Chapter 9
Nine
As I raise Julita’s bracelet to the gargoyle at the college gate, my heart gives a swift stutter. I swallow against the dryness of my mouth.
Stepping through the opening door, I risk a murmur. “You’re sure the password won’t have changed since last time?”
The men Julita’s working with only have their meetings every two days. It’s been three now since she was stabbed in the alley.
Julita’s back to what seems to be her usual unflappably confident self. They only change it once a week, and the last time was six days ago. I’m sure of that. We’re good.
I’d have more faith in her sense of time if she had her own corporeal body to experience it with. Girding myself, I march onward.
Lively fleas—
“I remember.”
Lively fleas rip from royalty like ribbons. An absurd phrase, but I’m in the habit of committing every bit of information I can glean to memory. Left, forward, right, forward, right, left, right.
When the door to the first courtyard opens up in front of me with no blare of a conjured alarm or onslaught of furious guards, I exhale in a rush. My nerves shudder at the deluge of cleansing magic, but it washes over me in an instant, and I’m through.
A couple of men are walking over to the gate hand-in-hand. I veer around them on my stroll toward the main college building and wait until they’ve disappeared through the gate before speaking to my ghostly passenger again.
“I’m going to tell them, I’ll let them ask you any questions they can think of that would help them investigate—and then we’re done.”
The statement feels more like a question than I’m comfortable with. We’ve already hashed the plan out, but I don’t know how much good faith I can expect from my unwanted guest once we’re back on her turf.
An incredibly fair deal, Julita says in a reassuring tone. I’ll depart from your body if I can determine how, and if I can’t right away, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself while I work it out.
She sounds like she means it, but her dormmate’s accusing words linger alongside the tingle of Julita’s presence in the back of my skull. She could say anything she wants to keep me cooperating—it’s not as if I have any idea how to force the issue if she goes back on her word.
But it doesn’t really matter. This is the right thing to do.
I’m the one controlling my body. I can make sure I walk back out of here once I’ve fulfilled the mission I agreed to.
The rest I’ll deal with when I get there.
Julita waits patiently while I navigate the campus, taking the same route she directed me on last time. When I tap and tug the sconce beside the tapestry of Signy, she lets out a bright chuckle. You really do have quite the memory.
“I had to hone every skill I could,” I murmur as I step into the hidden staircase. Every skill other than the riven magic that would both drive me mad and bring the rage of the royal family down on my head. Or rather, on my neck.
From my first days on the streets, I decided I’d just have to make myself as brilliant as possible at everything possible so that I never truly needed my monstrous power to survive. So far it’s worked out pretty well, my current dilemma notwithstanding.
I’m lucky it was you who stumbled on me, Julita says. I can’t imagine if—
My feet hit the floor of the archives room on the other side of the magical passage, and both Julita’s voice and my breath cut off with the slam of a hand against my throat.
A hand of molded clay rather than flesh, hard enough to choke me with that first jab.
Stavros shoves me back against the reformed wall, his dark eyes searing into mine. A pinch of pain at the base of my throat tells me he’s brought a blade to bear just below his restraining hand.
His mouth twists into a smile so cutting it might as well be a sneer. “So, you came back. Wonderful. Now you can tell us who you really are.”
My pulse thunders, and my magic flares through my chest with the urge to hurl him off me. I can’t reach the knife in my boot or those under my skirts.
I clamp my hands into fists, reining in the burn, and gasp a ragged breath.
Does he know what I’m repressing? Did he figure it out somehow?
In my head, Julita is sputtering. What under the gods’ gaze does he think he’s doing?
“I came to help,” I manage to rasp past the harsh pressure of Stavros’s hand.
The other men come into view around Stavros, their expressions stormy.
A deep frown taints Casimir’s gorgeous face. “If you wanted to help Julita, then she’d be here.”
Alek has his lean arms crossed tightly over his chest. “We’ve looked into your story. There’s no one named Ivy whose family lives in Nikodi.”
Shit and smitings. I’d be glad that they don’t sound as if they’ve discovered my magic, but they’re at least two steps ahead of me in my confession. Which’ll make it look more like they caught me out than like I’m coming clean on my own.
I scramble for the right thing to say, because blurting out, “I’ve got your friend’s ghost in my head!” doesn’t seem likely to go over well as an opening.
At the same moment, my riven magic decides to turn on me too. In response to my defiance, it digs into every crevice in my torso with a sensation like piercing claws.
All I can do is gasp again and tense my muscles against the agony.
Good job, stupid fucking sorcery. Punish me because I strangely don’t think it’s a fantastic idea to show off my illegal power directly in front of a guy who’s dragged people like me straight to the gallows.
What’s happening to you? Julita asks frantically. Tell them what’s going on. Tell them— Oh, Great God help me—
Dizziness washes over me, scrambling my thoughts—and, to my relief, distracting me from the pain. Giving me just enough wherewithal to recognize what’s happening.
She did this before, when she was first in my head, when she hadn’t talked to me yet. She’s trying to take me over.
“You—” I snap before I clamp down on my frustration, and then I wrestle everything inside me into submission: the magic, its resentful claws, the rebellious ghost attempting to claim my body.
This will not be the last page in my life’s story.
Stavros appears to decide he’s waited long enough for a coherent answer. He wrenches me around and slams me down in a chair near one of the shelves of records.
Benedikt darts over to yank a rope around my chest and knot it behind me, pinning my arms to my sides.
I might have been able to throw off the binding before he finished tying it if I gave it a shot, but fighting these men isn’t going to prove my innocence. And I don’t like my chances four against one, especially when the four includes a decorated general.
Julita speaks up with a hint of a quaver in her voice. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it—I panicked about what would happen if I didn’t jump in. It won’t happen again.
I don’t know if I believe her, but I have bigger problems at the moment.
With the agony of my magic’s fit of frustration ebbing, I find my voice. “I came today to tell you the truth. To tell you what happened to Julita.”
Stavros looms over me, his chiseled face way too striking when he’s this coolly fierce. He only holds my gaze for a second before sweeping his attention over the rest of my body. “Is that so? And why didn’t you tell us in the first place?”
“Because the truth sounds fucking insane.” I can’t stop myself from glowering at him.
My magic keeps roiling inside me, pricking at my innards, which isn’t improving my mood.
“I thought it was easier that way, and you’d find out everything else you need to know later.
But it turns out that won’t happen, so here I am. ”
If Stavros is cool, then Alek is outright ice. “Why should we believe anything you say now?”
My gaze slides to his masked face. Even partly covered, I can tell his expression is grim. “Why don’t you hear it and then decide? What exactly do you think my evil plan here would be?”
Benedikt tips his golden head back against the shelves. “As much as I’d like to think you simply enjoy our company, it seems more probable that you were spying on our plans. Or attempting to mislead us. Or both.”
You should just tell them, Julita murmurs. They’re only doing this because they’re worried about me.
I don’t want to feel particularly sympathetic to the men who are currently holding me bound and under blade, but their response does make sense. And shows an almost admirable protective devotion to their missing friend—if that’s really all they see her as.
I wet my lips. Spilling the beans is going to be even more awkward than I thought.
“You’ve guessed that something’s gone wrong for Julita,” I venture, letting my noble diction slide. What does it matter when they’ll know in a minute or two how far from noble I am? “That’s why you checked the records for me?”
“She’s been missing for three days,” Alek spits out. “She wouldn’t leave for that long without giving us any idea what lead she’s following.”
Casimir nods, but his voice is softer. “You’d be the last person who saw her. You have her bracelet.”
Stavros has straightened up over me, making his massive frame even more intimidating.
He adjusts the short sword in his grasp casually but with an ease that speaks of his skill.
“I think we should be the ones asking the questions, and you should be answering. What happened to Julita? Let’s hear everything you know, and be quick about it. ”
I raise my chin. “To be clear from the start, I didn’t do anything to hurt her. These scourge sorcerers you’re after must have figured out she was on their trail. I was going about my business in Slaughterwell, and I heard a cry. I found—”
Seeing how the men’s stances have stiffened, I hesitate. Am I really going to toss their friend’s murder in their faces this bluntly?
“You found what?” Stavros prods.
I guess there really isn’t any way around it.
“I found her lying in an alley with a knife through her neck,” I say, a little quieter than before. “I tried to stop the bleeding, but the wound was so—”