Chapter Five #2
“I don’t know, but—” He holds up the book again.
“I don’t believe for a moment that this was given to you by coincidence just before you were meant to come here for your execution.
” He rubs his lips with his hand, a thoughtful gesture.
His eyes rove over me—cutting, dissecting, inspecting.
I feel laid bare every time he looks at me, and I want to hate the feeling. But I don’t.
And when he turns away, I find myself wishing he would look at me like that again, like he could swallow me whole in one bite.
Finally, he lowers his hand, sliding the book into his pocket.
“I don’t believe that meigas killed my father.
I want to find out why he really died. Help me do that, and I can keep you safe from my mother. That’s my bargain.”
“You actually cared for him?” It surprises me. Roze seems to so clearly care for no one. And everyone knows that the King was a nightmare—drunken and violent and half mad. I can’t imagine him being able to endear himself to any of his children.
But when I see the slight flinch in the Prince’s expression, I know it’s true. He loved him. And he’s grieving.
But he doesn’t admit that truth. Instead, he offers another.
“My mother won’t relent from her crusade against meigas until we find the true culprit, proving the meigas innocent.
” He inspects the fingers of his gloves, flicking off a speck of dried blood.
“I’m done being subjected to my mother’s murderous whims.”
He’s trapped. The thought comes so quickly, so unbidden, that I’m shocked by it. The Prince with everything, who gloats and sneers, who lords over us all, is a prisoner to the Queen.
“You’re a meiga,” he continues. “Some meigas can divine things. Find out what others can’t.”
“Where on earth did you learn that?” Discussion of magic is highly illegal. And books on the subject, of course, were destroyed.
“I have access to books others don’t. Maybe I’ll show you if you’re a good girl.”
I glare at him. Despite what Roze might’ve read, I don’t have powers of divination.
In fact, I’ve never been able to divine more than my shadows’ uselessness.
They’ve been in my blood and bones since I can remember.
Trying to hold them back can feel like trying to douse an inferno with a drop of water, but I’ve become rather adept at suppressing them over the years.
The only time my shadows have proven useful at all has been when I’ve needed to hide.
Oh yes, they’re very good at keeping me in darkness.
“Be my oracle,” Roze says. “Help me find out why my father died, promise me you’ll do everything in your power to find out who or what killed him, and I’ll keep you safe from Mother dearest.”
I eye him suspiciously. “But won’t you die if you don’t kill me?”
He grins. “Concerned for me, Sinclair?”
“Hardly.”
He cocks his head as he looks at me. “Perhaps there are some things more important than death. Finding out why you have a book with the same symbol as on my father’s arm, for example.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You’re willing to die to find out what happened to him?”
“Not particularly. But while you’re helping me find out what happened to my father, I’ll look for a way to quell my mother’s wrath.”
I bite down on my cheek. I could tell him Professor Borges’s last words to me before my arrest. Perhaps this is what she was referring to—I need salvation, and Roze needs answers.
But how on earth would she have known? I’m on the threshold of something dark and horrible—I can feel it.
But behind me is certain death. I don’t really have a choice here.
“If I help you—”
He sighs. “Yes? What, beyond not dying tonight, are your conditions?”
I lift my chin, projecting all the courage I don’t feel. “I’m in charge. We do this my way.”
His nose wrinkles. “And what, exactly, does your way entail?”
I shrug. “I study linguistics. If I can’t divine the cause of your father’s death, we’ll try research. We’ll follow the trail to figure out what happened to him.” I reach out and tap the book in his hand. “Starting with that.”
He works his jaw as he watches me, and I wonder if he’s imagining wrapping his hands around my throat.
“Fine,” he bites out.
“Good,” I say curtly. “And how do you plan to keep me safe from the Queen?”
“You are a meiga, and I am an assassin of meigas,” he says. His smile is slick and feline. “Stay close to me, and if you die, it will be by my hands.”
Roze has hidden a body before, that much is clear.
He left me alone with the corpse for a few minutes and returned to the cathedral with an assortment of tools—some strange material to wrap the body in (for the smell, apparently), mallets, mortar, water.
I don’t ask how many times he’s done this before—how many dead bodies are hidden in the castle.
The floor of the cathedral, however, is littered with them, though presumably not ones killed by Roze—graves reserved for nobles.
Their bodies rest beneath our feet. But beneath the altar, there is no grave. Yet.
“Why can’t we just burn him?” I ask.
“And drag him down to the crematorium? Do you want to have to explain this to anyone out after dark?”
I frown.
He lifts a large mallet overhead and without hesitation swings it toward the floor.
The crack of stone echoes in the silent cathedral halls, and I flinch.
But Roze barely takes a breath before he’s lifting the mallet again and bringing it down hard on the floor.
Again. And again. Until rubble flies and dust fills the air.
He wrecks the floor, swinging a mallet with unchecked violence, covering himself in dust, and I can’t look away.
I’ve never seen him look anything less than perfect, and I get the sense that some beast has been let loose in him as he destroys this small part of his family home.
When he’s satisfied with the size of the cavity he’s created, he takes a step back, breathing heavily, and wipes the sweat from his brow. Wordlessly, we lift the guard, Roze holding him under the shoulders, and me lifting his legs. Together we drag him into the pit.
I help wedge the body into the crevice, and when his bulk won’t fit, Roze lifts his boot and cracks bones with his heel, twisting the limbs to mold into the space like a jigsaw and stamping the body in with his foot.
Roze and I do not speak. I’m afraid that if I do, this will feel less like a bad dream and more like reality. There’s nothing to do but keep moving.
Next, we cover the body in the smell-muffling material and replace the old stones with new ones.
“Won’t it be obvious what we’ve done?” I ask, because I can’t help thinking this through like it’s a homework assignment and not murder. “The priests at least will notice that the stones are new.”
“The altar will cover them,” Roze says. “Besides, there was always supposed to be a new grave tonight.”
My heart stops, and I glance at him, accidentally meeting those silver eyes with mine. This was my grave. I’ve dug my own grave and buried someone else in it. How existentially horrifying.
The saints watch the entire ordeal from their paned windows, and I can almost feel the stain on my soul for what I’ve done tonight. But I’ll have to deal with my shame later. Tonight is about survival.
When we are finished, we’re both filthy, covered in blood, dust, and sweat. I feel sick. My hands tremble.
“Right,” Roze says, brushing back his hair. A streak of dark blood mars the snowy locks. He looks at me, his silver eyes assessing. “Now, you’re going to help me find out what killed my father. In exchange, I’ll keep you alive.”
He retrieves his jacket from the railing and folds it neatly over his arm.
“We’ll need to stay close together for the next few days so that the Queen doesn’t find someone else to kill you.”
I swallow and change the subject. “How are we going to explain being around each other? You’re a prince and I’m …”
“Common.”
I glare at him, and he smirks.
“Fine. I’m common. But also, practically everyone at school knows we dislike each other.”
“There is one possibility.” A shadow of a smile breaks over his lips.
I’m tired. My bones ache. I want to wash the blood from my hands and weep into my pillow. “What?”
“You’ll be safe if the entire Kingdom believes we’re courting.”
I blink.
“Courting?” I blanch. “We can’t be courting. Don’t you think that’s a bit—”
“I don’t think it’s an overreaction to the situation.”
“I was going to say far-fetched.”
“Why?”
A manic laugh escapes me. He slides his hands into his pockets and watches me.
“You must be joking. I’m … Well … And you’re …”
He cocks an eyebrow. “And here I thought you would consider me beneath you.”
“Why on earth would I think that?”
He snorts. “Viola Sinclair. The star of Vandenberghe. Brilliant. Cunning. And a notorious snob. No one is good enough for her.”
My mouth falls open. The hypocrisy of that statement … “I am not a snob.”
He shrugs. “It’s what everyone says. You have quite the reputation.”
“Me?”
“Just this morning you greeted me by mocking my title and calling me an ass.”
“You are an ass. That’s your reputation.”
His smile twists. “Well … it seems as though we’re both far less liked than we’d hoped. Maybe it won’t be so difficult to make people believe we’re betrothed.”
I take a step backward. “You didn’t say betrothed.”
“That’s how it works with royals, I’m afraid.
Nothing casual. If we want you protected, you must be indispensable.
Everyone must believe you’re to be part of the family.
The Queen wouldn’t want a member of her family to turn up with a slit throat—it’ll look like she can’t even protect those closest to her, much less the nobles who are getting nervous about those restless commoners dwelling in the caverns.
” He smiles nastily, like the thought of an uprising brings him sick pleasure.
“And if you’re revealed as a meiga, she’ll look like she has no control over her wicked, wayward son, latching himself to a treacherous witchling and thus debasing the name of Roquelart. ”
Why does he make it sound like he would like nothing more than to do just that?
“Don’t you need the Queen’s permission to get engaged?”
“Not if we pretend like we already have it. But leave that to me.”
I’m almost more nervous now than when we were shoving the guard’s broken body into the floor. “But … suppose our plan succeeds? We find out what killed your father and figure out how to make your mother relent. What then? We get married?”
He makes a face like a toddler threatened with bitter vegetables.
I scoff. “It’s not my idea of happily ever after either, but if the alternative is death, then I don’t see what choice we have.”
“Sinclair, has anyone told you you’re in the habit of jumping to the most extreme of conclusions?
We needn’t get married. Once we’ve succeeded, I’ll pretend to have a change of heart, say I’ve grown bored with you or something.
I’ve garnered enough of a reputation as a vain and feckless prince, it will be believed. ”
I fold my arms over my chest. “You’ve grown bored with me? That’s what you want to say?”
He raises a dark eyebrow at me.
I lift my chin to look down my nose at him. “No, I don’t think so. I think I’ll say I’ve seen the error of my ways, that after our brief engagement I realized I could never be saddled with someone half as maddening as you.”
He smirks. “I drive you mad, Sinclair?”
My face flushes. “Like a bad rash.”
He rolls his eyes and says, “No one can simply break an engagement with a royal. You know better than that.”
I do, but I’m irritated, and I felt like making a point. “Fine. We say that you broke off the engagement after we realized the relationship was unsuitable.”
“Very diplomatic,” he says flatly.
“Indeed,” I say coldly. “So then I can go back to a normal life?”
He makes a bored, aristocratic wave. “By all means. Return to your beloved books and rules. I won’t stop you.”
He leans back on the railing. I look him over—his tall frame, hands slipped arrogantly into his pockets, head tilted back regally as though he isn’t covered in the evidence of the murder we have just committed together. The look of a coiled snake in his eyes.
Can I do this? Pretend to be the fiancée of someone who clearly hates me as much as I hate him?
I realize with a feeling like a stone in my gut that I have no choice. I crease my lips together and nod.
His frown twitches. “Good. We start tomorrow.”
As we leave the cathedral, the gray ghost boy watches, his face half hidden behind a column. This time, he smiles darkly.