38

“WHAT NOW?” I SAID, STILL SHAKING. “THEY’LL BELIEVE—OH, sweet hell, Theodor, back home they’ll believe we abandoned them!”

“There’s nothing to stop us, as soon as he’s gone, from hiring our own ship,” Theodor said firmly. He shoved his chair away from the desk and it fell with a sharp crack.

“There is,” I said, fishing Merhaven’s letter from my pocket. “He’s hired—I don’t know this word in Serafan, but some assassins. If we show up in the ports, they’ll kill us. Or, rather, me.”

“Dirty old shark,” Theodor said, dropping to the floor next to me. “We’ll find a way.” He rocked back on his heels. “We never could have anticipated this,” he said, though whether to console himself or mollify me, I wasn’t sure.

It didn’t matter. The flood of anger that had been suppressed under the terror of Merhaven’s pistol pointed at my head surged forward. “We could have,” I said, the words bitter as they spilled out, “and I did. And I said we couldn’t trust the nobility to be held in check by something as fragile as a law.”

“I was supposed to consider treason a suitable response to losing a vote in the council?” Theodor nearly shouted. “To assume insurrection as a logical outcome?”

“Yes!” I twisted my skirts in my fists, wanting to wring some sense into Theodor. “Yes. They’ve never been humbled, not like this. They’ve never shared their authority.”

“But to turn against their own country’s laws—what’s a country without laws? They’re raised with that sense of duty, never to turn their backs on their country—”

“How blind are you?” I shouted. “You were counting on some arcane sense of honor preventing them from doing what they’ve always done—take what they want. They’ll tidy it up with rhetoric about another manufactured version of honor—duty to their country, to the ‘true’ Galitha.” I swallowed the thick sour taste of this truth. “Their honor has always been a convenient excuse for what benefits them.”

“Not,” Theodor said, “all of them.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled anger. “No, not you. Not your brothers or Viola or Annette—I know. But you still can’t look past that, beyond what you wanted so desperately to be true.”

“Then the nobility—all of us, me included, are just scavengers taking from the rest of the country? Always have been, always will be.”

“I didn’t say that.” I stopped. “No, I won’t apologize. You know damn well that you and plenty of others have been trying to rectify the injustices Galitha is built on. I don’t need to coddle you on that point. But do you see—do you finally see—that what the nobles grant, the nobles can take away?”

Theodor’s hands shook. “You want me to tell you that you were right? Fine. You were right. Does that feel better?”

“Of course not! But do you understand now?”

He slumped on the floor next to me. “If I didn’t already, I’m afraid that the lesson will be administered far more harshly by what we find back in Galitha.”

“It’s not too late,” I said. “We know that the people are far more determined than Merhaven and his allies believe. They won’t give in without a long fight.”

“And we’ll join them, somehow.” Theodor’s hand grazed his coat, and his fingers found the family crest pinned to the left side. Then his hand fell away. Joining the fight against the nobles meant joining a fight against his father. “First we have to figure out a way out of here.”

“Do you know how to pick a lock?” I asked.

“Sadly, no, lock picking wasn’t part of my education.” He stood up. “Shit. This is—someone will eventually find us.”

We both started as a sharp rap on the door echoed through the room. “Have you out in a moment.”

“Who’s—”

“Alba,” I answered. “The Kvys nun.”

“Of course.” He swept a few loose tendrils of hair behind his ears. “The Kvys nun. Of course the Kvys nun is picking our lock.”

“I’ll explain later.”

The lock clicked and the door opened. Alba slid a bent hairpin under her veil. “No, I will.” She paused. “I’ll explain to him while you pack a few necessities. I’m taking you to your brother—Creator knows you aren’t safe here.”

“Not on your life you’re taking her somewhere else—her brother?” Theodor asked, slowly comprehending what Alba had said. “Her brother is here?”

“Where else, the Fenian coal mines?”

“And we have to make haste, to the harbor, to stop the ship—”

“They’ll be gone before you reach port,” Alba countered. She turned to me. “Just a few necessities. What you can fit in your pockets.”

The space around me seemed to constrict and then I met Theodor’s eyes, finding some anchor there. He was still lost, sifting through his broken trust, searching for meaning in the shattered pieces of the past months’ work, in the fragments of the system he thought he’d understood. I reached out, offering him the same foundation I held firm to. “We still have each other. We still have friends who are loyal to us and the cause. And we have the Galatine people, ready and able to fight for themselves.”

He wavered a moment, and then nodded, once, nearly imperceptible. “Pack your things,” he said quietly. I dashed into my room and shoved a few necessities—what little coin I had on hand, a comb and hair pomade and hairpins, tooth powder, my sewing kit, spare stockings—into my pockets. My cotton gown was practical enough, and there certainly wasn’t room for a change of clothing. I heard Alba’s calm, commanding voice through the open doorway. There was still a wrapped packet in my pocket, too—Corvin’s kerchief. I hesitated, then tucked my comb and hairpins into the packet. I needed luck enough to bend my own rule; after all, I hadn’t deliberately made it for myself.

“Now we go,” Alba said when I returned. “Prince Theodor will stay here, to allow Merhaven’s Serafan allies to believe, for now, that everything is going to plan. He’ll join us later.”

“No, I don’t want to separate,” I argued. I saw my anchor in Theodor’s steady eyes, and I knew he saw his in mine. “We can’t,” I added, taking his hand.

“She’s right.” Theodor pulled me close, his face buried in my hair. I relaxed slightly, under the spell of his familiar scent and heavy hands on my shoulders. “If we go on as Merhaven’s plans dictated, his allies here will believe the charade. As long as we don’t try to leave, we ought to be safe. So I won’t leave, and you’re merely doing as you’ve done all along—touring the city. If I go running off with you, I put you in danger.” He lowered his voice so that Alba couldn’t hear. “Remember—the Serafans have as much reason to want you dead as Merhaven. They don’t want their secret exposed.” He pulled away, swallowing hard. “So we play this game for now and I’ll find you as soon as I can.”

My throat was nearly pinched shut by suppressed tears, but I managed to agree.

“Let’s go.” Alba’s decisive yet patient command gave me direction—toward the door, down the long hallway, through the colonnade, and into this unexpected and unwelcome detour.

We turned up one of the wide avenues that formed the main grid of Isildi’s center. I was surprised to recognize the university quarter—but of course, if there was a place my brother could have been expected to settle on in Isildi it was the university. He had all but vowed to find somewhere to study when he had left Galitha, and the large and remarkably egalitarian Serafan university was one of the few places I might have expected to find him. We passed the imposing structures that housed the libraries and archives, lecture halls, and theaters, and entered a shabby but clean street populated with low-eaved bookstores and wineshops. Alba steered me toward the crumbling doorway of a bar. I couldn’t read the name on the sign swinging overhead, but the sigil—a dark arch punctuated with candles—was recognizable. The Grotto.

The place was empty, though it took me a moment in the dark room to realize that. A single barmaid with her dark hair bound in an emerald-green wrap noted our entrance. She simply nodded in greeting to Alba and then stared at me, eyes widening, as though recognizing something she’d only heard about. She slipped behind the bar, her lithe figure disappearing behind ceramic carafes.

“He’s in here,” Alba said quietly. “Your brother.”