughby Chase of Felhollow in the South of Cynlira has engaged in fraud, larceny, and treason against the Crown and her great nation. He is summoned to Mouth-of-the-River-of-Gods to be held until he appears in court to answer for this information. Should his answers prove unsatisfactory, he shall be sacrificed for the good of this great nation.”
Beneath it was the signature of the Heir, Alistair Wyrslaine, in swirling blue ink and the date Will was set to be sacrificed—ten weeks from now.
“Treason?” Julian’s voice cracked.
Will shushed him, folded the letter shut, and cleared his throat. “This summons was obviously just written. What evidence is there of these charges?”
“Evidence is for the trial,” said the officer. “Chase is to be remanded in custody until then.”
“Willoughby Chase is a productive and beloved citizen of Cynlira backed by the court of peers and common council,” I said loudly. “Even if this hadn’t been written when you got to town, he could be trusted to appear for court. There’s no need for this threat of sacrifice.”
“We are not judges. We have orders, and we will follow them.” The captain glanced back at the soldiers under his command, and they squared their shoulders. “We have work to do, and you are wasting our time.”
“Hand him over to be killed for our Crown’s fun?” asked Old Ivy. “I don’t think so.”
Will slipped his hand from mine. Sweat gathered in the wrinkles of my palm, the terror of losing the only family I had settling over me. The sacrificial trials were a sham. Outlandish rumors about them haunted Cynlira, and the official statement from the court didn’t quell them. They started decades ago and occurred every few years and then once a year. Now once a month, the Crown sacrificed the guilty “in order to keep the Vile from returning.”
Even peers and councilors got sacrificed when they moved against the Crown.
“Orders are orders,” said the captain. “Any issues you have may be taken up in Mori.”
“Well, that’s horseshit,” shouted someone, and I peeked around Julian to see who. Kara, strong arms bare and bandaged from the fight this morning, leveled a carrot at the captain. “We’re supposed to let you take him with no evidence of wrongdoing and expect you to give him back when he’s proven innocent? When I can see the ink’s still wet from over here?”
“Yes,” said the captain. “You will, or we will take him by force.”
“Will you now?” asked Kara, snapping the carrot in half with her teeth.
One of the soldiers raised their rifle toward Kara. Next to me, Kara’s partner, Ines, stepped forward. I tugged them back.
“Our benefactor is eager to continue his journey,” said the captain, “so please know that we have no qualms about how we acquire Chase, so long as it is quickly.”
“Julian,” I whispered, “we can’t win this fight. Trust me?”
“Course.” He squeezed my hand, gaze fixed on his father. “Is there anything you can do? Anything at all?”
I swallowed and nodded. My noblewright flattened against my back, uncomfortable and out of the way. It wasn’t the only god in my veins.
Take Julian’s memory of his eleventh birthday, I prayed, tightening my grip on his arm so my vilewright would know what to do, and destroy these officers’ memories of coming here for Will Chase.
My vilewright tore away from me like a scab, and I gasped. A shudder racked Julian’s body. I looped one arm through his to hold him upright. A soldier turned to us.
Take my memory of Mother’s laugh that night before she died, and create a new memory in the minds of the officers. They came here to arrest the bandits, not Will.
My noblewright drifted to the officers. A glaze passed over their eyes, each of them blinking.
Dualwrought, my mother had called me with a stifled sob, like Her Excellency the Sundered Crown. I’d a noblewright who could create, a vilewright who could destroy, and so few memories of my mother. But Will was worth it. He would be family. He was as good as family.
The officer took a deep, steadying breath. “If only we had gotten here in time, those bandits wouldn’t have been a problem. We will keep our ears to the ground for word of any more bandits in the area.”
Every single face in Felhollow turned to me except for Will’s.
“We understand,” he said, hands clenching and unclenching at his side. “Your work is much appreciated.” And he bowed his head slightly to the man who’d been threatening to drag him to his death not five seconds ago.
Ines looked at me, their eyes wide at my untouched flesh. People were so unimaginative. They always expected sacrifices to be physical.
“Memories,” I whispered to them, “work just as well.”
I’d told no one I was vilewrought, not even Julian. The only other dualwrought alive was the Crown, and I knew what folks thought of her. I’d no desire to be her competition or her plaything, and I knew well what Julian thought of people with a vilewright. I wanted a home. They didn’t need to know.
Old Ivy whispered something to the folks next to her, and they whispered to the ones near them. The knowledge of what had happened—or at least what Old Ivy thought had happened—spread. They would think I had used my noblewright in some curious way, and Julian would only notice his missing memory if he thought on that day too hard. I didn’t worry. He wasn’t one for reminiscing.
My wrights returned, their presence little more than a breath against my skin. They always preferred to huddle at the back of my neck, but now they lingered over each shoulder like an invisible, intangible mantle. My vilewright let out an appreciative hum.
“Now,” said a new voice, “which one of you did that?”
A knife of a man stepped from the carriage. He wore a sharply pleated shirt of pure white silk with a red waistcoat and cravat beneath a black greatcoat, and a single red thread ran down his coat seams like a vicious drizzle. His black hair hung in a fishtail braid over one shoulder, feathery pieces framing his pale white face. The weight of his vilewright knocked the breath from my lungs.
Everyone but me sunk to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the dirt.
“Fascinating,” said the Heir to the Crown of Cynlira, the red-eyed vilewrought more feared than any army, Alistair Wyrslaine. He adjusted his scarlet glasses and pinned me with his bloody gaze. “You’re not the vilewrought girl I was looking for, but you’ll do.”