Chapter 29 #2
There were other places I could stand and look, but I was reluctant to move away. Kallen had always had a strange magnetism—I’d felt it even when I shouldn’t have, even back when I’d hated him—but now that I knew his secret, it was so much worse.
He’d been Mistei’s villain, but now I knew he’d been a hero, too.
Don’t look at what people do when everyone is watching , my mother had told me. Pay attention to what happens the rest of the time.
More than two hundred years. Forty-six lives saved—ninety-two, counting the humans who had been spared. No accolades.
He’d undoubtedly ended far more than ninety-two lives during that time, too.
It was impossible to separate Kallen the savior from Kallen the blackmailer or Kallen the killer, because he was all those things.
There would be murders that weren’t justified, bad choices and selfish choices and crimes I would have condemned as a human and might still condemn now.
But the thing about Kallen that called to me on some deep level was that he didn’t pretend otherwise.
When it was my turn to look again, I saw faeries bringing in ladders so they could string silk ribbons between stalactites.
Others were setting up tables and placing vases full of feathers atop them, while more Underfae bustled in and out of the servants’ entrances with crates of glassware and barrels of wine.
“Gweneira says Imogen is hosting a masquerade ball here in a few days,” I said.
“Apparently the last ball wasn’t enough excitement for her.
” That information had come courtesy of Lara, who had learned it while dancing with Gweneira, and now that the suspicion had settled into place, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed what was going on between them earlier.
Kallen made a dissatisfied noise. “Gweneira knows too many things.”
I pulled back to give him an amused look. “Does it bother you that you’re not the only spymaster?”
“Yes,” he said peevishly, and I pressed a hand to my mouth to cover my chuckle. “It makes sense Drustan had a spy on his side. I just don’t know how she gets her information. I’ve never heard of her blackmailing anyone.”
“There are other techniques besides threatening and blackmailing people.”
He looked discomfited. “Probably true.”
“You could have tried befriending people instead,” I said, half jesting. “Charming them into giving you information.”
A pained expression crossed his face. “No, I couldn’t have.”
I instantly felt remorse for teasing him. Not sure what to say to make it better, I focused on the room again.
Thirty minutes later, the most nefarious thing we’d seen was a faerie polishing the torch sconces too aggressively. “I think Imogen really is just redecorating for the masquerade,” I said, yawning so widely my jaw cracked.
Kallen smiled slightly as he looked at me. “You look exhausted.”
“Can we say this was a dead end?” My eyelids were heavy, and I felt the queasy lightheadedness that came from needing sleep. “Or should we keep watching?”
“We can stop.”
“We should have trained instead.”
He shook his head. “This is part of being a spy. You watch and listen to everything, and sometimes it’s important, and sometimes it’s not. Only with a large enough volume of information do the patterns start becoming clear.”
“And what patterns do you see thus far?” I asked as we headed away from the cavern.
“Did you notice the feathers on the tables?”
“Yes.” Glittering scarlet flights edged with gold, from no bird I’d ever seen before.
“Those are phoenix feathers. They’re so expensive you wouldn’t believe it. She’s paying more than they’re worth, too, because she’s importing them from Elsmere, and Briar is canny enough to recognize an opportunity.”
I’d only heard of phoenixes in stories, but I’d dreamed of seeing one in the wild, burning as it fell out of the sky before resurrecting from the ash. “More reckless spending,” I said.
He nodded. “She can’t keep this up forever, and I’ve heard rumblings her advisors are trying to get her to slow down.
She risks tipping her reputation from merry to wasteful—and there are those, especially in Earth House, who have concerns about how the feathers are sometimes harvested, since not everyone is content to wait for the birds to molt.
Even if these were collected ethically, it’s a miscalculation, because it could spark rumors she procured them from illegal poachers. ”
It was hard to believe the Fae valued any form of life that much, but the birds inside Earth House had been well loved. Perhaps the Fae found it easier to care for creatures they had no need to empathize with. “Will you be the one spreading those rumors?” I asked.
His smile was quick and sly. “I’ve already started.”
We had reached the intersection leading towards Earth House. Kallen abruptly flung an arm in front of me, stopping my progress as he stared down that blackened corridor.
“What is it?” I asked nervously.
“Brambles. They weren’t there before.”
“What?” I ducked under his arm, then hurried forward. The light of the key caught on a tangle of dense, thorny vines at the end of the hallway, just before it turned at a sharp angle. They formed a bristling wall from floor to ceiling. “Oriana blocked it off,” I breathed.
Kallen joined me. “That route leads to Earth House?”
“Eventually. It makes sense she would block off the house, knowing I’m still using the catacombs, but this is…aggressive.” Had she realized we were here and decided to send a message? I cast my magic out, searching for a hint of her in the distance, and found nothing.
The stems were thick, with needlelike thorns. Branches clung to the walls and ceiling in a way that made me think of the tendrils of a drowned woman’s hair. As I watched, the vines moved, stretching their tips a few inches farther.
“They’re growing,” I said, fear rising in my throat.
Oriana hadn’t created this wall tonight. She was using her magic to consume these tunnels bit by bit, ensuring I wouldn’t be able to use the tools of Earth House for a war she wanted no part of.
If you enter the catacombs again, you will not enjoy what you find there.
I’d dismissed the threat as an empty one because Oriana’s neutrality would prevent her from trying to kill me. But it hadn’t been empty at all. “I can’t lose this,” I told Kallen, breath coming faster.
He unsheathed his sword, studying the vines. “This probably won’t work.” He swung the blade down hard on a protruding branch. There was a sound like metal striking stone, and he grimaced as the weapon stopped dead.
A green tendril shot out and wrapped around the hilt of the sword, then yanked it out of his grip. The weapon vanished into the wall of thorns.
I pressed my hands to my mouth. “Your sword!”
He frowned at the plants, shaking out his hand. “I have others. It was worth testing.” Then he grimaced, rubbing the place where his neck and shoulder met. “Shards, that hurt.”
I moved towards him. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine.” He dug his fingers in harder.
Kallen always assumed his own pain didn’t matter. I wrestled with myself for a moment, then gave in to the impulse. “Turn around.”
His eyes flicked between mine as if he was trying to figure out what I was thinking. Then he slowly turned.
I took a deep breath before placing my hands on his shoulders. He twitched. When he didn’t protest, I started rubbing the tense muscles more gently than he had.
Kallen groaned, a sound so rough it raised goose bumps on my skin. “That’s good,” he breathed.
I slipped my magic lightly beneath his skin to assess the pain in his sword arm, from the aggravated knots in his muscles to the tips of his fingers.
His hand had gone partially numb from the jarring blow and was prickling as it regained sensation.
I imagined the numbness receding faster and sensed the discomfort ease.
Kallen sighed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I whispered.
I could have relaxed the knots in his shoulders with nothing but my magic, too. But I didn’t.
We were quiet—him standing with his head bowed, me exploring his muscles with my thumbs, the plants creeping forward. Fear for the future crept through me just as insidiously. What would I do without my greatest advantage?
“You will find other weapons,” Kallen said at last, intuiting the direction of my thoughts. “Use this one as long as you can, but even after Oriana takes it from you, know there will always be other avenues to explore. Nothing is set.”
Things felt very set in Mistei—the hierarchies, the history, the roles we were all expected to play.
Sometimes I felt like an audience member who had stumbled onstage during a drama, briefly interrupting the plot.
The Fae repeated their performance in an endless cycle: the pursuit of power, the attainment of it, the loss of it.
A new show night after night, but the same old lines.
Except I wasn’t the only one who had disrupted a cycle, was I? Kallen had, too.
I’d been wanting to discuss this with him all night. The intimacy of the moment loosened my tongue. “I met with Hector. But you already knew that.”
Kallen hesitated before answering. “Yes.”
I rubbed a thumb against the side of his neck. “How did it start?”
“The children?”
“Yes.” I slid my hands down his back, digging into the tight muscles beside his spine.
Kallen tensed, then sighed and relaxed. “I was young and dangerously reckless, that’s how.”
“You don’t consider yourself reckless now?”
He gave a half laugh. “Now I’m old and slightly less reckless.” He rolled his head on his neck, then let it droop. “I had been sworn to Osric for thirty years when everything started. It was—unbearable.”
His magic wisped out to join the shadows surrounding us. The darkness pressed in, threatening to swallow the light of the key. The weight of history felt as oppressive as the blackness and the brambles stretching into the distance.