Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Ivy
The sound of voices filtering through a doorway rouses me. I shift beneath the covers and blink, recognizing that I’m somehow in Stavros’s bed.
I found him near the hill after the conspirators were arrested and rode back to Florian alongside him, but as soon as we reached the trio of royal buildings, he sent me to the college on my own with a strict order to sleep. From what I recall, I crashed on the sofa as usual.
He must have carried me over here when he finally returned. Maybe he figured I could use a little extra comfort.
If he shared the bed with me, more chastely than the last time, he’s already gotten up. His voice is the one reverberating through the door now.
“I don’t want to wake her. Last night will have taken a lot out of her.”
Who’s he talking to?
I scramble out of the bed, still wearing the turquoise gown I was too exhausted to peel off last night, and smooth out the wrinkles as well as I can on my way to the door.
“I’m already awake,” I say mildly as I push open the door, and halt on the threshold. “What are you two doing here?”
Alek and Casimir smile back at me from where they’re standing near Stavros, Alek a little sheepishly but Casimir with all his usual warmth.
Stavros offers me a crooked grin of his own. “I passed on word that last night’s conquest was a success, and your admirers took it upon themselves to stop by to get all the details.”
Casimir chuckles and swoops in to sling his arm around my shoulders. “The scourge sorcerer conspiracy is being dismantled. Ster. Torstem is gone. There’s no more reason for us to hide our association.”
He sounds so pleased, but the pang of uneasiness that filled my stomach after my initiation returns. There’s no reason for us to hide that we’re associating, no… but there’s also no more concrete reason for us to associate at all.
I push that thought aside for later and let myself lean into the courtesan’s embrace. My gaze returns to Stavros. “What have you gotten out of the conspirators you rounded up last night?”
His grin sharpens. “More than we even hoped. The villains were still addled with their favorite drug, and a few of them started babbling with almost no prompting about how they’d freed Silana by killing the king.
We got confessions of their traitorous plans—not with much detail, but it hardly matters at this point—along with some rather bizarre stories. ”
A rough laugh jolts out of me. “Last night… didn’t exactly go the way I expected. Were the soldiers able to confirm Ster. Torstem’s death?”
Stavros nods, his good humor dimming a little as he studies me.
“We retrieved what was left of Torstem’s corpse from the remains of the bonfire.
There wasn’t much. But with some of his followers collaborating your story that he jumped into the flames, no one has any doubt that it’s him and that there’s no crime to be punished for his death. ”
Thank the gods, Julita says with a relieved sigh.
A current of my own relief penetrates the tension wound inside me. “It’s over, then? What about the other sacrificial accomplices Torstem was working with?”
“It’ll take some time to tie up the loose ends,” Stavros says. “The poor girl at the bonfire wouldn’t say much to us, but gods only know how traumatized she is at this point. It’s hard to tell, but I don’t think she’s more than fifteen.”
I wince. “You have to find the others. I don’t know how much of a life they can have, but they should at least be free.”
“The Crown’s Watch is already tracing all of Torstem’s activities and travels. A couple of his associates from last night have given us some leads as well, though they clammed up once the drug wore off. We’ll set the rest of it right.”
Stavros reaches out to squeeze my arm. “You did well, Ivy. Incredibly well. No one’s going to ask anything more of you.”
Including the king, he clearly means.
I take a deep breath, not sure what else to say.
But Alek, naturally, is thinking as far ahead as I am. “Ivy can continue on as your assistant, can’t she? There isn’t any reason for her to leave the college.” He hesitates, his bright gaze searching mine. “Unless you want to.”
They want me to stay? To keep playing a noblewoman as if I belong here?
But neither Casimir nor Stavros raises the slightest objection to Alek’s idea.
I open my mouth and close it again, groping for words.
There are all the people in the outer wards I meant to keep helping. I haven’t left my blessings of silver coins in weeks.
Is it possible that I could still be the Hand of Kosmel… while also staying on as Ivy of Nikodi, assistant to Ster. Stavros? I may not like most of my schoolmates or every bit of the work, but the role does come with some rather impressive benefits.
A tremor of hope rises through my chest.
Julita lets out a laugh that sounds like pure delight. Of course you should stay on, Ivy. You can keep putting everyone who needs it in their places.
“I believe the king intends to reward your service well,” Stavros says. “You’d be able to fill plenty of pouches with plenty of coins for trips around the city’s fringes.”
He understands—he approves.
An even starker wave of relief washes over me. I swallow thickly and gather myself.
But before I can speak, a firm knock sounds on the door.
From his furrowed brow, Stavros isn’t expecting anyone. He strides over to answer it.
When he yanks the door open, his massive form blocks most of the doorway. I catch a glimpse of a stunning blue-green eye and chocolate-brown curls, and my body tenses.
“Is this a summons from the king?” Stavros asks.
“No,” a familiar voice says. “I was hoping to speak with Ivy of Nikodi. Is she here?”
Stavros hesitates, but I step forward.
The guard who’s seemed to haunt me around campus stands in the hallway, his face as beautiful as ever but his jaw tight and his eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them.
He looks almost… scared.
My heart lurches with the sudden certainty that something is wrong, even if I have no idea what.
I hurry the rest of the way to the door. “I’m here. What’s the matter?”
The guard glances at me, and a faint glow of hope comes over him. “You’re the only one I could think of to come to. I need your help.”
Stavros shoots me a puzzled look, but I’m equally bewildered. “Help? With what?”
The guard nudges past Stavros, who lets him enter but looms over him with a defensive air. The other man doesn’t appear to notice, let alone mind.
His attention is fixed completely on me.
“I’ve broken some of their hold on me,” he says. “I’ve been asking questions, challenging orders… and they’ve decided I’m no good to them anymore.”
I stare at him. “Who are you talking about? Who’s had a hold on you?”
“The ones who made this body.” He taps his chest. “They built the form out of clay and put me in it, and now they want to shatter me and send me back to the state I was in before. But I don’t want to go. I like this kind of living.”
Behind me, Alek lets out a strained sound. “They made you… out of clay?”
I’m outright gaping now, but I don’t know how to reel in my shock or slow the thumping of my pulse. “The scourge sorcerers made you. But who—what were you before?”
The guard who isn’t really a guard shifts his weight on his feet. “I have been saying I’m ‘Rheave.’ It’s the closest thing to a name I have. Humans call all of us ‘daimon.’”
Understanding snaps into place in my head alongside my memories of my appeal to the spirit-creatures in the All-Giver’s tower. The images they sent of flames and constricting darkness.
It could have been fired clay, closing in around them.
The conspirators switched from controlling the daimon in their ephemeral form to stuffing them into physical bodies.
“That’s how they created life,” Alek mutters as the pieces click together for him too. “They didn’t actually create it. They stole what was already there.”
“Can I stay with you?” Rheave asks, his gaze darting across my men and back to me. “If they find me, they’ll kill this body.”
Casimir eases forward, speaking in a soothing tone. “You should be safe now. The leader of the scourge sorcerers is dead. The army is rounding up his—”
“What?” The daimon in human form looks at the courtesan as if he’s grown a second head. “No, he’s not.”
I manage to stop gaping long enough to ask, “How do you know?”
Rheave’s gaze swings back to me. His lips purse as if he doesn’t like what he’s about to say.
“He’s just called on all of us nearby. We’re to go to the palace and murder every inhabitant who has Melchiorek blood.”