CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Maverick had told the truth.
The alcove welcomed us with chilly, brittle arms as the stiff door allowed us through, one at a time. Unlocked, without a single key to be found.
My hands still trembled, expecting Darion and his friends to come crashing through behind us demanding blood and retribution. “Tell me what happened back there. Now.”
Theia gawked at the alcove and the lack of guards surrounding it. “The king gave you permission to go outside during the Starlight Trials,” she said in wonder.
I moved to block her field of vision, forcing her to look at me. “Are you a witch?”
She went preternaturally still. Even the wind blowing through the ivy at her back slowed. “No.”
Leaning forward, I scrutinized every detail of her face for the tell-tale signs of deceit. Every blink, every muscle twitch, was crucial. Her expression remained frustratingly blank, smoother than a slab of marble. “I don’t care if you are. It’s not like I’d turn you in.”
Her gaze bore steadily into mine. She blinked once. “I am not a witch.”
“Teach me how to channel.” Magic. The idea preyed upon me like a wolf, turning endless circles around me. Waiting for the right moment to pounce. “It would help us win. We could win. If you teach me, we could outsmart everyone here, we could win in seconds—”
“I am not a witch.”
I paused. There was agitation there, which was normal. Frustration. But sadness seeped into the vehemence of her denial. Her spine remained straight. Hands loose at her sides. She wasn’t lying.
But she was hiding something.
“Fine.” Tensely, I kicked at stray blades of grass. “Now’s your chance to go back and tell Kodhan about this.” At least I’d have time to prepare. There were countless weapons I could steal from the night markets.
Gone then was that cold smoothness, replaced by a look that crossed somewhere between pity and sorrow. “I won’t tell him.”
Perhaps she wouldn’t now, but nothing stopped her from telling him later. It didn’t matter. We’d made it out.
It felt like I could breathe properly for the first time in days. The openness of the Dome didn’t count. A cage didn’t need to have bars to suffocate the one trapped inside.
“Here’s how this will go,” I said, the twinkling lights of the night markets beckoning to me from below the rolling hills.
“You need to do exactly as I say, or we’ll get caught.
We cannot get caught. Maverick will have my head for it, hints or no.
He’ll do even worse to you. And then you will tell me what you did to them in that corridor. ”
“I will. I promise.”
I repressed a sigh. Yet another promise.
“All those promises will come back to bite you one day,” I scolded as we began our trek downwards.
We just needed to keep to the shadows. I passed through the markets every time Diana gave me a slip of paper, their alleys and streets engrained in the deepest parts of my memory.
Although people filled the streets to the brim, everyone was too busy to notice one cloaked woman, too focused on either earning extra coin, or on spending it.
Anything needed buying could be located in the eastern parts of Aedreath, where the markets kept their lights open at all hours of the night—thrived in it—hence the name.
A perfect escape from daily troubles, endless stands filled with trinkets and baubles distracted even the most poisoned heart for a short period of time. Performers wove their way through the thralls overtop of it all, desperate for money or jewels.
There was a woman whose earth magic allowed her to decorate entire streets with blooming flowers of every shape and color.
She coated the walls of buildings with them, creating masterpieces with the petals as if she had painted them with an actual brush.
Sometimes, they changed colors mid-bloom, giving the impression that her flowery portraits moved.
Like the images were real, living things.
I could never get enough of it. She was the only person I came back to watch, time and time again.
“They won’t if I uphold all of them,” Theia answered after some time. Her certainty would’ve been admirable, had it not been incredibly na?ve.
Picking up my pace, I asked, “And have you? Upheld all of them.”
“So far, yes.”
“Sounds like a lot of unnecessary work.” All promises were meant to be broken eventually.
“It sounds like unnecessary work because you’re not used to people actually keeping their promises to you.”
We reached a flat clearing, a short distance beyond the first street that led to the markets. Voices fluttered towards us already. And yet, I stopped dead in my tracks, brows narrowing at her. “Excuse me?”
“Forgive me. I have a habit of being blunt sometimes.” She shook her head. “But I mean it. You would see things differently if it weren’t for the company you keep.”
I scoffed. “And you think I actually have a choice in who I spend my time with?”
“There’s always a choice.” The solemness of her tone almost convinced me that she was right.
“Not where I’m concerned.”
It’s not her fault, I reminded myself, forcing my glare away from her as we resumed our steady pace.
Theia didn’t know any better. She hadn’t grown up being hated just for existing. She had friends. A family that loved her. The gods hadn’t spat on her the moment she was born.
We reached the edge of the first street, sweeping behind a flock of determined vendors ushering nearby shoppers closer to their overflowing wares, ever susceptible to colorful and shiny things. Coins clinked and pockets emptied.
A small orchestra trilled close by. I let its merry tune carry my anger away until I could barely feel it anymore. Now wasn’t the time to feel. I’d been given a once-in-a-lifetime reprieve from the Starlight Trials. And I wasn’t going to ruin it.
Theia followed in my every footstep as we crept in and out of alleyways, shadows enveloping us in cloaks woven by the night sky itself. I’d almost missed them.
They shielded us while we skirted past the thickest parts of the markets, narrowly avoiding too many intoxicated couples seeking privacy in the otherwise most un-private parts of the kingdom to exist.
But that was the essence of the markets.
Enthralling. Captivating. Seductive. It rendered the dancing colors above our heads into an almost hypnotizing thing.
So much that many lanterns in the streets were colored similarly—like the night sky could be brought down to those who wanted to dance with it.
It made perfect sense that just beyond the markets waited a pocketed neighborhood of abandoned, decrepit buildings no one bothered to repair and make their home.
How fortunate, indeed, when people could occupy them for as long as they wished, do whatever they wished without any watchful eyes of the law.
But it was just as dangerous as it was fortunate. A double-edged sword.
I brushed my disappointment away as we passed the area where I’d last seen the woman and her flowers.
Another stood in her place, aweing a group of children with birds made purely of water.
She lifted them high above her head, enough that each bird became one with colors and sparkling stars in the sky behind them.
If she’d been there, I might’ve risked everything to see her perform one last time.
Our path wound behind the library Diana hated so vehemently. The one I enjoyed so fiercely. I’d walked down these cobblestones so frequently it was a wonder my footprints weren’t etched into them.
“Not long now,” I whispered over my shoulder to Theia, who smartly hadn’t uttered a word since the clearing.
She lagged a few feet behind, but I couldn’t blame her.
The markets were far too easy to lose oneself in.
Nothing was ever the same, the wares and music and food everchanging.
It was why I enjoyed coming so frequently.
Her gaze was latched onto a jeweler’s stall that glistened almost as brightly as the stars, with various gems displayed meticulously before its vendor.
Each one of the woman’s fingers were decorated from knuckle to knuckle with rings of ruby and sapphire, along with a peridot that must have weighted at least several pounds.
Gem-making was extremely difficult. Only a handful of people with earth as their main element could master the craft of conjuring raw gems with magic. It was why five hulking guards stood at attention beside the woman’s stall, weapons at the ready.
Rustling from ahead had me stopping immediately, throwing an arm out as signal for Theia to do the same.
A woman turned to peer at us skeptically from where she’d been heaving a bag almost as tall as herself into a wide bin.
Ruined books, by the stray papers that floated to her feet.
I knew there were drained teabags in there, too.
The stars knew how many cups I’d drained in the building we stood behind.
“Kassandre,” I said carefully. The library’s headmistress. I’d forgotten she usually took the spoils out at this hour. Fool. Empty-headed fool. I’d only watched her do so almost every stars-damned night.
“Eloise,” she countered, her tone as clipped and curt as ever.
Albeit a very direct, no-nonsense woman, she was never unkind.
Well-respected despite her young age. She had to be, if she was to run the largest library in Aedreath.
She studied me—my competitor’s clothing.
Then Theia’s. Her dark curls were slicked into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, reading glasses perched atop her head like a crown.
Dust prints smeared along her moss-hued skirts.
There were thousands upon thousands of books under her care, in a library almost half the size of the castle.
It was only natural that some of them rested on long-abandoned shelves, where light itself could not reach.
And people only ventured so far into the dark before veering back with their tail between their legs.