60

THE CITY WAS SIMULTANEOUSLY EXACTLY AS I KNEW IT—EACH shop and street and cobblestone familiar—and overturned completely. On a bright, sunny day that should have been bustling with street criers and market women and children playing hopscotch and the game of graces, the streets were silent. The pallor of war washed over deserted street carts and the broken glass of windows. Scorch marks and the remains of barricades marred the streets.

“We set those up right away, when the king declared a stay on the reforms,” Niko said, pointing to crude but effective barricades as we walked, “and we drove them out of the city, block by block.”

We rejoined Alba and several more of Niko’s crew in what had once been a butcher shop in the narrow storefronts near Fountain Square. The butcher’s blades were absent from the wall, but I felt sure they had been quite recently put to use. Most of the men in Niko’s retinue wore red caps; some of the women had their hair wrapped in red kerchiefs. There was no other uniform demarcating what I presumed were members of the Reformist army. Several of the nearby buildings were festooned with red banners. “We tried to take the king out as he left the city, but we missed our chance.”

Cold snaked through me. Niko hadn’t changed—still distant, still directed by goals too simple and direct to consider the king anything but an obstacle.

“We knew he went south,” I said.

“Royalist strongholds are down south. The only thing keeping us from taking the city completely is that the navy has the port.”

“Completely blockaded, then?” Alba said. A door served as a large table, with a hodgepodge of chairs drawn up to it, and Niko settled on a rickety stool.

“From the port side, yes.” Niko unfurled a map, drawn by hand on the back of a broadside. “The river is still open.”

“Good. We’ll find a way out of the city as soon as possible, likely by river.” Alba squinted at the poorly rendered map.

“Hold on there, sister.” Niko rolled up the map. “We’ll talk about when and if you’re leaving soon enough.”

If—of course. I shrank against the wall, fiddling with a torn edge of the smock. Niko was too calculating to save us just to be nice.

“How did you know we would be there? And that we would need help?” Better to start here, on neutral ground.

“Kristos promised you’d come. Said he’d be pulling into port in Hazelwhite on a Serafan vessel with you and others—but you didn’t show. So we kept an eye here, figure we’ll have to redirect you around the blockades, and instead we find a pair of nuns with an armed escort,” he said. “Good thing we were on the lookout or you’d not have made it long before the gallows.”

“For conspiracy against the king.” I nodded. I sat up a bit straighter. “Who’s in charge in the city? You alone, some committee?”

Niko smirked. “You don’t think I could be in charge?”

“I know full well you could be. I want to confirm who I’m talking to. Commander, dictator?”

His mouth twisted into a scowl. “You always were a snob,” he said. “I’m head of operations here. Of the Reformist army, if it has a head.”

Alba snorted. I shook my head slightly. It wasn’t wise to challenge him now.

“So why are we here?” I asked quietly.

Niko waved a hand. The others, in their linen frocks and work shirts and the unifying theme of the red cap, filed out.

“I figure, if you were on your way north, you had a reason to be heading that way. And with the Kvys?” He raked a hand through his thick black hair, disrupting beads of sweat on his forehead. “What were you planning?”

I pressed my lips together. “I was going to Kvyset with Alba. People keep trying to kill me,” I explained drily.

“Ah.” Niko snorted. “If it was just you, Sophie, I’d believe you could be that selfish. You certainly were last winter.” I forced back protests. “But Sastra-set Alba? She’s a devotee.”

“Then you know one another,” I confirmed.

“You know that I knew her cousin? Yes, you do,” he said with a glance at my strained expression. “He made the introductions via letter, and Divine Natures, but she was helpful.”

“Yes,” Alba said quickly. “We’ve discussed this already. I made my apologies to Sophie for the… unexpected turn of events last winter and my part in that.”

“Unexpected, yes,” Niko mused. There was a knowing glint in his eyes—perhaps not so unexpected. He had moved quickly last winter, and he moved quickly now, with the nimble ingenuity of the Galatine streets, the adaptability of the children of Pellian immigrants. “I cannot imagine that Sastra-set Alba agreed to anything that wasn’t of some long-term benefit to our great cause.”

“Sastra-set Alba,” I said deliberately, “is a true believer in the reforms and the rights of all. And so she wishes to offer me some protection as she is able.”

“Sastra-set Alba,” Niko replied, “can answer for herself.”

“It’s of no use keeping it from him, Sophie.” Alba sighed. My eyes widened. I didn’t want Niko to know, to use us for his aims. I didn’t want any of my power under his control. “I am returning to Kvyset to attempt to broach alliances with the Fenians.”

“Fenians?” Niko coughed. “They barely have a military.”

“Yes, but they have industry. Forgive my blunt observation, but you have a distinct lack of uniforms. I imagine it reflects a lack of arms and ammunition and all sorts of other necessities.” Niko’s mouth formed a hard line. “Kristos and I discussed this at length,” she added, maneuvering that piece on the board, just a nudge, just to remind him he wasn’t solitary in his leadership.

“And you need to go to Kvyset for that?”

“It would allow me to work with fewer… encumbrances than in a besieged city.”

“We’re not besieged.”

Alba folded her hands patiently. “Your port is cut off by an enemy navy. How long, do you think, until you are under siege? The Royalist army is gathering in the south. Your position is not strong.” The tilt of her head and faint tone of apology almost suggested a mother watching a fumbling child play at marbles.

Niko didn’t acknowledge the weaknesses of his position, like a dockworker refusing to admit that a handcart was too heavy for him, but he pounced on the opportunity Alba presented. “And you think you could secure us a navy? Cannon?”

“I don’t think I can. I know I can.”

Niko nodded. “Then we’ll get you to Kvyset.”

I waited. “I’ll go with Alba,” I said when no one spoke.

“Why does she possibly need you? You’re not worth much to the Fenians—I’m guessing her pull is mostly in the large coffers of the convent.”

“Sophie is a bit of a folk hero to the Kvys and the Fenians. I need her to smile and wave and play the part.” A weak reason, and not entirely true, but a reason.

“I can’t imagine I can do you much good here,” I added.

Niko watched me as though reevaluating a series of moves, assessing his judgment anew. “You proved that you have some use at Midwinter. It may have taken some convincing then, but you see now that we were right, don’t you?”

I inhaled, the scent of charred wood and dust on the breeze coating my nostrils. “Your prediction that this would end in violence was correct.” Niko replied with a silent, insouciant shrug.

“I didn’t say you were right,” I retorted. “I said your predictions came true, not that I agreed with your tactics or your ethics.”

“Ethics.” Niko flicked the rolled map. “You’re right, ethics aren’t my first concern when my comrades are dying in the streets fighting a nobility that won’t concede to the law. What does a novelty seamstress know about ethics, anyway?”

He still hated me. I was still the silk-wearing, ale-snubbing sister who refused to help those long months ago. I couldn’t blame him—here I was, unscathed in the wake of revolt and now in the face of civil war, even as his friends had lost their lives. I softened toward him, just a little. “I can manipulate the light and dark that underpin the universe. So yes, I have rules that I follow.” Did I still have those ethics? Had my view shifted to the pragmatism of my brother and Niko, putting my abilities in service to a political cause?

“And that, that’s why we need you,” he said, suddenly less distant. “Your friend—she’s right, we can only hold so long against a blockade of the harbor. If—when—the Royalists turn the focus of their army here, we’ll be caught in a pincer. And that’s after weeks, or months, of continued fighting here. We hold the city, but they attempt incursions nearly every day. Probably to keep us weakened for when they finally do make a big push.”

I swallowed. I didn’t want to reveal the full extent of our plan, not to Niko. I still didn’t trust him, didn’t know what he would do with the knowledge. “I promise that my work with Alba will give you what you need to fight properly,” I said instead.

“No, it won’t. Not like having you here to curse the enemy would.”

“Curse?” I shook my head. “Niko, back to that again, I—”

“Your rules be damned!” He slammed the table with his hand. “No more arguing about that now, it’s ridiculous! In the face of death, of annihilation of our cause, you would still debate ethics?”

“I can’t!” I cried. “I can’t just wind up and throw a curse at them. What, you want me to curse a bunch of clothes and hand them out, hope they’ll wear them?”

“No, that’s stupid, but—”

“Because that is what I do. The plan to even get a curse into the palace—do you have any idea the lengths Pyord went to to orchestrate that? The curse itself was the smallest part. The best chance I can give you is to go with Sastra-set Alba.”

“You go when I say you can go,” Niko shouted.

“I don’t come and go by your leave,” I countered.

“Here, you’d best. You may be legend among some of the Red Caps, but among others you’re traitor. Abandoned us when we needed you the most, run off to the safety of Serafe with your lover.”

“That’s not at all how it happened!”

“I know!” Niko shouted. “I direct an army, but I don’t control the rumors. Stories have lives of their own, and hearsay could give a rat for my marching orders.” He took a breath. “If I had any doubts, you’ve proven me wrong. You didn’t have to come back here. But you don’t leave without my say-so, for your own safety as well as our needs.”

“I cannot wait long, so you had best give your say-so swiftly,” I said. I had learned something as a consort to the prince—that speaking with confidence in one’s authority cost nothing and often had some effect.

“As soon as I can.” Sourness replaced the brief flash of empathy in his face. “Until then—you can make yourself useful and prove to this army you didn’t run at the first sign of trouble.” He pounded on the door, and a red-capped boy entered. “Take her to the warehouse, show her the workrooms.” He turned back to me. “Sister, we’ll arrange your passage.”

“I will not leave without Sophie,” Alba reiterated as the boy waited for me to follow him.

“Then you can stay with her,” Niko spat. “Of all the blights and bothers, I get stubborn women.”