Chapter 10
Ducking into every suspicious alley we saw turned out to be more fun than I was expecting.
I didn’t think for a second that we would actually find the Shrouded Mage lurking down any of them.
Privately I thought he’d ended his killing spree for good, taking the exit provided by his copycat.
It galled me to think he might go free as a consequence, but I could only be glad for the continued absence of any new victims.
But despite the lack of any real danger, Zak and I crept around like intelligencers on a mission for our kingdom, and the camaraderie was heady. When Zak looked at me, a gleam in his eyes as he silently invited me to partner with him, I couldn’t help following him anywhere he went.
Summer was drawing to a close, however, and our days spent in the lower city would end with it.
We were both bound for the University in autumn, and that meant various preparations were needed beyond our usual studies.
Unlike the commonborn students, the mage students lived at the University for the years of their study, and Zak had more to do in preparation than me.
As the summer wound down, I had several days to myself, and without Zak to keep me company, I couldn’t bring myself to stay shut up in a study room.
Instead, my feet drew me toward the largest of the lower city’s markets—a bustling place that I usually avoided in favor of the quieter ones nearer home.
When I was absorbed in study, I didn’t have the patience for navigating large crowds.
The noise of the market soon lifted my spirits, however, the energy of the place proving catching. I wandered between the stalls, admiring the wares and thinking about which food stalls I would have liked to patronize if I only had some coin in my pocket.
“Aria!” The unexpected voice set off a flood of emotion. Even after two years, I recognized it instantly.
I turned slowly to face Gina. She pushed through the crowd toward me, her face alight.
She looked just as she always had—the tight curls of her dark hair springing wildly in all directions.
The fine material and elegant cut of her dress were at odds with the crooked way she wore it, as if she’d pulled it on in a rush and not taken time to look in a mirror.
The familiarity of the details made my stomach clench.
She was still the same Gina. And yet the Gina I had known would never have betrayed me.
She hurried the final steps to stand in front of me, her smile faltering as she took in my expression. Hesitating, she glanced at the crowd around us, frowning as someone bumped her, making her stumble closer to me.
“Come on! Over here!” Grasping my wrist, she pulled me between two stalls, moving us out of the flow of the market crowd.
My feet followed reluctantly, although I could have easily pulled free. Hurt pulsed inside me, but even stronger was the desire to look her in the face and ask her why she had done it.
“Aria, I just heard the news!” she cried as soon as she came to a stop. “You’ve been sealed!”
She looked so genuinely delighted that I didn’t know what to say. Had it really taken her all summer to hear?
“I just got back from the Sekali Empire yesterday,” she added, clearing up that question.
The information didn’t do anything to assuage my resentment, however. Gina was a Robart and had already been sealed for two years, so of course she had been given the opportunity to travel to the Empire with Faylee. Being sealed in my place had opened up a lifetime of possibilities for her.
“How fortunate for you,” I said stiffly. “It must have been an incredible experience.”
“Yes, yes, but never mind that!” she said in her old breathless style. “I was furious when I heard Byron managed to get himself sealed—he’s a worse student than me and I was never top of the class—but then someone said you’d been sealed as well.”
I wanted to lash out at her. If she’d accosted me three months ago, I would have.
But the situation had grown complicated.
The Robarts were the ones who had denied me my rightful place at a sealing ceremony.
But Faylee was a Robart, and that meant they had also been the ones to ensure I was sealed in the end.
“It was kind of Faylee to intervene on my behalf,” I said quietly. “And very like her.”
I gave Gina a significant look, hoping she would read on my face what I wasn’t saying with my words. Faylee was different from the rest of the Robarts.
“Was it Faylee who arranged for you to be sealed?” Gina sounded genuinely astonished.
“I’ve been dying to know how you managed it.
” She grinned. “It does sound like something she would do. I told her all about you two years ago, and she was most displeased with what Father did to get me selected instead of you. She said our family won’t succeed in the long term unless we earn a reputation for fair dealing.
She’s very influential, even with the family elders, so Father was in disgrace for months.
And I was so glad to hear she followed my suggestion and actually went to meet you. ”
I stared at her. “You were the one to send Faylee to me?”
Gina nodded, her face falling. She grabbed both my hands, pinning me with an anguished, pleading expression.
“I know I’m the worst sort of coward,” she exclaimed. “I should have come to you myself. But I was just so ashamed! I couldn’t bear to face you after what I did.”
I drew a shaky breath. I wanted to pull my hands free, but seeing her again after so long was like being caught in the fog of the past. Along with my resentment had come a surge of old memories of all the fun we had shared together.
I couldn’t entirely harden my heart against the genuine emotion in her eyes.
Gina had never been one for artifice—which had made her subterfuge and betrayal all the more devastating.
“Not that I did it on purpose,” she said earnestly. “I hope you can believe that, Aria. I didn’t know anything about it.”
Her words made me start and finally pull myself free. But I didn’t storm off. A small shoot of hope had unfurled inside my chest, my curiosity driving its growth.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Father was always disappointed that I wasn’t a better student,” she said. “He wanted me to be first in the class, but I never had the temperament for it.”
She laughed slightly, and I almost smiled with her before I remembered she had been first—once.
“But before that last test, he suddenly became fierce. He hounded me day and night and said I needed to come first in one test at least. He said if I could just come first in the next test, he would let me breathe again. So I studied my heart out. I still didn’t think I was likely to beat you, but then you got sick and—” Her face twisted.
“You truly didn’t know why he wanted you to study so hard for that test?” I asked.
She shook her head energetically, her curls bouncing.
“Of course not! Or I would have told you too! I was never even particularly eager to go to the University. It just meant four more years of study!” She wrinkled her nose before brightening again.
“But it’s much better than I’d feared. You’re going to love it. ”
“Never mind that,” I said, not ready to think about the future when I was still lost in the past. “If you didn’t know before the test, you must have realized after. If you didn’t want to steal my place, why did you agree to be sealed?”
“They only told me about it the day before,” she said.
“And then they insisted on having a celebratory family meal, so I couldn’t get out of the house.
Of course I protested about being chosen and said the position should have been yours, but they told me the mage being sealed was powerful enough that the school had been allowed to submit two names. ”
My brows rose, belief worming its way through me.
I had never been able to understand how the Gina I had known could have done such a thing.
But I had no trouble believing her father might have deceived her too.
And that meant Gina hadn’t plotted to steal my place from me.
She hadn’t even known she was stealing it.
“They told me you’d be at the ceremony as well, but it was such a crowd, I couldn’t find you. It wasn’t until afterward that I realized you were never there, and it was all a lie. But it was too late, then.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this two years ago?” I asked, not quite willing to forgive her so easily.
“I should have,” Gina said, wilting visibly.
“And I know I’m a terrible coward for not doing so.
But even if I didn’t take your spot knowingly, I still took it, and there was no way for me to make that right.
And besides, my family did know what they were doing, even if I didn’t.
How could you ever look at me the same way again?
I hid in the house all summer, and then I started at the University, so we had no reason to cross paths.
I…” She grabbed my hands again, squeezing them and wailing, “I’m so sorry for being such an awful friend! ”
I drew a long breath. “I wish I’d known this two years ago. I would have been furiously angry, but I think I would have understood and not blamed you.”
“And now?” she asked in a small voice. “We’re going to be at the University together after all, even if I’ll be two years ahead. I can show you around and introduce you to my friends and—”
She broke off and waited, looking hopefully at my face.
Something tight and dark inside me loosened.
The picture she painted was appealing—and not just because of the help she could give as I adjusted to the world of the University.
Gina’s friendship had made my early years at school fun and bright, despite the study, and now I could have that again as I started at the University.
Just as Zak had started to drift away from me—absent as he made his arrangements for his upcoming new life—Gina had reappeared.
I already had one friend at the University, but he was dangerous to me in ways I didn’t like to dwell on.
Gina represented a much safer friendship, and she could do what Zak couldn’t.
She could help me settle into the place where I belonged—the commonborn stream.
Gina had wronged me when she cut off our friendship without a word of explanation, but thoughts of Zak reminded me that I was also prone to making foolish, emotional decisions where friendships were concerned. If I always acted rationally myself, I would never have gotten so close to him.
I let out my breath in a sigh of release.
“It’s true that your family wronged me, but in the end they also made it right.
” I held up an arm to show the marks ringing my wrist. “And the wrong wasn’t your doing.
In fact, if you were the one to send Faylee to me, you’re responsible for the situation being mended.
Of course I’ll forgive you. And I would love to meet your University friends. ”
She let go of my hands, jumping up and down and clapping, as if we were twelve again.
“It’s going to be the most fun!” She pulled me into a crushing embrace.
I spluttered and laughed, my face full of suffocating curls. Wrestling free, I shook my head at her. “Shouldn’t two years at the University have sobered you a little?”
She laughed. “Mother says that nothing can do that and that Father should have known better from the start. But my brother never had a chance at coming first in any test, so I was his only hope. Which means he’s stuck with me.”
A raised voice from the market crowd drew my attention as more voices took up the cry, an excited rustle sweeping through the mass of people. If something had happened to catch the attention of everyone in the market, it must have been big.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice sharp.
Gina turned to follow the direction of my gaze, apparently not having noticed the change in the crowd. “Someone’s calling something. Can you hear what they’re saying?”
Without waiting for an answer, she dove into the crowd, and I hurried behind, trying not to lose her. Several steps ahead of me, she accosted a stranger, her face alight with curiosity as she asked what was going on.
“They’re saying there’s been another killing!” the woman exclaimed, eyes wide.
“Another killing?” I asked, reaching their side. “You don’t mean another shrouded killing? It was the Shrouded Mage?”
The woman nodded. “That’s what they’re saying, but it can’t be true, can it?” She looked doubtful. “The Reds caught him!”
“I heard that was a copycat,” I said, but I hardly heard my own words.
A single, terrible, unendurable thought had caught my mind, making it hard to breathe.
I snatched at the woman’s sleeve, ignoring her horrified exclamations in response to my comment. “Where?” I asked urgently. “Did you hear where they found the body?”
“Just beyond the market, I think.” She pointed toward one of the market exits—the one that led deeper into the city, toward the area where the mages lived.
I took off running, Gina’s cries soon lost behind me. I pushed through the crowd with abandon, slipping under people’s arms and even elbowing people aside as needed.
Zak wasn’t with me. He was alone today. I wasn’t there to save him.
The thoughts ran through my mind on a never-ending loop, growing more and more frantic with each repetition. I hadn’t been there.