The emergency muster sounded as I reached the edge of Major West. The bells clanged, ringing out over the sleeping city.
Had someone found Verje or the Acolyte? Or had the Sister at the Renewal Wards escaped from the cleansing chamber? Either way, the Order would be rushing to fortify Ceyrun’s defences. I kept my head down as I hurried along Swallow Road. That might make matters more difficult for me. I shouldn’t have spent so long talking to Asan.
The windows of the old house were dark. Dried-out weeds poked through the steps leading up to the front door, and mounds of sand marked where termites had started to burrow. The property looked deserted, and the sight of it caused a flicker of worry to stir inside my chest. I had assumed that no one would think to look for us here, not even Osan—it seemed like a safer location to regroup than Millie’s or Finn’s place. On the other hand, it was a long way from the Renewal Wards. Plenty of opportunities for them to run into trouble.
I glanced down the street in both directions, then quickly walked up to the door. But before I could try the handle, it swung open. Millie put a finger to her lips and ushered me inside.
The faint smell of lye lingered in the entrance, as if the house itself exhaled it. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. Millie shut the door behind me, and the key ground in the rusted lock.
“You took so long; I was worried,” she whispered. “Where were you?”
“I was talking to Commander Asan. Told her about Verje.”
“Eater, El, that seems awfully risky. She’s still the Head of Enforcement.”
“I didn’t mention your involvement,” I said, trying to keep the bite out of my voice. Daje’s words were all too fresh in my mind; I was oversensitive, trying to come to grips with Millie’s association to the woman who had murdered my supervisor. I would not be bitter; I would not hold it against her. And yet the faint voice at the back of my mind would not shut up either. What had existed between her and Lariel Sacor? For years, I had taken it for granted that Millie cared about me. That, in some way, our relationship was special. Its own category. Sure, she had other women in her life—she had Hanna—and occasionally I would get jealous and stupid when I saw them together, but it was fine. If Millie didn’t desire me, that was okay, because what we had still mattered.
But Sacor? Sacor was not Hanna; this was different. If Millie could be with someone who murdered Sisters, if she could overlook that, then … Then what else didn’t I know about her?
“Asan can be trusted,” I said, a little too forcefully. “Besides, it’s done now. Did you have any problems getting here?”
She shook her head. “No, we were fine. Come through to the basement, Finn’s already down there.”
The walls in the passage were bare, and the panelling stained with old mould. Millie had tried renting out the building, but the place had a bad reputation in the neighbourhood, and none of the tenants stuck around for long. People said it was haunted, that old man Vidar still lingered here and his dogs continued to whimper in the cellar at night. Which was a lot of nonsense, but even so it was strange how unhappiness seemed to cling to the building like a second skin. One set of stairs led up to the bedrooms on the second floor, a second down to the basement. From below, I could see a faint orange light.
“I expected it to be dustier,” I remarked. “When was the last time you had tenants?”
“Couple of months ago.” The stairs creaked under Millie’s feet. “They cleaned things up a bit.”
I kept one hand on the banister as I descended. A year before Sefin Vidar passed away, Millie’s grandmother had fallen down these stairs. She cracked her skull open and died.
At age twelve, Finn had fallen down these stairs too. He broke three fingers on his right hand, but suffered no other injuries—not a single scratch, not a bruise, nothing. Although he refused to talk about it, I knew that only a day earlier he had first—shyly—voiced the desire to study music.
An unhappy coincidence, of course. In public, Sefin Vidar knew how to smile and sweet-talk, how to make everything sound like it had been blown out of all proportion. Anyone who knew the first thing about the man would have seen through that act, but to the Order? He showed every sign of being a respectable citizen; he was charming and funny and reasonable. When he wanted to be.
As soon as my mother heard about Finn’s fingers, she had intervened. She made certain that his bones were set straight, and demanded that he and Millie be transferred to communal care. I had seldom seen her so angry, so coldly focussed. But it wasn’t enough. The Order wanted more evidence, and the case was eventually dropped by Judicial Affairs.
Kids trip. They fall down stairs.
For years after that, my mother made a habit of dropping by the Vidar residence unannounced. Her visits were always short, terse, to-the-point. She made it clear to Sefin that he was being watched. He was smart enough to fear her, because Finn never came to any kind of obvious physical harm again. Millie ran away when she turned fifteen.
What I never understood was why Sefin didn’t just hand his grandchildren over. Some kind of warped pride, perhaps, some sense of ownership. He had frightened me, this big, red-faced man with his low, rasping voice and fists knotted with blue veins. I hated the way that he loomed over my mother, and how quiet and small Finn became during those years.
Finn’s head brushed the ceiling now. He stood beside the rutted wooden dining table in the basement, arms folded, on edge, his jaw tight. A single lamp hung from the wall and lit the room in dim orange. When he tried to catch my eye, I pretended not to notice and turned my gaze to the floor. Cheap furniture crowded the small room, a moth-eaten mattress, a pine bench, a rusted stove. Next to an old chest of drawers was the door to the wine cellar. I avoided looking at that too.
“You said that you had no trouble getting here?” I asked, before either of them could speak. “Do you think anyone might have followed you?”
Millie cast a glance at her brother. “I doubt it. But what now? You heard the warning bells outside. Do we try to wait it out down here?”
I shook my head. “The Order’s going to tear the city apart looking for Verje’s killer; we need to get out of Ceyrun fast. The trouble is that they’ll have already secured the gates.”
“Can’t you just…” Millie made a pushing gesture. “Do what you did at the Renewal Wards?”
I smiled weakly. “Too conspicuous. Ideally, they shouldn’t even realise that we’ve left.”
Millie leaned against the table. The lamplight illuminated her face from the side, throwing her features into sharp relief. “So what are you thinking, then?”
The seed of an idea had been nagging at me all evening, like a stone caught inside my shoe. In truth, it had been planted far earlier, but the sound of the bells had brought it to the forefront of my mind.
“Do you remember the meat seller, on the night I went looking for Finn?” I asked.
Millie nodded.
“When I asked how her supplier was getting meat through the gates, she told me that he wasn’t using them. Which means there must be another way in and out of the city, one that the Order doesn’t know about.”
Millie chewed her lip. “There are people I could ask who’d be able to point me in the right direction. I’d have to go alone, though.”
“Ceyrun’s on high alert; it’s going to be chaos out there.”
“And yet I’ll get nowhere if you’re with me.”
“What if—”
“Don’t make me use my counsellor voice, El.”
I spluttered. “What?”
“I won’t be long. Just wait here, and I’ll see what I can find out.” She looked at Finn again, who shifted uncomfortably. “Besides, there’s probably a conversation you need to have.”
“Millie…”
She brushed my hand on her way past.
“Leave it to me,” she said.
Her footsteps were light and swift on the stairs. I slumped. She was right; I should trust her. It had been a long night, that was all. Too much happening far too quickly, too much that felt beyond my control. The front door creaked and then closed with a muffled click. And now it was just Finn and I, with nowhere to run and nothing to distract me.
I set my bag down on the bench. This moment had been inevitable.
“So,” I said heavily. “About the way I behaved earlier, that was … It was callous. I should have been kinder, after everything you’ve been through.”
“You’re hurt,” Finn murmured.
“What?”
“Your arm.”
I turned around, meeting his eyes for the first time. Although he looked so strange, his eyes were the same, blue and clear and sharp. But his hair. I’d always loved his hair—soft, messy, straw-coloured, the way it curled at the nape of his neck and around his ears. And it was all gone. I could not look at him without remembering the stake and the fire.
“It’s nothing serious,” I said.
“What happened?”
“I said it’s nothing serious. Doesn’t matter.” I sank down onto the bench. “It’s nothing at all next to … well. You know.”
He was still standing in the middle of the room, with the top of his head grazing the low ceiling. How could I have failed to notice that he was growing taller? How could I have refused to see the changes before now?
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
There, a faint smile. The way he was looking at me—with such open gentleness and worry, without accusation, without a trace of resentment—cut far more deeply than any rebuke.
“You say that all the time, you know.” He ran his fingers absently across his scalp. “Have you tried not blaming yourself for the things you can’t control?”
“But I could have controlled this.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “It’s my fault.”
“You did nothing. All along, I was the one who tested the limits, and you were the one who enforced the boundaries. We got unlucky, but if anyone was to blame, it was me.”
“No.”
The shadows under his eyes made him look sick.
“Please don’t do this,” he said softly. “I don’t want you to feel responsible.”
I balled my hands into fists. “I could have told you to leave me alone years ago. I knew this could happen, but I was too selfish to care.”
“It was my choice, El. And besides, I helped with the visions, didn’t I? That was important.”
By making me feel safe while I poisoned him. By caring for me while I ruined him.
“Stop it,” I said.
He looked down, and his voice dropped. “You were always so lonely, and you never admitted it. I wanted to be there for you. Wanted to make you smile, sometimes.”
“Stop,” I repeated. My blood pounded in my ears.
“Stop what?”
“I infected you. I did this to you.” Don’t you dare cry! “Why can’t you just hate me?”
He stood there, looking down at me with that stupid expression on his face, pale and sick and exhausted, and shook his head.
“I don’t know how,” he said.
It was suddenly all too much. I shrank, arms wrapped around my own shoulders, trying to stop myself from making a sound. Finn crossed the room in three strides and crouched in front of me.
“El, don’t do this,” he said. “Look, I’ve had time to get used to the idea.”
“You never said anything,” I choked.
“I tried. Couldn’t find the right time. At some point, I realised it might be easier if you never found out at all.”
“Don’t lie. I refused to listen to you.”
“I could have made you hear me, if I’d really wanted to. This was just … less painful.”
I shook my head. No, it wasn’t. Finn lifted one hand like he wanted to comfort me, but I flinched.
“This wasn’t your fault,” he said. “El, you have to believe me. It was never your fault.”
The kindness in his voice broke something inside me, and all the strength, all the rage and terror and grief that had kept me moving forward, kept me from facing the truth—was gone. I let go of my arms, dropping my hands to my lap. The undersides of my fingernails were scored with dried blood.
I needed my anger back. This emptiness gnawed right through me.
“I saw you,” I whispered. “At the execution.”
His reaction was close to imperceptible, but I noticed his jaw tighten.
“Commander Asan said you were unconscious.” I tasted ash. “But I saw you move. Every time I close my eyes, the memory returns to me. The way you looked back there.”
He touched my cheek. His skin felt like ice, like cold metal. I trembled.
“It was only a bad dream,” he said quietly. “I woke up in the Renewal Wards. Before that? Only flashes of memory.”
“I saw you.”
“And you can see me now too.” He placed a finger under my chin and drew my head up, made me look him in the eyes. “Just a bad dream. Nothing more.”
I made a small movement with my head, whether to move away or closer to him, I wasn’t sure. How could he feel so cold? I traced the familiar lines of his face with my eyes. Him. Not him. Frozen. Burning.
“I have to fix this,” I whispered.
For a fleeting moment, I saw longing in his eyes. A hope he could not quite crush, that maybe I could undo this, that he could still be saved. Then it died, and he gave a very small shrug.
“Getting me out of the Renewal Wards was enough,” he said.
I shook my head and gently pushed his hand away from me. At my touch, a hint of colour returned to his cheeks. He looked at the floor.
“I’ll find a way,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”
“You’ll only make things harder for both of us.”
“When I thought I’d lost you at the execution, it was … I can’t go through that all over again. Please, just trust me.”
“But this isn’t something we can stop.”
“I know it’s not reasonable, and I know I’m not being fair. Finn, I’m asking you to try, that’s all. Don’t give up yet.”
He looked pained.
“One step at a time.” I heard the pleading, desperate edge in my own voice. “We get out of the city, we find a place to hide, and then we work together to come up with a solution.”
He shook his head. “Of course I’ll try. What’s the alternative? But I won’t delude myself, and neither should you. If there’s a risk that I might hurt you or someone else—”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
Finn sighed and walked over to the table. He was only humouring me, I could tell. But I could not bring myself to be angry about it—any more than I could bring myself to accept that I would lose him again. He sat on the table, and for a long time he was quiet. I watched as his gaze drifted to the cellar door, expression inscrutable. Then he shivered and looked away.
“You were lying to Millie upstairs,” he said. “What did you tell Commander Asan?”
“You could hear our conversation?”
He nodded.
“I wasn’t really lying. I just wasn’t sure if you’d talked to her yet.” I hesitated. “About why you confessed to the Order.”
“Oh.” He winced. “About that—”
“I know you did it to protect Millie, but she should hear it from you first.”
He rubbed his forehead. “How did you work it out?”
“Reverend Verje told me. It was Lariel Sacor who betrayed you, wasn’t it?”
I could see him wavering over what to say; his shoulders bunched, and his jaw went tight. Then he breathed out.
“Everything,” he said softly. “Lariel told them everything. At the time, claiming responsibility seemed like the only way of fixing things.”
And they compulsed you into it. But he had probably realised that by now. The wound in my arm ached, and I dug my nails into my palms. He was very uncooperative, Verje taunted. She had been terrifyingly strong even without the Renewer’s power. The thought of her smiling as she wrapped her lace around Finn’s thoughts, breaking him, forcing him to confess, was enough to make my blood run cold.
And Celane would have been right beside her. Celane, whose compulses flowed smooth as silk, as light as breath.
“Was Lariel the same woman who killed Lucian?” I asked, trying to get the picture out of my head. “The night I was attacked?”
Finn nodded. “She couldn’t risk him talking to Enforcement.”
I swallowed. I knew we were both thinking about the way Lucian’s spine had snapped in two. The clean, precise crack ringing in the air.
“I don’t understand why she didn’t just use that weapon on me,” Finn muttered.
“If it was laceworked, the instrument might have been specifically tied to Lucian’s blood.”
If anything, Finn looked more uneasy. “You can do that?”
“Me? No. I wouldn’t even know where to start, wielding lace that complicated. But other Sisters”—I thought of the books in Celane’s study—“have more resources. I guess the rods were meant to be used as a last resort if anything went wrong. Lariel must have been instructed to silence her own people.”
Finn fidgeted, not meeting my eyes. When he spoke again, his voice came out strained.
“Until that night, I didn’t know Lariel was behind the killings,” he said.
“I know,” I replied, a little too quickly.
“I need you to understand that we would never have been complicit in that.” His tone grew more forceful. “Not me, not Millie. Never.”
“Finn, I know.” But a small, anxious part of me was reassured to have him say it aloud. I think he heard the relief in my voice; his mouth turned bitter, and he ran his hand over his scalp.
“I screwed up,” he muttered. “Should have told the Commander everything, but if she found out about the Resistance, I thought…” He made a frustrated sound. “I thought I could handle it all myself, as soon as I was released from custody. I was so stupid—I should have at least told Millie about Lariel, but I knew she would react badly. And when the Commander asked me if I knew who was responsible—”
“Finn.” I quickly put up my hand to stall him. “It’s fine. I’ve explained everything to Asan. She’s offered the Resistance protection if they help her track down Lariel.”
“What?” He looked baffled. “That’s why you were gone so long? That’s what you were doing?”
I nodded. “The Commander isn’t so bad. And she’s far more preoccupied with taking down the rogue Councilwomen than chasing after the Resistance.”
Finn shook his head in disbelief.
“You’re a miracle,” he said.
The way he said it, the way he was looking at me—my face warmed. I lowered my gaze.
“I’m not,” I said. “It’s only a chance, nothing is set in stone.”
“But it’s something. The Commander—”
Finn stopped abruptly. His expression clouded.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Millie’s back, that’s all.”
I had not heard anything, but a few seconds later, the front door creaked. Finn straightened.
“Don’t make her ask,” I said under my breath.
He grimaced. “Yeah. I’ll talk to her.”
I heard Millie’s feet on the stairs as she took them two at a time. I stood up when she reached the basement. A broad grin was spread over her face.
“Smugglers’ tunnels,” she said triumphantly. “Under the western wall. I know where to go.”