The Liar's Key

“What, Garyus?” A girl’s voice on my right.

“The city looks so small from up here, like I could hold it in the palm of my hand,” he says.

“It looks that way to me when I’m down there in the middle of it.”

I turn and it’s the Red Queen, just a girl, no more than eleven. Jaw set, staring out into the sun-bright distance.

Garyus seems unconcerned. “The world though, sister . . . now that looks big wherever you stand.”

“I could conquer it,” says Alica, still staring out across the palace walls into the streets of Vermillion. “I could lead my armies from one end to the other.”

“When you’re older,” says Garyus with the superiority of a big brother, “you’ll understand how the world works. You don’t conquer it with the sword. Armies are the last thing you use, when the result is no longer at issue. Money is the lifeblood of Empire—”

“The empire is broken. It was broken before we were born. And merchants grub after gold—wars are won by soldiers. You’re just obsessed with money because Father gave you those hundred crowns and you bred them into more. You only care because—”

“Because I was born broken, yes.” Garyus’s smile seems genuine. “Broken like the empire. Even so, I’m correct. Money is the lifeblood of Empire, and of each part of it, and of any kingdom, or nation where there exists sufficient industry to arm and equip a military of consequence. Money is the blood of nations and a person who understands that, who controls that, controls the future. Let the blood out of any country and it will collapse soon enough.”

Both of them turn and look back into the room. I turn too, blinded for a moment by the change from the brightness of the day.

“I’m right. Tell her I’m right, ——.” Garyus speaks a name but it slides past me as if it is deliberately evading my ears.

It’s Alica who replies though. “He’s not right. Wars decide, and when I’m queen I’ll lead my armies to Vyene and remake the empire.” Her scowl reminds me of the expression she will wear when she gazes out across Czar Keljon’s forces from the walls of Ameroth, less than ten years from this day.

I can see who Grandmother and Great-uncle Garyus are addressing now. A pale girl, painfully slim, hair lank and colourless, of similar age to Garyus. She’s not looking at them—she’s looking at me. Her eyes are startling, one green, one blue, both unreal shades that seem to have been taken from some alien place.

“Don’t be so sure you’ll be queen, little sister,” Garyus says, his tone light but hurt behind his smile. “When Father sees what I’ve made of his investment in me he’ll—”

“He just gave you the money to give you something to do up here,” Alica says, her scowl half-frown now as though the hard truth doesn’t taste as good on her tongue as she thought it might.

“Father knows that a king needs to rule his economy as much as his people . . .” Garyus trails off and looks toward his twin. “I could be king . . .”

The Silent Sister gives him an unreadable look, those strange eyes fixing him for the longest time. At last she gives a slight shake of her head and looks away. Garyus’s face stiffens in disappointment. He’s almost handsome beneath the deformity of his brow.

“I will be king.” He returns his stare to the city beyond the window. “You don’t see everything!”

The three of them stand in silence in the dimness of that tower room where only the shape of the window, sun-blazed upon the floor, seems alive. Something nags at me, somewhere I should be, something I should be doing.

“Wake up.”

I look around to see which of them said it, but they’re all three bound in their own thoughts.

“Wake up.”

I remember the dark street, the dead things creeping, the witch lying in the road.

“Wake. UP!”

I tried to wake, willing my eyes wide, trying with every ounce of my determination to spit the blood from my mouth and shake off the chains of Grandmother’s memories.

“Wake.” I opened my eyes and looked up at Hennan. “Up.” We both closed our mouths on the word. Panic had me on my feet in moments, reeling from one side of the alley to the other, reaching for the wall of a house to support me. Half of me still felt as though it were in that tower room. “How long?”

“Ages!” Hennan looked up at me, face dirty and etched with worry. He’d rescued the lantern from my tumble, though it looked pretty battered.