The first thing I do is burn the letter.
Akra loans me his lighter—a new one, armée green; I’d lost his old one on the ship. But as the paper goes up in a puff of flame and smoke, tears start in my eyes. I cannot unmake it. I cannot unsee it. And who else knows?
The rebels, of course. Someone will have told the king. And Cheeky . . . Tia. What about Leo?
Had he known what Legarde wanted before he’d asked me to stay?
Is that why he’d done it in the first place?
No. I know better. I flip the lighter shut and hand it back to my brother. “The girls you spoke to—they’re my friends, and Leo’s too. If they weren’t trying to help us, they would have burned that note with all the rest.”
“Fine,” Akra says. “Maybe your boy hadn’t seen it yet. Maybe he is negotiating in good faith. But do you really think the rebels will?”
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. Then again, no matter what the king might offer, nothing was more valuable than what Legarde had—not to me. We had to take his deal. Then I frown. “What about Maman? If we leave now, we’re just exchanging a hostage with Legarde for one with the rebels.”
“I can try to sneak her out of the sick house tonight,” Akra says. “We could all escape on the bird.”
“Not all the way to Aquitan. Not without food and water. And that’s assuming we don’t crash again.” I chew my lip. “Legarde is Le Roi Fou’s brother. And he has control of the capital . . . of the docks. Of the ships.”
Akra looks at me with a level eye. “You think he’ll give us passage and Papa too?”
“I can ask.”
“And how will you convince Leo to turn himself over to Legarde?”
My eyes widen. “I won’t!”
“Not even for Papa?” Akra folds his arms. “How else will Legarde give him over?”
“Because if he doesn’t, I’ll kill him.” The threat falls out of my mouth and buzzes in the air—unexpected, but when I say it aloud, I know it’s true. My heart beats in my ears—the rush of my blood, red and deadly.
Akra raises an eyebrow. Is he impressed, or is it mockery? But he doesn’t say, either way. “And how will we find the bird? Can you just . . . call it?”
“I don’t think so. She was bound when they brought her to the camp. We have to figure out where they put her. See how she’s guarded.”
“They took my gun,” Akra says. “I doubt I can get another. But maybe I can pick up a knife in the kitchens. That might be better, depending on how many guards there are. Quieter.”
I make a face. I don’t want to watch my brother kill again, but we may not have many options. “So we locate the bird and cut her free. Then we get Maman from the hôpital and escape?”
Akra shakes his head a little. “It’s got a lot of holes.”
“The alternative is walking back to Nokhor Khat on foot. And there are a lot of soldiers between here and there.”
“And rebels,” he says. “They’ll be looking for you once they know you’re gone.”
I chew my lip. Despite my words, I’m worried too—cautious, after how poorly my last plan had gone. But no other options present themselves. Beside me, Akra shifts his weight on the vine.
“Do you think your moitié will be suspicious when we don’t come back to camp?”
Annoyed, I turn to my brother. “Why do you call him that?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
His smile is bitter, dismissive. “I’ve done worse.”
“So have I,” I snap. “But the smaller the evil, the easier it is to correct.”
He tilts his head back, a strange expression in his eyes. “What have you been up to while I was gone, lailee?”
“I could ask you the same question,” I mutter, and for a while, we are quiet. The sounds of the jungle creep in. Souls glitter in the leaves around us, little embers. “Why did you shoot that man on the dock?”
My brother’s face goes smooth, impassive. “I had orders.”
“And the village you burned? That was just orders too?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain!”
“You can’t understand.” Akra clenches his jaw, the scar twisting like a snake. “You weren’t there, Jetta. You don’t know. They hang us out like targets, did you know that? The Aquitans. They toss us in harm’s way, they pit us against our own people. And the Chakrans don’t trust us either. Not that we can trust them, when any one of them could be part of the rebellion. You have to decide very quickly whether to kill or to die.”
“And you decided to kill,” I say, softer now.
“Do you wish I’d made the other choice?”
I wet my lips, thinking of my own choices. “No.”
“Neither do I.”
“Did you ever enjoy it?” I blurt out, the words falling from my mouth unbidden.
Now he turns his head, his eyes sharp. “The killing?”
“The power.”
“There’s no power in it,” he says, his lip curling. At my side, my fists clench as the memories play across the scrim of my mind. Dar Som, the rope around Jian’s neck . . . my anger that I hadn’t killed him when I’d had the chance. Is Akra lying, or am I more monstrous than I imagined? Either way, who I am to judge?
Sighing, I pick up the dirty uniform—I had carried it all this way, into the brush. I might as well get some use of it. Running my hands over the fabric, I search for a tear or a loose thread. A place to rip, to unravel. But my hands still at the crinkle of paper in the pocket: the little folded butterfly with the soul of the hummingbird. I pull it out, considering . . . but no. Best to use a soul that remembers Nokhor Khat as home.
So I tuck the butterfly down the front of my dress, inside the band of silk that covers my breasts. It ruins the lines of the fabric, but better ruined lines than lost souls.
Then I turn from the uniform and start searching the ground. Akra is watching me. “What are you doing?”
“I need to let Legarde know we’re coming. I want to make sure he keeps Papa well.” Finding a sharp stone takes some time, especially in the dark, but when I do, I use it to slice through the edge of the uniform sleeve, working the stone against the weave of the fabric until it starts to fray. Finally, there is a tear wide enough for me to rip the rest of the way down, leaving me with a square of fabric the size of a handkerchief.
Next, I use Akra’s lighter to burn a few leaves to ash. Once they’ve cooled, I press the soot into the fabric in roughly formed letters—just one word: TONIGHT.
Akra frowns at me as I fold the fabric lengthwise and knot it in the center. “How will you get it to him?”
“The same way he got his note to me,” I say. Then I grit my teeth and ball my fist and nick my knuckle with the stone. The cut stings, the blood wells—but Akra puts his hand on mine.
“Is this wise?” he says. “To let Legarde know what you can do?”
“I think the time for secrets is over,” I say. “Theodora saw us take wing on a bird with no feathers. She will have told her father.”
Akra only grunts. But a chill has settled over me that has nothing to do with the cold night air. What if Legarde wasn’t really after Leo? What if he only wants to put me back in prison, in a cell beside Le Trépas, forever in the dark?
But if I don’t go back, aren’t I dooming Papa to that same fate?
There is no clear path, but I have already chosen my route. And all around me, the souls are gathering. First the vana—but there are always some close by. The flies and worms, the mosquitoes and the gnats. Their souls swarm in glittering constellations around my head.
Next the arvana creep in. The spirit of a rat skitters down the liana vine; the soul of a songbird perches on a branch overhead. Still I wait, clenching and unclenching my fist, letting the blood run down my finger. The soul of a civet creeps through the underbrush, watching me with fiery eyes, and the spirit of an owl glides in on silent wings.
It takes some time, but I am patient, and soon enough, I see the one I’m waiting for—no, two of them, drifting from tree to tree from the direction of the camp kitchens: the souls of the messenger pigeons.
I call one close; she comes to rest on my hand. It’s the matter of a moment to put her soul into the rough body I have fashioned. “Go to Legarde,” I tell her, and with a rustle of her new cloth wings, she lifts into the air and flutters off through the night jungle.
Akra watches the message fly, his expression caught between fear and awe. “What are they like?” he says softly. “The souls?”
Pressing my thumb to the wound on my finger, I gaze at the bright spirits around me—dancing, glowing, lighting the night. All the burning longing of the dead to live again. “Beautiful,” I say. “And terrible too.”
Akra only nods; he has no more questions for me. Instead, he settles next to me on the loop of liana. As the souls start to scatter again, living mosquitoes whine past my ears, so I take Cheeky’s towel and tuck it around my knees. Nearby, the river burbles over the stones. A nightjar starts her trilling call; in the brush, something small rustles. I listen for an alarm to be raised, for someone to come after us. For footsteps in the dark. But no one seems to notice that we haven’t come back.
From the camp, very distantly, I hear the sound of music, the distant strains of the violin. And is that Tia’s voice? Smoke and brass. I close my eyes and remember her song, the night at La Perl. J’errais avec les fous . . .
As the song rises and falls, I relax against my brother’s shoulder. Only when he stirs do I realize I’ve dozed off. The music has faded, the fires burned low. The silvery moon has leaped into the indigo shell of the sky. I run a hand over my face. “Is it time?”
“It is.”
Slowly we make our way upriver, past the baths, through the sweet breath of the honeysuckle, back to the sleeping camp. And as we pass through the quiet village, I can already see the bird, bound and laid out close to the water, out of reach of the stray embers of the campfires.
A makeshift tent has been erected above her—two smaller tents, lapped over an open framework of bamboo. Enough to keep the rain from her wings. And sitting on a barrel beside the tent, a single guard. I recognize him even at a distance, and it’s only another moment before he recognizes me.
Leo stands slowly as we approach. The moonlight catches the gleam of his pistol, still at his waist—and for a moment, I want to run, but where would we go? He doesn’t shout or draw his gun. He only waits for us, as though we were expected. So I step close enough to whisper. “Cheeky told you about the note,” I guess, and he nods.
“As soon as I got back. It took me half a minute to realize what you’d choose. So I told the king you were tired tonight. And I volunteered to guard the bird.”
“Why would you help us?” Akra says, his tone mocking. “Do you think you’re in love?”
“It matters less what I think than what I do.”
“Give her your gun, then,” Akra says. “Jetta, you guard him while I get Maman.”
“I already spoke to her,” Leo says mildly. “If you’re going to the temple, she’s not coming with you. She’d only be a liability. Besides, there won’t be room for all of us in the bird.”
My brother’s eyebrows shoot upward. “You’re coming?”
“Didn’t I tell you I’d help you? And maybe in return, you can help them.” Leo jerks his chin toward the camp and I whirl, suddenly afraid, but there is no one creeping up on us in the night. Nothing but the rows of huts and tents, the rebels sleeping alongside the villagers, and Cheeky and Tia somewhere among them. “Come back to the camp after your meeting. The king will still value your help,” he says softly. Then his tone turns grim. “Your father can heal here. He might need a good docteur.”
“Why would you turn yourself in to Legarde?” Akra turns to me. “I don’t trust him, Jetta. I do not trust a word he says.”
“You don’t have to,” I say quietly. “We only have to have no other options.”
“There is always another option, Jetta.” Akra’s eyes gleam, but I shake my head. Still, I am curious, and I turn to Leo now.
“What do you think Legarde wants with you?”
“I don’t know, but I want to find out.” Then he gives me a heartbreaking smile. “Do you know, that note is the first time he’s ever called me his son?” Turning toward the bird, he pulls a knife from his belt and slices through the bindings on her wings. Together, we lead her out into the bright moonlight.
The rebels have made some repairs—rudimentary, to be sure, little more than a strip of silk holding a bamboo splint to the broken wing. She is still battered, still broken, but it is enough. Souls are so strong. And when we climb aboard, the skeletal wings of the hawk tear at the air. Slowly, awkwardly, we lift into the darkness above the rebel camp—back toward Nokhor Khat, back toward Papa. For a moment I feel weightless. Free. Like the boundless sky goes on forever and so could we. But when we rise above the tree line, I see it—a blot of smoke above the lip of the caldera, billowing gray in the moonlight, lit from beneath with the dim glow of the dying flames.
“Nokhor Khat is burning,” I call back over the wind.
“Not surprising,” Akra says, his voice grim. His knuckles are white as he grips the frame of the bird. “Tensions were high even before Le Rêve.”
“Were the rebels behind the riots too?” I ask, turning to Leo—remembering my suspicions over their timing. “The attack on the docks?”
But Leo shakes his head. “That was all Pique’s fault.”
At this, Akra looks up. Disgust cuts through the fear on his face. “Pique? He’s not in Nokhor Khat.”
“No. But he’s rampaging through the north, exacting revenge. People flee south, leaving everything behind, only to see their king drinking champagne with Aquitans.”
I frown. I don’t know Pique, not the way Leo and Akra seem to. But I know he’s the man behind the death in Dar Som. What could make a man seek that kind of vengeance? “What happened to him?”
Both Akra and I look at Leo, but he raises an eyebrow. “The rebellion.”
“They hurt him? Tortured him? What?”
“Nothing like that.” Leo sighs. “But he’s been trying to pacify Chakrana since before I was born. And the rebels are difficult to quell. For men like him, that’s enough.”
As we struggle upward over the ridge, the pall of smoke widens—it hangs in a gauzy curtain over most of the city, silvered by the first hint of dawn. From the gates to the docks, coals glow in the ruins of gutted buildings. It looks like the capital has fallen ill, covered in ashy pocks like an infection. Through the haze, souls gleam like scattered embers in the streets. I am grateful for the darkness; at least we do not see the fallen bodies of the dead.
But even through the wisps and wafting clouds of smoke, the temple rises proud and solid, resolute and implacable as death itself—a stepped building of black stone, flanked by two long, low platforms: the rooftops of the cells below.
“Where shall we land?” I say, but Leo points. Before the pavilion, a wash of light covers the wide stone stairs leading up to the arched door. At first I mistake it for a cluster of souls, but even as they fill the streets, the spirits avoid Hell’s Court. No . . . as we near the temple, the glow resolves into a row of lanterns, set on the plaza and along the steps, as if to lead us inside. There is a gaunt man waiting at the top of the stair. For a moment, I am sure it is the King of Death, and a cold premonition seizes me, but then I see the light gleaming on the epaulets, and on the gold mane of his hair. Legarde got my note.
The hawk banks toward the temple on a draft of shifting smoke. The air is gritty, sour; I breathe through my teeth as I scan the territory. I expected Legarde to bring soldiers, but he is alone. Of course, Papa is not there either. Where has Legarde hidden him? As we drop nearer to the temple, Akra leans in. “Don’t land on the plaza.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s where he wants you to land. Set down on the roof, there,” he says, pointing to the flat stone platform atop the cells. “We’ll have high ground and a little bit of cover. Last chance to shoot him,” Akra adds, turning to Leo.
Leo only laughs, his voice bitter. “There was never a chance of that.”
“Give me your gun and I’ll do it,” Akra says, but Leo shakes his head.
“I haven’t come all this way to leave without an answer.”
“Then give me your knife,” I murmur. “To protect myself.”
Without a word, Leo hands it over, and I slip it through the shawl I’ve belted around my waist. Guiding the bird around again, we bank toward the rooftop platform.
It is a long, narrow causeway surrounded by a low parapet carved with leering demons—a little cover, as Akra had said, but not much. Still, it is better than being on the plaza below, surrounded by the overgrown tangle of the garden. Anyone could be hiding in those shadows. A chill skitters across my skin; something tells me to turn around, to pull up into the wide sky, to glide back to the jungle, back to the camp. I push that voice down into the pit of my stomach and bury it in bile. I will not leave without Papa. There is no turning back now.
As the bird settles awkwardly to the roof, I whisper to her spirit—be still, be still. She folds her broken wings and I slide down to the platform. My bare feet are warm against the cold stone. The boys follow—Akra, stiff and proud, his posture concealing his healing ribs, and Leo, who cocks his head and shifts his weight to one foot, so casual. Acting.
I walk to the parapet, looking down on the plaza below, flanked by the two of them. Legarde has come to the base of the narrow stairs, tilting his head up to look at me.
“Sava, Jetta,” the general calls, his voice cutting through the smoky wind. “Quite an entrance. I see you have a flare for the dramatic.”
He smiles, but there is no joy in it; nor is there any in my short, mocking bow. But in the back of my mind, I wonder . . . why he would greet me before his own son? “Bring me my father, Legarde, and I’ll be just as happy to make an exit.”
“He’s inside,” Legarde says, gesturing back toward the arched doorway of the temple prison, where the altar sits at the feet of the old stone god. Is Papa still in the cell, waiting in the dark? I clench my fists and start down the stair, but Akra puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Bring him out, general!” he shouts, and Legarde raises an eyebrow.
“My erstwhile capitaine. I suppose a salute is not forthcoming. Very well. I’ll bring him out in a moment. But first I’d like to make you another offer.”
“You haven’t kept the first yet!”
The general spreads his hands with a look that’s almost chagrined—I would buy it if he weren’t the man who led La Victoire. “If you want to go now, I won’t stop you. Maybe you and your parents can swim to Aquitan.”
That brings me up short. I swallow, an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Does your offer include a ship, general?”
“Something better,” he says, reaching into his pocket. I tense, and Akra pulls me back from the edge of the parapet—but rather than a gun, Legarde pulls out a crystal bottle, the size of a fist . . . of a heart. The lamplight filters through the cloudy liquid inside. “With this, you don’t need a ship at all.”
It takes me a moment to understand, but when I do, I wet my lips. I am not thirsty, but suddenly my mouth is so dry. “A cure.”
“A treatment,” he corrects me. “Something my daughter discovered. As you’ve seen, she’s rather inventive. And a year ago, she began to look into madness.”
Air hisses through Leo’s teeth. His mother died a year ago. I take a breath, still looking at the glass. Now I understand the line in Theodora’s letter. But all I can manage is “Oh?”
“She sent to Aquitan for samples of the water from Les Chanceux. Apparently the healing properties come from the minerals dissolved in it.” The general tilts the bottle so the water catches the light; it glows like an opal in his hand. “A mineral she has since extracted from a well near the volcano. There’s enough in here for a month. Take it. It’s for you.”
The gleam of the bottle is like a beacon to me—I take a step down on the stair before Akra pulls me back. “A month?” he calls. “And then?”
“That, of course, is her choice,” Legarde says. “But Theodora’s workshop is here. In the capital.”
My mind is racing—this is not how I thought this meeting would go. To find what I’d been looking for all this time, in the last place I ever wanted to be. “You want me to stay,” I say. “Why?”
“You’d prefer to go back to the jungle?” he says, answering my question with a question. “Wouldn’t you hate to leave Leo behind?”
Blood rushes to my face. Is that why Legarde wanted Leo here?
“What about me?” Akra says. “Am I to be hanged as a deserter?”
“You’re not a deserter if you come back,” Legarde says. Then his eyes narrow. “There was a woman in the cell with you. Your mother. She’s welcome too, of course. We can house all of you here. In the capital. In safety.”
Safety. Isn’t that what I wanted? And a cure . . . or at least a treatment. Is this the moment it all comes together—at last, sefondre? But nothing on this road has ever come free. “And in return?”
Legarde nods a little, as though satisfied by my question. “I’m glad to see you’re not a fool. Let me tell you, I’ve spent half my life in your country, but there are still things I don’t understand. One thing I do know, though, is that when your kings are weak, your people turn to the gods. You must have heard the stories about Le Trépas. Or do you call him Kuzhujan?”
My scar prickles, my skin crawls; how bold the general is, to name the monster crouching just beneath our feet. “I don’t call him anything,” I say, but Legarde gives me a small smile.
“Not even Father?”
The word is like a punch to the gut—spoken aloud, reality crystallizes. “I don’t know what you mean,” I lie, but Legarde smiles.
“I’m no fool either, Jetta. I know about your bloodline. Your mother. Her escape. But unlike Le Trépas, you bring life.” He raises an eyebrow, nodding to the bamboo bird. “Your people could use that in a leader.”
Another twist. This one leaves me reeling. This, from the man who had the sapphires pulled from the old god’s eyes? The man who drove the monks into hiding, who forbade the old ways so that no one could take up where Le Trépas left off? “A leader?” I scoff. “Me? After everything that happened with him?”
Legarde’s expression turns contemplative; he hefts the flask, once, twice, as though weighing it. “With your madness under control, I think the outcome could be very different.”
My breath catches at his words—they sound so much like the truth. Of course Le Trépas and I must share more than the ability to bind the dead. My malheur has left a long shadow behind me, all death and disaster. Have I seen my future in the stories of his own tyranny? Could I save more than just myself with a treatment? Is it the madness that makes us both monstrous . . . or only our actions?
While I hesitate, Akra calls down. “Are you offering Jetta the crown?”
The general raises an eyebrow. “Why shouldn’t she have it? The Boy King has vanished and the city is burning. I need someone to quell the rebellion before the whole country goes up in flames. I know you love the public eye,” he adds, turning to me. “What better place for you than a throne?”
I try to imagine it then—a kingdom for a stage—but I cannot suspend my disbelief. This isn’t my role; I do not know the lines. Then again, how much power did the Boy King ever have? Legarde would never let me rule.
The thought is a strange comfort. Could I trade my independence for a treatment? For a life of luxury, for my family’s safety, for a life here in my country? Maybe even a life that could include Leo . . .
Put that way, it doesn’t seem so terrible. I squeeze Leo’s hand; it’s warm in mine. But what else would I be trading away—and who is the man I am bargaining with? Legarde, the Shepherd, who flies a red wolf on his banner. The leader of the armée. The one who gave the orders. The one who would have sent me to the questioneur.
My stomach twists at the next thought. How did Legarde put together a past I only just discovered? What would make Papa tell? Fear creeps up my spine like a spider. “I want to see my father first.”
Legarde hesitates. “You must remember, he was shot on the ship. He’s still weak, and I can’t carry him alone.”
Akra digs his hand into my shoulder, holding me back from the stairs. “You’re not going down there,” he says, but beside me, Leo laughs a little.
“Is that why you asked for me, Legarde? So I could act as your pack mule?”
Legarde’s face is neutral, carefully so. “Send the boy down then,” he calls—to me, not to Leo—and my heart breaks a little. “We can make the exchange.”
But Akra reaches out with his other hand, grabbing Leo’s jacket before he starts down the stairs. “Papa’s dead,” he whispers. “He doesn’t want an exchange. He wants a new hostage.”
The words are like a coal in my throat—dropping through me, melting my core away. But I know Akra’s right. How had Legarde known Leo would serve the purpose? Had it been so clear when the general had asked me where Leo had gone? When I had lied to protect him?
“Back to the bird,” I whisper, but the general must have seen my look. As we turn from the stairs, he raises a hand toward the heavens.
At his signal, the last few stars arc out of the dawning sky. It takes me a moment to realize they are bottle bombs—glass jars full of oil, stoppered with burning rags—thrown by soldiers clinging to the roof.
“Shoot him!” Akra shouts as the glass smashes against the stone. Oil spills from burst bottles. Glittering shards prick my skin. The flame engulfs the dry bamboo of the bird in a rush of heat. In a panic, the hawk takes wing, writhing in the air, a blazing star as she spirals through the sky. But she cannot outfly the fire. Her body breaks apart in falling embers scattered across the dark expanse of the temple grounds, and like a comet, her soul spirals free into the blackness of the sky.
But the oily blaze has covered the platform too, and more bombs are raining down. The fire forces us to the stairs, toward the plaza, and as we stumble across the stone, at last Leo draws his gun. But Legarde only turns, disappearing inside the arched doorway of the darkened temple.
“Let’s get out of here,” Akra says, tugging us toward the overgrown garden, but then, from the shadows of the tangled vines and the old stone statues, soldiers appear.
They line the edge of the plaza, a dozen men, their rifles pointed at the three of us. Together they step closer, and closer still. “They won’t shoot me,” I say, though it’s more a prayer than a fact. I shove the boys behind me, trying to stay between them and the soldiers as they scramble up the stairs. “Get inside! Get Legarde!”
The fire has spread all the way down the stone steps, and the line of soldiers keeps me from fleeing across the gardens. They advance slowly, herding me toward the temple. And what is waiting inside? Will the boys be able to find the general—to subdue him? To take him hostage and get us out of here? Or did he have more soldiers stationed in the temple?
Desperately I cast around for something that can help us—an errant soul, or a vengeful one—but nothing comes close to the mouth of Hell’s Court. Against my pounding heart, the little paper butterfly rustles, as though the soul inside would flee if she could.
My foot falters on the stairs. Perhaps I should let her.
I pull the paper from my dress and toss it onto the oily flames. As the page blackens and burns, the little soul bursts free, hovering. In an instant, I have Leo’s knife in my hand. A drop of blood on the blade, then two on the hilt as I draw the symbol of life on the worn ivory handle. In a flash of bright light, the blade begins to hum in my palm. I open my hand and let her fly.
Quicker than an assassin, she darts through the circle of soldiers, dipping toward each as though they were flowers. Red blossoms bloom from the pale skin of their throats. Blood . . . so much blood—black in the light of the fire, smelling of copper and iron and heat. My own courses through my veins as I watch the stains spread on the pavers. The soldiers fall like fruit left to rot on the vine.
Sickened, I turn from the sight, stumbling up the steps, but the knife buzzes back toward me, circling like a pet waiting for praise. Reluctantly I hold out my hand, and she settles there, sticky with gore. I wrap my cringing fingers around the bloody hilt as I step into the darkness of the temple.
“Leo? Akra?” I falter when the stench hits me—too familiar: the rancid scent of death and despair. I hear it too—the screaming man, the prisoners gibbering. There is the black altar, there the stone god; he looms over me, his empty lamp in his hands. The jailer is gone. Instead, another sight, also one I’ve seen before.
Three prisoners lined up kneeling—and Legarde, holding the gun. At first the scene is so like that night outside La Perl that my mind turns around, trying to convince me that nothing has happened since, that I can go down a hall behind me and find the girls in the theater, and Leo at the bar. But Leo is here, alongside my brother . . . and Papa.
He is slumped in a heap on the floor, and my heart stops when I see him, but he is alive. Broken, bleeding, but alive. His hands are bound, his face and hands swollen and bruised, his eyes lost and hollow. Blood and saliva run from his mouth; his swollen lips are stretched around a grimy cloth tied between his teeth. But he’s alive. He’s alive, he’s alive.
“I can kill at least one of them before you cut my throat,” Legarde says, nodding at the knife in my hand. “Would you like to choose, or let it be a surprise?”
“Let it be Leo,” Akra says through his teeth. There is fresh blood on his shoulder, a gunshot wound—and his face is pale, his mouth twisted in pain. “The bastard wouldn’t take the shot when he could.”
“Let them all go,” I say, too loudly. “Please.”
“Drop the knife first,” Legarde says, and I do. It clatters on the stone, rattling a little. Be still.
“Will you let them go now?”
“Kick it over here,” he says, and I obey without a word. The blade slides across the stone. The general puts his boot on it, and his tone changes, to one of nearly professional curiosity. “How many of the men outside survived?”
I don’t want to answer—I don’t want to make him angry. But my silence is enough. He raises his eyebrows.
“I see,” he murmurs. “The ones from the roof will be down shortly. They’ll take you to the palace.”
Now it’s my turn to be surprised—I hadn’t expected him to keep that part of the deal. Is he more reasonable than I’d hoped? Could I bargain with the wolf who styled himself a shepherd? “And my family?” I say, almost breathless with hope.
Legarde looks down at the men before him, lined up in a row. “Three hostages is too many. I only need one.” My heart sinks in my chest as he nudges Papa with his foot. “This one’s too far gone, of course. But I only expected you to bring the boy. Your brother was an unexpected bonus. After all, romance can burn hot and flame out.”
He turns the gun from Leo, to Akra, then back, aiming at the center of his forehead, just below the dark curl of his hair. My voice falters. “You wouldn’t kill your own son.”
“Of course not.” Legarde cocks the pistol. The sound . . . so soft. But it rings out like a drum strike. “But my son isn’t here.”
I have no response, but Akra does: a gob of spittle that lands wetly on Legarde’s boot. Wrinkling his nose, the general swings the gun back to Akra, but in the split second when his aim is off, my brother explodes upward, driving his injured shoulder into Legarde’s stomach.
The general grunts, staggering back, leaving the knife there on the stone as he brings up his gun. Thunder cracks . . . lightning flashes . . . someone screams “No!”
My voice? The shot was so close, so loud; it rings in my ears like a bell tolling. Akra falls to one knee, his hand over his chest. His face is sallow; blood pours through his fingers. As he slumps forward, the knife springs into my hand; when Legarde reaches out for me, I bury the blade up under his ribs.
His eyes go wide. He coughs. Blood flows like a spring down my arm—mists on my face, a hot spray; I am bathed in it but not cleansed. I stagger as he slumps against me, trying to lift the gun again, but I slap it out of his hand.
It clatters to the stone. Legarde slides down beside it. His spirit leaves his body in a rush of golden light—but it is not the only soul standing before the altar of the King of Death.
Akra, my brother. His body is pale on the cold floor, but his spirit is bright as a fire beside it. There is blood on the stone. Blood on the bodies. Blood on my hands. So little of it mine. But enough.
Death is too good for Legarde.
With a snarl, I reach out and take the general’s soul by the throat. There. The statue. I slap my other hand on its black surface, marking it in red, and push the general’s spirit into the stone. The akela writhes, twisting, but my rage is too great, my blood too strong. My own wild laughter rings in the vault of the temple as his soul slides struggling into the bleak darkness that will last a thousand years, but not half so long as mine.