MY MOTHER ALWAYS TOLD ME that if we prayed to the gods, they would protect us from harm. Houzzah, god of fire, would keep us warm. Suta, goddess of water, would surround our island and protect us. Ozam, god of air, would keep us healthy. Glaidi, goddess of earth, would keep us fed. There were a dozen other minor gods and goddesses of everything from beauty to animals, though I’ve forgotten most of their names by now.
But I also remember how when the Kalovaxians came, we both prayed and prayed and prayed and it didn’t matter. I didn’t believe they would kill her, because the gods would never allow it. She would be queen until old age took her—it was her due. Even when the blood spilled from her neck and her hand grew slack around mine, I still didn’t believe it. I thought my mother was immortal even after the light left her eyes.
Afterward, I wept. Then I raged, not just against the Kalovaxians but against my gods as well, because they had let my mother die when they should have protected her. The Kalovaxians forced me to replace them with their gods—similar in domains, but more vengeful, less forgiving—but it didn’t matter one way or another. That part of me, the part that believed, had broken.
I try praying now as I lie in bed and wait for midnight. I pray desperately and hopelessly, to all the gods I remember from either religion. Mine feel more like ghosts now, echoes of ancestors I met once but remember more from stories than memories.
I never let a word pass my lips. In the silence, my Shadows’ presence is even heavier. Heresy is a death offense, and I’m sure they would fight one another for the chance to tell the Kaiser, if only so that they could finally be rid of what must be a truly terrible job. They aren’t even supposed to talk to one another, though they break that rule often. I usually fall asleep to them whispering.
Now the room is silent for the first time in my memory. They’re supposed to sleep in shifts, and that is one rule I know they always follow, because all three of them snore horribly and I only ever hear one at a time.
One snore erupts from the northern wall, so deep it almost feels like the floor shakes.
If it’s North’s turn to sleep, East and South usually snicker at his snore, but they don’t now. I close my eyes and listen, trying to strip away North’s snore to hear anything underneath.
And there it is—a whimper of a snore from East, like a mewling puppy.
The Kaiser will be furious if he finds out both of them are sleeping. He doesn’t like to take chances, and my Shadows, like most Kalovaxians, are too terrified of him to risk his wrath.
If only South is watching me tonight, there must be something I can do. One Shadow is easier to mislead than two, though not by much. It’s still one dedicated and deadly man whose entire job revolves around watching every move I make.
But then I hear it: a third snore, this one raspy and light, easy to mistake for a particularly riotous wind pouring through the cracked window.
The realization floods me with joy that’s all too quickly replaced by dread. What are the chances that on the same night Blaise appears and arranges a meeting, my Shadows are all asleep for the first time in ten years? Much lower than the chances that I’m walking into a trap. Felicie comes to mind again and I can see the Kaiser’s angry, red face and the whip in his hand.
This time, the punishment will be worse.
But if it isn’t a trap, if Blaise is really waiting in the kitchen cellar and he was in league with Ampelio, how can I not go?
When the moon is high in the sky and I’m sure most everyone is asleep, I throw my quilt off and slip from the safety of my bed. There is still no sound from beyond the walls, so I inch closer to one of the holes, my heart pounding in my chest.
The snores are unmistakable now from each of the holes. The Shadows are all well and truly asleep. It’s possible, of course, that they all ate and drank too much at the banquet and fell into a deep sleep, but I don’t believe in coincidences. The thought that I’m walking into another one of the Kaiser’s traps paralyzes me for a moment, but I push on. I cannot be a coward anymore.
The icy stone floor feels like needles on the soles of my feet as I tiptoe across it, but my steps are quieter without shoes. Barefoot, I make my way to the door and pause with my hand on the doorknob. It would be so easy, I think, to crawl back into my bed, to banish thoughts of Blaise and Ampelio and my mother to the back of my mind for good. I could bury it all deep inside. I could refrain from angering the Kaiser and he would continue to keep me alive.
But I think of the blood staining my dress, my hands. Of Ampelio.
I suck in a deep breath and force myself to turn the doorknob and push the door open just wide enough to slip through out into the hall. The doors to the Shadows’ rooms are all closed, but there are wine goblets left on the floor outside them. Some kind soul must have brought them drinks from the banquet. Or maybe not so kind, depending on what else was in the wine.
Clever, Blaise. I stifle a smile before realizing that for the first time in ages, no one is watching me. I let myself really smile. For a moment, I think of them asleep in their tiny rooms, and the temptation to spy on them for once passes over me, but I can’t risk waking them.
The smile stays fixed on my face as I continue down the hall. The cellar is in the west wing of the palace, beneath the main kitchens, so I need to turn left. Or is it to the right? In the dim light from torches lining the walls, I can’t be sure of anything. All it will take is one wrong turn, one wrong corridor, one person where they aren’t supposed to be. The thought almost sends me running back for my bed, but I know it’s only a slower death that awaits me there.
I have to make a choice. I have to trust myself. I go left.
The sounds of late-night revelers travel up the grand staircase and down the halls to me—music and drunken laughter, shouts of glee at Astrea’s expense. A toast is raised to the Ash Princess, and they make lewd jokes I’ve heard so often they roll off my back like water. The easiest path to the kitchens leads right past them, down the stairs and just around a corner—a terrifying prospect, considering their current state—but there is a reason Blaise designated the kitchen cellar, and it isn’t only because it’s dark and deserted at this time of night. It’s because of the tunnels.
When we were children, before the siege, Blaise was determined to explore all the passages hidden within the castle, drawing up dozens of scrawled maps that only he could read. And since his mother and mine were close friends and always together, he was often forced to let me tag along. I discovered them as well. We didn’t come close to finding all of them, but in the year or so we spent looking, we found dozens. Including one that leads from the east wing of the palace to the kitchen cellar.
It’s the kind of memory I thought long lost, like most of my memories before the siege, but seeing Ampelio today and then Blaise has them all coming back to me.
Still, it would be only too easy to miss the entrance after so many years. The darkness doesn’t help and I didn’t dare bring a candle. The voices of the revelers are moving now, getting closer, but they head down another passageway, away from me, and I let out a sigh of relief.
When I come to what I am almost positive is the right hallway, I reach out and trail my fingers along the wall. Ten years ago, the stone was at eye level, so now it should be about waist height. How can it be possible that I’ve grown so much, when it feels like yesterday that I watched my mother die?
But then, it was also another lifetime.
I’ve nearly given up finding it when I run my hand over a stone that juts out slightly from the rest.
Like Guardian Alexis’s nose, Blaise had said with a snicker when we’d first found it. Guardian Alexis was an Air Guardian who had a nose that arched like a bow ready to snap and who liked to tell jokes I didn’t understand. He must be dead now.
I twist the stone once clockwise, twice counterclockwise, before giving the wall a firm shove with my shoulder. It takes a few more shoves before a hidden door hinges open, but that’s a good thing. It means no one has used this tunnel in quite some time. With one last look back to make sure I’m not being followed, I step inside and push the door closed behind me.
The tunnel is narrow and dark but I press forward, feeling along the dust-draped walls to find my way. I should have brought a candle. And shoes. No one has been in this tunnel for a decade, and the stones that make up the walls and ground are coated in dirt and dust that cling to my hands and the soles of my feet.
I walk and walk and the path twists on longer than I remember, curling in ways that make me certain I’m going in circles. Every so often, muffled voices leak through the stones, and though I know their owners can’t know I’m here, I hold my breath as I pass. One way or another, I’m sure now that this will end in my death, but it doesn’t matter. Even if all this is for nothing and I am killed for it, even if it is a trap, I’m doing the only thing I can.
Finally my foot touches wood and I stop. I drop to a crouch and sweep away the dust and dirt on the door I know is beneath me as best I can, feeling around for the cold metal handle. It appears under my hand and I turn it only to find it rusted shut. I have to throw all my body weight against it to turn it a quarter of the way. I turn it again and again, until my arms burn, and the door inches open wide enough for me to slip through.
“Hello?” I whisper into the darkness below.
If I remember correctly, it’s a ten-foot drop to the stone floor of the cellar, and with my bare feet I can’t possibly make it without help.
The sound of shuffling footsteps moving closer.
“Are you alone?” he whispers up to me in Astrean. It takes a few seconds for the words to register.
I have to translate my response in my mind before I say it, hating myself as I do. Even my thoughts are Kalovaxian now.
“Are you?” I ask.
“No, I thought I’d bring a few guards and the Kaiser along.”
I freeze, though I’m fairly sure he’s joking. He must hear my hesitance, because he sighs impatiently.
“I’m alone. Jump and I’ll catch you.”
“I’m not six years old anymore, Blaise. I’m a good deal heavier,” I warn.
“And I’m a good deal stronger,” he answers. “Five years in the Earth Mine will do that.”
I can’t manage a reply. Five years enslaved in a mine, five years that close to the raw power of the earth goddess, Glaidi. No wonder he looked so haunted. My decade in the palace has been a nightmare, but it doesn’t compare to even half that time in a place like that. Once, those mines were holy places, but I can’t help but feel the gods abandoned us during the siege.
“You were in the mines?” I whisper, though I don’t know why I’m surprised. Most Astreans were sent to the mines. But if Blaise was there for five years and didn’t go mad, he’s stronger than the boy I remember him being. I doubt he can say the same of me.
“Yes,” he says. “Now hurry up and jump, Theo. We don’t have much time.”
Theo.
Theodosia.
I ignore the nagging urge to turn back, and I slide through the hole legs first. For less than a second, I fall freely before Blaise’s arms come under me, one beneath my knees and the other at my back. He sets me down immediately.
It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, but as they do, his face comes into focus. Unlike in the banquet hall, I can truly look at him now without any consequences. His face is long, the way his father’s was, but with dark green eyes he inherited from his mother. There is nothing on his bones but hard muscle and ashen olive skin. A long, pale scar cuts from his left temple to the corner of his mouth, and I shudder to imagine what could have caused it. He always dwarfed me by a few inches, but now I have to look up to catch his eyes—there’s nearly a foot of difference between us, never mind the broadness of his shoulders.
“Ampelio is dead,” I tell him when I finally form words.
The muscle in his jaw jumps and his eyes dart away from me. “I know,” he says. “I heard you killed him.”
The bite in his voice makes my breath hitch.
“He asked me to,” I say quietly. “He knew if I didn’t, the Kaiser would have had someone else do it and then my own life would have been forfeit as well. Now the Kaiser believes I am loyal to him above my own people.”
“Are you?” he asks. His eyes are locked on mine, searching them for the truth.
“Of course not,” I say, but my voice wavers. It’s the truth, I know it is, but just saying it is enough for me to remember the Theyn’s whip biting into my skin, the Kaiser’s cruel eyes on me, reveling in my pain every time he so much as suspected my loyalty to him wasn’t bound in iron.
Blaise stares at me for a long moment, sizing me up. Even before he speaks, I know I’ve been found wanting.
“Who are you?” he asks me.
The question is a wasp sting.
“You’re the one who wanted to meet me here, who risked both of our lives in the process. Who are you?” I reply.
He doesn’t flinch, instead keeping his gaze trained on me in a way that feels like he’s reading me down to my bones.
“I’m the one who’s going to get you out of here.”
He says it so gravely, but it sends a wave of relief through me. I’ve been waiting for a decade to hear those words, for a glimpse of freedom. I never thought it would come like this. But shiny as this new hope is, I can’t bring myself to trust it.
“Why now?” I ask him.
His eyes finally drop from mine. “I promised Ampelio that if anything happened to him, I would do whatever it took to save you.”
My chest feels hollow. “You were working with him,” I say. I had already figured as much, but hearing him say his name still hurts.
Blaise nods. “Ever since he rescued me from the Earth Mine three years ago,” he says.
That hurts worse. I know that Blaise’s life in the mine was much more painful than my life here is. Still, while I was waiting for Ampelio to save me, he saved Blaise instead, and I can’t deny the way that digs under my skin.
“What happened to the serving girl at the banquet?” I ask, ignoring the feeling and focusing on something else. “Is she…”
I can’t say the words, but I don’t need to. He shakes his head, though his eyes are still far away. “Marina is…a favorite of the guards. They won’t kill her. It’s why she volunteered. She’ll meet us on the ship.”
“The ship?” I ask.
“Dragonsbane’s ship,” he says, naming the best known of the Astrean pirates. His actions are responsible for more than a few of the scars on my back. Blaise must see my confusion, because he sighs. “It’s hidden about a mile up the coast from here, in a cove just past the forest of cypress trees.”
I have a vague idea of the area he’s talking about, though I haven’t left the capital since the siege. I can see the tops of the tall cypresses from Cress’s window. Still, I don’t want to let myself believe what he’s saying until he says the words.
“We’re getting you out. Tonight,” he says, and everything in me uncoils.
Out. Tonight. I didn’t allow myself to think about that possibility when I came down here; didn’t allow myself even a glimmer of hope that tonight would end with me being free from the Kaiser’s hold. But now I do. Freedom is close enough to touch, but the thought terrifies me as much as it excites me. I’ve been close to freedom before, after all, and it hurts so much when it’s yanked away again.
“Then what?” I ask him, unable to keep giddiness from leaking into my voice. I can’t help it. The idea of freedom is working its way through me, and even though I feel like it can be yanked away as quickly as it was offered, it’s hope, and it’s more real than anything I’ve felt in a decade.
“There are countries that have taken in Astrean refugees,” he tells me, counting them off on his fingers. “Etralia, Sta’crivero, Timmoree. We’ll go to one of those, make a new life there. The Kaiser will never find you.”
The hope flooding my veins sputters. It doesn’t die, but it twists into something new and unexpected. In all my fantasies of being rescued, I never saw it going like this. I thought of Ampelio coming to me with anger and armies and a plan to retake Astrea. I hate living under the Kaiser’s thumb, but this palace is my home. I was born here, and I always imagined fighting to retake my mother’s throne and sending the Kalovaxians back to the desolate wasteland of their home country.
I took my first steps here. The thought of leaving my home behind is what I’ve wanted for ten years, but the idea of never coming back? That feels like a punch to the gut.
“You want to run?” I ask quietly.
Blaise flinches at the last word. He was raised in this palace, too, after all. Leaving it behind can’t be easy for him either, but he doesn’t back down. “This has never been a fight we could win, Theo. With Ampelio, there was a chance, but now…All the Guardians are dead. The forces Ampelio managed to gather scattered after he was captured, and they weren’t many to begin with. Maybe a thousand.”
“A thousand?” I repeat, my stomach sinking. I am shocked. “There are a hundred thousand Astreans.”
His eyes fall away from mine, looking instead at the stone floors. “There were a hundred thousand,” he corrects, grimacing. “The last numbers I heard put us closer to twenty.”
Twenty thousand. How is that possible? The siege took many lives, but could it have been so many? We are a mere fraction of what we were.
“Of those twenty thousand,” Blaise continues, ignoring my shock, “half are in the mines and unable to escape.”
That I know. The mines were heavily guarded before the Air Mine riot last week; I’m sure the Kaiser doubled the number of guards there since.
“But if you escaped, there must be a way,” I point out.
“I had Ampelio. We don’t,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate. “Of the other ten thousand, Dragonsbane smuggled about four thousand to other countries, which leaves six thousand in Astrea—maybe three thousand here in the capital. None of them have ever fought a day in their lives. Many are children who have never lived in a world not run by the Kaiser. They’ve never raised a weapon. One thousand were willing to try.”
I barely hear him. While I played the Kaiser’s games, eighty thousand of my people died. Every time the whip bit into my skin and I cursed my country and the people trying to save it, my people were slaughtered. While I’ve danced and gossiped with Cress, they went mad in the mines. While I’ve feasted at the table of my enemy, they starved.
The blood of eighty thousand people is on my hands. The thought turns me numb. Soon I will mourn them, and once I start I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop, but I can’t do it now. I force myself to think instead about the twenty thousand people who are still alive, people who have been waiting for ten years for someone to save them, just like me.
The time has come for little birds to fly, Ampelio said before he told me to kill him, to end his life to save my own. He can’t save us anymore, but someone has to.
“There are ten thousand in the mines,” I say when I can speak again. The words come out hoarse and desperate. “Ten thousand strong, furious Astreans who would be happy to fight, after everything they’ve endured.”
“And the Kaiser knows that, which is why the mines are even better guarded than the capital,” Blaise says, shaking his head. “It’s impossible.”
Impossible. The word ruffles me and I ignore it.
“But the thousand you mentioned,” I say. “We can get them back, can’t we? If we work together.”
He hesitates before shaking his head. “By the end of the week, every Astrean in the country will know that you were the one who killed Ampelio. They’ll have a hard time trusting you after that.”
The idea sickens me, but I’m sure the Kaiser anticipated that very response when he ordered me to kill Ampelio. Another way to cut me off from my people, by making them hate me as much as they hate him.
“We’ll explain it to them. They know the Kaiser by now, they know his games. We can change their minds,” I say, hoping it’s true.
“Even if we can, it won’t be enough. It’s still one thousand civilians against one hundred times as many trained Kalovaxian soldiers.”
I bite my bottom lip. “And Dragonsbane?” I press. “If he’s on our side, we can fight. He must have made allies in his travels, he must know people who can help.” Dragonsbane has been a burr in the Kaiser’s boot since the siege, attacking his ships, sinking several fortunes in Spiritgems he meant to sell, smuggling weapons to Astrean rebels.
But Blaise looks unconvinced. “Dragonsbane’s loyalty is to Dragonsbane.” He says it like he’s quoting words he’s heard too many times. “We’re on the same side now, but it’s best not to place too much faith there. I know it isn’t what you want to hear—it isn’t what I want to say either—but any hope of revolution died with Ampelio, and there wasn’t much hope to begin with. All we can do now is leave, Theo. I’m sorry.”
I’ve been dreaming of freedom every day since the siege, waiting and waiting and waiting for just this moment, when someone would take me as far away from this place as possible. I can have a new life on some faraway shore under an open sky, no Shadows watching, no having to worry about every word I say, every flicker of my expression. I would never have to see the Kaiser again, never feel the whip bite into my back, never have to bow at his feet. I would never again have to wonder if this would be the day he would finally break me beyond repair.
Freedom is close enough to touch. I can walk away and never look back.
But as soon as I think it, I know it isn’t true.
Ampelio spent the last decade trying to save Astrea because it was our home. Because there were people—like Blaise—who needed him. Because he swore oaths to the gods to protect Astrea and its magic at any cost. His blood is on my hands now, and though I know it was unavoidable, I still took a hero from a world with precious few of them.
Eighty thousand people. It’s an unfathomable number. Eighty thousand mothers, fathers, children. Eighty thousand warriors and artists and farmers and merchants and teachers. Eighty thousand unmarked graves. Eighty thousand of my people who died waiting for someone to save them.
“I think I’d like to stay,” I tell him quietly.
Blaise turns to me, dumbfounded. “What?”
“I appreciate all the trouble you’ve gone to, really I do—”
“I don’t know what that monster did to you, Theo, what lies he’s spun, but you aren’t safe here. I was there tonight when he had you on display like a trophy. It’s only going to get worse.”
How it could be worse I can’t begin to fathom. I won’t think about it. It’ll only weaken my already tentative resolve.
“We don’t have their numbers, Blaise. You’re right: if we come at him on an even field, we lose and the rebellion Ampelio gave his life for will have been for nothing. But if I stay, I can get information. I can find weaknesses, figure out their plans. I can give us a chance to take our country back.”
For a moment, he almost looks like the boy I knew. The boy I chased and clung to, no matter how he tried to get rid of me.
“You can’t tell me I’m wrong,” I say. “I’m your best shot.”
He shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. You think we haven’t had spies before? We’ve had dozens, and he always finds them. And don’t take this the wrong way, but they were a lot more stable than you are.”
“I’m fine,” I protest, though we both know it’s a lie.
He watches me for a moment, searching my face for any sign of hesitation he can use against me. I don’t give it to him.
“Who are you?” he asks.
It’s such a simple question, but I falter. We both know it’s a test, and one I cannot fail. I swallow, forcing myself to meet his eyes.
“My name is Theo—”
The name catches in my throat and I am a child again, cowering on the cold stone floor while the Kaiser and the Theyn stand over me.
“Who are you?” the Kaiser asks calmly.
But every time I tell him, the whip cracks against my skin and I scream. It goes on for hours. I don’t know what they want from me, I keep telling them the truth. I keep telling them my name is Theodosia Eirene Houzzara. My name is Theodosia. My name is Theo.
Until I don’t. I tell them I am no one.
That is when they stop. That is when the Kaiser crouches next to me with a kind smile and places a finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him. That is when he tells me I am a good girl and gives me a new name like it’s a present. And I am grateful to him for it.
Warm hands grip my shoulders, jerking me back and forth. When I open my eyes, Blaise’s face is inches from mine, eyes dark and harder than I remember them.
“Your name is Theodosia,” he tells me. “Say it.”
I lift my hand to touch his cheek, tracing his scar. He flinches.
“You used to have such a lovely smile,” I tell him. My voice breaks. “Your mother said it would get you into trouble one day.”
He drops his hands as if my skin burned him, but he still watches me like I’m a savage animal. Like I could attack him at any moment. I wrap my arms around my stomach and lean back against the wall.
“What happened to her?” I ask, quietly.
I don’t think he hears me at first. He turns his face away, swallows hard.
“Killed in the siege,” he says after a moment. “She tried to stand between the Kalovaxians and your mother.”
Of course she did. Our mothers were friends from the cradle, “closer than blood,” they used to say. I called her Auntie. Gruesome as it is, it would have been quick at least. For that, I’m thankful.
My legs give out and I sink to the dirty ground.
“And your father?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “The Kalovaxians have experience conquering countries. They knew to kill the Guardians and warriors first,” he tells me. “Ampelio was the last one.”
“I tried to make it painless,” I murmur. “It was the least I could do. He was already in so much pain, though….I don’t know if it helped.”
Blaise nods, but doesn’t say any more. Instead, he sinks to the ground next to me, crosses his legs, and suddenly it almost feels like we’re children again at our lessons, waiting for our teachers to make sense of the world around us. But none of our world makes sense.
“Theodosia,” he says again. “You need to say it.”
I swallow as the shadows close in again. But I can’t let them overtake me. Not now.
“I am Th…Theodosia Eirene Houzzara,” I tell him. “And I am my people’s only hope.”
For a moment, he stares at me. He’s going to say no and I’m not even sure he’s wrong to.
Instead, he lets out a long, pained exhale and tears his gaze away. He suddenly looks much older than seventeen. He looks like a man who has seen too much of the world. “What kind of information?” he asks finally.
My smile feels brittle. “They aren’t infallible, no matter what the Kaiser likes to believe. The riot last month, in the Air Mine?”
He looks away from me. “The one that killed a hundred Astreans and injured more than twice that?” he asks.
“Instigated by an earthquake, of all things. The Astreans saw their opportunity to revolt and they took it. The Kaiser said Ampelio caused it, but he was a Fire Guardian, not Earth. Of course, the Kaiser doesn’t rely on logic or facts. He said Ampelio caused it, and that’s good enough for the Kalovaxians,” I say. “Besides, it killed nearly as many Kalovaxians,” I add.
His thick eyebrows dart up. “I didn’t hear that.”
“The Kaiser must have kept it quiet. He wouldn’t want anyone to know how much damage a group of Astrean rebels could do. You know the Theyn?”
Blaise’s face darkens and he gives a grunt of acknowledgment.
“His daughter thinks of me as a friend, and she has loose lips,” I say, though guilt ties my stomach into knots as I say it. Cress is my friend, but she’s also the Theyn’s daughter. It’s easiest to think of them as two separate people.
“I’m surprised they allow her around you, then,” he remarks.
I shake my head. “I’m just a broken girl to them, a bleeding trophy from another land they’ve conquered,” I say. “They don’t see me as a threat.”
He frowns. “And the Kaiser? Do you have anything on him?”
“It’s difficult,” I admit. “He’s careful to appear more god than human. Even the Kalovaxians are too frightened of his wrath to risk gossiping, at least not where they can be overheard.”
“And the Prinz?” he presses.
The Prinz. Søren, he asked me to call him. I hear him tell me the names of the Astreans he killed on his tenth birthday again, though I’m sure there have been many more killings since then. He can hardly remember all their names, can he?
I push the thought aside and shrug. “I don’t know him well; he’s been training at sea for the last five years. He’s a warrior, and a good one from what I’ve heard,” I say, thinking more about our conversation at the banquet, how he followed me after Ampelio’s execution to make sure I was all right when no one else thought twice about me. “But he has a weakness for heroism. I suppose it traces back to wanting to protect his mother. The Kaiser doesn’t seem particularly attached to him, even as an heir. I think he’s intimidated by him. As I said, the Kalovaxians don’t love the Kaiser, they fear him. I’m sure many of them are waiting for the day the Prinz replaces him.”
Blaise’s expression is guarded, but I can see his mind working. “Have you heard anything about berserkers?”
The word is strange, though it’s certainly Kalovaxian. “Berserkers?” I repeat. “I don’t think so, no.”
“It’s a kind of weapon,” he explains. “There have been…whispers about them, but no one’s been able to discover what they do firsthand. Or at least survive to report on it.”
“The Theyn’s daughter might know something,” I say, desperation leaking into my voice. I need to stay here, I need to be useful, I need to do something. “I can try to find out more.”
He gives a loud exhale, leaning his head back against the wall. He’s pretending to consider it, but I know I have him. I’m not offering much, but he has no other options.
“I’ll have to find a way to stay in contact,” he says finally.
Relief floods through me, and I can’t help but laugh. “You certainly can’t drug my Shadows again.”
He looks surprised that I figured it out, but shrugs. “They’ll think they got carried away at the banquet, and they definitely won’t want the Kaiser to find out about it.”
“The Kaiser finds out about everything,” I tell him. “This time, the Shadows might take the fall, but if there’s a pattern—even a hint of a pattern—he’ll find a way to blame me for it.”
He thinks for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“I might have an idea, but I’ll need some help first,” he says. “It might be a few days. I’ll find you—don’t risk coming looking for me. In the meantime, see what you can do about the Prinz.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He looks me over, sizing me up again, but this time in a different way, one I can’t quite put my finger on. “You said he likes the idea of being a hero,” he says, a grim smile pulling at his mouth. “Aren’t you a maiden in need of rescuing?”
I can’t help but laugh. “I’m hardly of any interest to him. The Kaiser would never allow it.”
“And spoiled prinzes always want things they can’t have,” he says. “You notice a lot, but did you notice the way he looked at you?”
I think of the way he watched me at the banquet, how he asked if I was all right, but the idea still seems ridiculous.
“The same way he looked at anyone, I’d imagine. With an expression carved from stone and frost behind his eyes.”
“That wasn’t how it appeared tonight,” he says. “The Prinz could be a priceless source of information.”
The idea of Prinz Søren having feelings for anyone is laughable. I doubt there’s a heart in his chest at all. Still, I can’t help but think of how he asked me to call him by his name.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say.
Blaise rests a hand on my shoulder. His skin is warm, despite the chilly cellar. This close, I can see his father in him, in the fullness of his mouth and the square shape of his jaw. But there is so much anger in him, more anger than our parents ever had to know. It should frighten me, but it doesn’t. I understand it.
“One month,” he tells me after a moment. “In one month, we leave, no matter what.”
One month more under the Kaiser’s thumb seems like an eternity. But I also know that it isn’t nearly enough time to turn the tide; it isn’t enough time to do much of anything. But it’ll have to be.
“One month,” I agree.
Blaise hesitates for a moment, looking like he wants to say more. “These people destroyed our lives, Theo,” he says finally, his voice breaking over my name.
I step toward him. “That is a debt we will repay,” I promise.
The words themselves don’t shock me as much as the vehemence behind them. I don’t sound like myself, even to my own ears. Or at least, I don’t sound like Thora. But when Blaise’s eyes soften and he pulls me into an embrace, I wonder if I’m starting to sound like Theodosia.
It’s been so long since anyone besides Cress has touched me like this, with genuine love and comfort. I almost want to pull away, but he smells like Astrea. He feels like home.