Chapter 26
I took the garden’s greenway back to the palace and ran out of the atrium and into the queen’s tower. Captain Vara, of course, wasn’t there, nor were her fellow soldiers. They had more important things to worry about at the moment.
I tried not to look out the windows as I rushed through the tower, searching for Yvaine. Outside was ruin and smoke, a ravaged city. When Ankaret had engulfed Kilraith and driven him away, she had also put out the fires started by his lightning. But every glance outside showed me toppled buildings, dark swaths of destruction carved through the streets like new roads.
By the time I found Yvaine, my heart was pounding so hard that I felt sick. She was hurrying down one of the great corridors outside her tower with a huddle of her advisers around her and a passel of guards around them, all bustling to the palace proper. This was the state I had expected the Citadel to be in when Ryder and I had arrived that morning—absolute chaos, servants scrambling, the city guard lieutenants shouting orders at their squadrons. The air was thick with confused terror.
I pushed through it all, keeping the queen’s entourage in my sights. “Yvaine,” I cried out, so relieved that she was alive that I forgot all decorum.
She stopped at the sound of my voice and came to me at once, waving aside her tutting advisers and frowning guards. I saw Captain Vara among them; she calmed her charges, bade them lower their weapons. I shot her a grateful look as I rushed toward Yvaine. How useful it would be, came the distracted thought, to be able to send a feeling toward a person, as Talan could do.
But I was only me, human and limping, my throat raw from smoke and song. The best I could do was hold Yvaine tightly to me and try not to cry into her hair.
“What’s happened?” she said, her voice cool and unafraid. She wore a structured gown of charcoal gray, the iridescent fabric flashing purple in the light. Her abundant white hair was pulled back into a neat bun. Gone was my friend asking about love in the Green House. In her place stood the high queen of Edyn.
“Ryder’s gone,” I rasped, my throat burning. I realized as I said it how foolish I sounded—the queen’s friend, crying to her about her lost love while an entire city smoldered. But Ryder wasn’t just anyone; Yvaine had said so herself weeks ago. The six of us—Ryder, Gemma, Talan, Mara, Gareth, and I—we were important. Among Yvaine’s many gifts was one of seeing, of prophecy, and she had seen that much. We all had roles to play in what was to come.
I refused to consider that whatever Yvaine had seen was just another oddity her tired mind had conjured, some symptom of the Middlemist’s illness that couldn’t be trusted. If it meant nothing, then Ryder was simply gone, like so many others.
But I couldn’t believe that was true. Kilraith had held me in his shadowy grip; I’d stared into the lightning of his eyes. I know you , he’d said.
“It was Kilraith,” I told her, keenly aware of the attention I was drawing to us—the staring servants, the annoyed Thirsk. “That storm was him, or some form of him. I used my power against him—I sang, tried to make him stop. But he was too strong, or maybe I should’ve tried a different command, I don’t know.” I sounded crazed, but I needed to tell her. “Whatever I did, it was enough to attract his attention. He grabbed me, he was going to kill me. He knew me. I think he remembered me from when we fought him to free Talan. And then…she came. Ankaret.”
Yvaine’s brow furrowed. She was listening hard. “Ankaret?” Then understanding illuminated her face. “The firebird? We saw her from here.”
“Yes, that’s her. She’s…I don’t know what she is or where she came from, but she’s a friend, and she fought him. She saved me. I came to tell you that. Whatever she is, we can trust her. If and when she comes back, don’t be afraid of her.” I hesitated, considered telling her about the feather, and decided against it. Tears pricked my eyes; I couldn’t stop seeing Ryder’s boots in my mind. “How many more people have been taken?” I whispered.
Yvaine’s expression was grim. “So far, a dozen from here in the Citadel, but I’m sure we’ll soon hear reports of more. Lady Goff is one of them.”
I glanced past her at the waiting circle of advisers. A chill raced through me when I saw them—Thirsk, Bethan, Jarvis. Three of the queen’s closest advisers, her councilors, her confidantes. And now one of them was gone, presumably in Kilraith’s grasp.
“What can I do?” I dragged my gaze back to her. “Tell me what I can do to help you. I can take Goff’s place, or sing comfort to the wounded while the healers tend to them—”
“The best thing you can do is return to Ivyhill,” Yvaine said, “and open your doors to anyone who might need sanctuary. There are many frightened people out there, and your family will be a comfort to them.”
She glanced around at the panicked servants rushing past, the battalions of soldiers and teams of robed elementals and beguilers, all hurrying out into the city with their weapons at the ready, roaring wakes of magic trailing after them. Her gold and violet eyes flashed with anger. She looked invigorated, mighty, more herself than she had in months. Even the scar on her forehead looked healthier, its normal rosy pink. I allowed myself a brief moment of gladness at the sight.
“Will you send for me if I can be of help here?” I asked her.
She softened, squeezing my hands in hers. “I always will. And don’t fear for Ryder,” she added with a gentle smile. “He’s stubborn and strong, just like you are. In that way, and in many others, you’re perfectly suited to each other. Take comfort in that. Won’t you, darling?”
I nodded miserably, attempting a brave smile of my own. Then Yvaine released my hands and hurried back to her entourage. Thirsk shot me a final exasperated look and bustled after her. I let the palace’s chaos rush past me and watched Yvaine glide swiftly away down the grand corridor. Her distant head gleamed silver in the warm torchlight glinting off the walls. Something nagged at me as I watched her go, a feeling I couldn’t name that kept me rooted to the polished marble floor.
A harried-looking healer’s apprentice with an armful of supplies jostled me as she ran past, shaking me from my daze. I turned and left for home.
***
Under a canopy of cheerful distant stars, I trudged across Ivyhill’s great lawn from the greenway that connected our land to the capital. I made my way up the front steps, feeling utterly wrung out, every breath catching in my throat like silk on thorns. Ryder. I held his name on my tongue, in the cradle of my lungs. Ryder, don’t be afraid. I love you. I’ll find you. I love you.
Sick with worry, body and heart aching, I stepped through the front doors of Ivyhill and almost ran right into Gilroy.
“Gilroy, good.” I took hold of his sleeve, so thankful he hadn’t been taken that the tears I’d successfully stifled threatened to return. I blinked them back hard and walked with him toward the dining room. “We’ll need to send messages to Derryndell, Tullacross, Summer’s Amble,” I told him. Giving instructions was a relief. Never mind godly power and giant malevolent storms; this I knew how to tackle.
“The capital has been attacked,” I continued, “and people were abducted from the Citadel. It’s possible many others around the country have been taken, too, and that there have been other attacks. We’ll open up Ivyhill to anyone who needs shelter or medical attention, or to anyone who would simply feel safer here on the grounds. We’ll need to be organized about it. We don’t want a mad rush. Tell Madam Moreen and Bili to convert the Blue Ballroom into an infirmary, and have Mrs. Seffwyck lay out beds and supplies in the Green Ballroom and make up all the spare rooms we have. Mr. Carbreigh and his crew will need to constantly patrol the estate’s perimeter, reinforce the wards without rest. Tell him he may recruit any of the tenant farmers and their hands to help. They’ll be happy to, they’re always asking to study under him—”
I broke off, realizing suddenly that Gilroy was tottering after me in a daze, a piece of paper in his hand. His face was ashen, his forehead covered in a sheen of sweat. Instantly I was on alert, fear prickling my skin.
“Gilroy? What is it?” I took the paper from him. It was fine as silk in my hands, thin, shimmering silver. Gorgeous lettering swooped across the page.
“A man brought it to me,” Gilroy said wonderingly. A small smile played at his lips, as if he were recalling some forgotten joy. “A smiling man with a voice like summer. He told me it was important. He told me to bring it to the master of the house. But Lord Gideon is busy with the others, my lady. So I’ve been waiting for him. I’ve been waiting at the doors.”
I guided Gilroy to a chair at the side of the entrance hall and helped him sit. Absently he touched a white-gloved hand to his temple. “A beautiful man,” he murmured, “in a long fine coat.”
Shakily I held the paper up to the light and forced myself to read it.
To the most esteemed daughters of the House of Ashbourne—
You are warmly invited to what is sure to be the season’s most spectacular event: a weekend revel held in glorification of He Who Is All, in celebration of his vision for the new world. Dress is formal. Bring any guests you desire. But do not be late. When the road comes, you will take it. To ignore it or delay your crossing would be unwise.
The invitation had no signature, but of course I knew very well who had written it. I folded the paper into crisp thirds, stuffed it into my pocket, and knelt before Gilroy.
“You said Lord Gideon is busy with the others,” I said, my voice coming out much steadier than I felt. “What does that mean? Where is he?”
“You don’t understand!” cried a voice from somewhere deeper in the house—a woman, each word rough with agony. “He’ll find us!”
I left Gilroy sitting bleary-eyed in his chair and raced through the corridors, following the shouts to a terrible scene in one of the northern receiving rooms. Alastrina cowered in the corner, ripped bandages trailing off of her, a crazed look of grief in her eyes. Illaria stood between her and Madam Moreen, her hands up and her expression stern.
“You’re frightening her,” Illaria said firmly. “It’s the smell of the tonics. They remind her of that place.”
Madam Moreen looked to be at the end of her patience. “I understand, my lady, truly, but I can’t help the smell of my tonics, and since she won’t use any more of her magic,” she added crossly, throwing a glare toward Philippa, who sat near the hearth, “if Lady Alastrina keeps opening up her wounds, they’ll never heal, and they’ll get infected. The tonics will help prevent that.”
Past them, Talan sat in a chair with a fresh wound on his arm. One of his own bandages had been ripped open and hung off him in tatters. Gemma was hurrying to him with a fresh bandage, a cloth, a basin of water. Father was prowling back and forth behind them like an angry tiger, and Philippa—Philippa was still and quiet, a stricken expression on her face. She held her pipe in midair, as if she’d been interrupted just before taking a puff from it.
The look on her face chilled me. I tore my gaze away from her and went to Father.
“What’s going on here?” I demanded.
“Is the queen alive?” he asked tightly. I’d left him a note telling him where I’d gone.
“She is. It was a misunderstanding.” I avoided his keen gaze, took in the scene around us. “But this is… What’s happening ?”
Talan looked up wryly from Gemma’s ministrations. “Alastrina fears I am not who I claim to be.”
“She was quiet, calm, wouldn’t talk to anyone but Illaria and occasionally Madam Moreen,” Gemma said. Though her movements were brisk and assured, her voice trembled. “About two hours ago, she lost her senses, started wrecking the furniture and pulling pictures from the walls. Screaming about a storm, though there’s not a cloud in the sky. We managed to sedate her, but a few minutes ago she rushed at Talan, screaming about Kilraith, and—”
Gemma waved her hand irritably through the air. Then she looked up at me and went very still. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“A storm.” Philippa rose quietly from her chair, staring at me. “There was a storm, wasn’t there?”
“Kilraith attacked the capital. I don’t know why, but Ankaret stopped him.” I hesitated, realizing that neither Ryder nor I had told any of them about her. “The firebird,” I explained quickly. “The creature I saw at Ravenswood. She fought him, vanquished him.” The invitation sat like a weight in my pocket. “But not forever, it seems.”
“She?” Father looked at me quizzically. “How do you know this creature’s name?”
In a rush, I told them everything, and when I had finished, both Gemma and Father looked furious. Philippa stared hard at the hearth, as if within its flames burned a message only she could see.
“You and Ryder kept all of this from us?” Gemma shook her head in disbelief. “This could have been helpful to know, Farrin.”
“I don’t see how anything would be different now if I’d told you,” I shot back, though guilt burned hot in my stomach. I couldn’t say for sure that this was true. “We thought the fewer people knew about her, the safer it was for everyone, including her.”
“This creature could be an informant of Kilraith’s,” Father pressed. “She could have been spying on you all this time, bringing information back to him.”
“She’s a friend . She fought Kilraith and drove him away from the capital.”
“Which only just happened, and even that we can’t rightly interpret,” Father pointed out. “These are Olden creatures. We can’t trust them, no matter what pledges of friendship they offer.”
“Certainly that’s true of Kilraith, but not Ankaret.” The desire to sit down on the floor and never get up was overwhelming. In my exhaustion, I was starting to disbelieve my own self, and as my doubt crept in, so did my grief.
Right at that moment, Talan hissed out a breath. “Ryder,” he murmured. He looked up at me sadly. The warmth of his concern brushed against me, unasked for but welcome, and as soft as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing.
I nodded, realizing with a jolt of unreasonable self-loathing that I’d forgotten to bring home his boots.
“He was taken,” I said thickly. “Many were from the castle as well, and I assume from everywhere else.” I glanced at Father. “Have any of our people disappeared?”
He frowned, as if the question were an irritant. “No, and I suppose we have her to thank for that?”
Her. I looked past him to Philippa, who still stared at the empty hearth. “Is that true?” I asked her. “Is your presence protecting us? Have you decided to stay and help us after all?”
It was as if she hadn’t heard me. “Ankaret,” she murmured, tracing her finger across the mantel. “What a strange name. Familiar, as if from a dream.”
“What does that mean? You know the word? You’ve heard it before?”
From behind me came a crash of glass. I whirled to see Madam Moreen squatting down to clean up a shattered vial. The burning medicinal scent of the spilled tonic wafted up from the carpet, and a bright magenta stain dripped slowly down the wallpaper.
Alastrina stared at the mess, medicine splattered across her front. She looked imploringly at Illaria, who grabbed a cloth and started to clean her cheeks. I almost looked away—the expression on Alastrina’s tearstained face was terrible, desolate, so unlike the imperious woman I’d always known that it frightened me. But then a memory flew forward from the tumult of my mind. Alastrina, before Ryder and I had left for the capital and we’d all been gathered in the morning room, had laughed quietly to herself and said, You won’t be able to find him. No one ever has. You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?
Crack the shell.
A goblet, a key, a black lake under a full moon.
An egg .
The revelation hit me like a shock of cold water.
“Alastrina, when we came back from Mhorghast, you said something I think is important,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. “‘You won’t be able to find him. No one ever has. You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?’ Do you remember saying that?”
She glared up at me through greasy locks of black hair, her fingers digging into Illaria’s arm. “Ashbourne, you’re talking gibberish.”
I tried again. “‘You won’t be able find him,’” I said calmly. “‘No one ever has. You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?’”
This time, the words seemed to ring a bell inside her. Her eyes widened; she went very still. “Crack the shell,” she whispered.
My heart pounded. “Yes, exactly. Is it the shell of an egg, Alastrina? Is that what you meant?”
She held her head in her hands. Her breathing started coming quickly. “An egg. Crack the shell.”
I thought back to the cryptic information Ankaret had given Ryder and me. I found the words at once; they were not easy to forget.
“Mhorghast is a city and a palace,” I said. “Isn’t it, Alastrina? And gardens that stretch for miles, all of it ruled by a great storm. Where is this egg kept? What does it do? Do you know?”
Alastrina stared at me, her pale face turning ashen. She licked her dry lips.
I pressed on. Maybe, if I kept reciting Ankaret’s words, they would spark something in Alastrina, give her strength, or at least lucidity. “‘The storm lives in the walls, and sometimes in the sky.’”
“In the walls,” Alastrina whispered. And then her face crumpled. “In the walls !”
“Farrin, please, no more,” Illaria said tightly, but I couldn’t stop now, not with that look of recognition dawning in Alastrina’s eyes. Ryder’s eyes—that same piercing, unflinching blue.
I swallowed my heartache and remembered how Alastrina’s gaze had clouded over in Mhorghast. Some power there had muddled her, turning her against her own brother.
I flung the words at her. “‘The storm lives in the walls, and sometimes in the sky. The storm is not like others. It has a will—’”
“I feel it again,” Philippa said, interrupting me. She sank down onto the carpet, peering curiously at Alastrina. “I can see it on your face, my girl—the same presence I felt when I was there. A face across a crowded room, a shade of memory. A trace of it lingers in you.”
She reached out to touch Alastrina, who tried to scramble away in a panic—but then Philippa touched her cheek, and though it was nothing more than a light brush of her fingertips, it held Alastrina in place as surely as an unbreakable chain.
In an instant, the room seemed to expand, as if to accommodate Philippa’s power. Goose bumps erupted all over me; behind me, Madam Moreen let out a soft cry of dismay.
A breath, a frozen instant, and then Philippa’s face went slack with horror. She released Alastrina, staggered to her feet, stumbled toward a chair. She sat down hard, missed the chair’s edge, and fell gracelessly to the floor.
“No,” she breathed, her voice a mere rasp. “It’s not possible.”
Alastrina collapsed against Illaria, her breathing shallow and quick. “It’s not possible,” she whispered, echoing Philippa’s words.
“It can’t be,” they cried in unison.
Not once since we’d met Philippa at Wardwell had she shown any sign of shame, apology, or fear. But now she seemed to shrink into herself. Her eyes flickered blue and gold, and her image rippled before me—fading, then returning, like a flame sputtering in the wind and threatening to go out.
Anger shot through me. I hurried to Philippa and grabbed her arms. “No, don’t you dare leave us yet. What did you see? Tell me, quickly and plainly.”
Philippa’s expression was wretched with agony, tears streaming down her face. I hated the sight of her, how pathetic and vulnerable and human she looked, how much like the mother I remembered. With all her calm coldness gone, she seemed not mighty but haggard.
“My brother is alive,” she said hoarsely. “He’s alive, and he’s in chains. He has him.” She wrapped her hands around my arms, drawing me closer to her. “Kilraith has him .”
Gemma came to us and sank down slowly beside me. Her face was white, and her hands were bare; the glittering scar Kilraith had marked her with grinned up at me. “Your brother,” she said quietly. “You mean another god. Caiathos?”
I went cold. I heard Talan mutter an angry, horrified curse. Suddenly the particular madness of Mhorghast made sense to me— Alastrina’s clouded eyes, the humans who laughed when the vampyr slew her victim. Ankaret herself had told us the answer, hidden in the folds of her many riddles. They are not themselves. They are made to do things they don’t want to do.
“No,” I said quietly. “Not the god of the earth.” I met Philippa’s eyes. “Jaetris. God of the mind. Father of readers, furiants, figments, sages.” My heart twinged, thinking of Gareth. I glanced back at Talan. “Father of the greater demons.”
Talan’s gaze was hard and dark. “And Kilraith is using him as a weapon, a tool to draw people to Mhorghast and hold them there.”
“And to torture them.” I closed my eyes, my gorge rising as I thought of Ryder in that place, of Gareth, of the horrors that now lived in Alastrina’s mind.
“I don’t understand,” Father said faintly, still standing behind Talan’s chair. He gripped the back of it hard. “How can a creature—any creature—control a god?”
I saw the answer in the sadness and sudden, wide-eyed fear on Philippa’s face.
“Because he’s newly reborn,” I said, echoing her words from Wardwell. “A mere shadow of what he once was.”
Philippa nodded. Her gaze shifted as I watched her, from the watery blue eyes of a human woman to a god’s frantic flickering gold. “But even a god reborn is still a god.” She looked to Father. I thought I saw a flash of regret on her face. “Think of what I did to you, how quickly I opened you up and made you bleed.”
Father was grim. “And if you didn’t have control of your power, if someone else was using it? You’d be a murderous puppet with a monster pulling your strings.”
“And the egg must be an anchor of the ytheliad curse,” Gemma added. She looked to Talan, a softness in her eyes. “He’s using it to control Jaetris like he used the crown to control Talan.”
“It would give him strength and mobility,” Talan agreed quietly. His brow glittered with its own swirl of lines and thumbprint scars, partners to those on Gemma’s hand. “Allow him to use his influence—and that of Jaetris—in both realms.”
“And plant visions in people’s heads,” I whispered, thinking of Mara’s story—the woman driven mad by the images in her mind, the woman who’d attacked her brother. “Making them sick, driving them to him.”
“Some he abducts himself,” Father added, “or else he sends that shadow magic to do it for him. An army of figments, maybe? Quick, skilled at deception.” Father’s hands were in fists. “It’s a strange strategy. Untidy. Chaotic.”
Philippa hid her face in her hands. “Chaos is just what he wants.”
“Chaos is just what he wants,” Alastrina whispered, leaning against Illaria and staring at the floor.
“Chaos,” Talan agreed darkly, “and entertainment. That’s always been a part of it. He’s playing a game. Whatever ends he’s aiming for—whatever dark plots he’s engineered throughout the realms using me and the others before me, now using Jaetris and the captive humans he’s making certain the effort is fun. He has all the cards, and he’s enjoying it.”
“And look at this.” I reached in my pocket for the invitation. “He’s not even hiding himself away anymore. He wants us to go to him.”
As soon as I withdrew the shimmering piece of paper, the world went deathly silent—the house, my heartbeat, my breathing—except for a high, faint whine in the distance.
Philippa reared back from me, her mouth open in a silent scream. Our gazes locked, and when her body started to flicker again, fading in and out of existence, I dropped the paper and grabbed on to her bare wrist.
She sucked in a breath and held me to her for a brief moment. The world’s silence roared in my ears.
“I have to go,” she told me—jewels in her hair, bones for armor, eyes of liquid gold. “If I stay, he’ll find me. Burn that thing immediately. It isn’t what it seems.” Her arms came around me again, then let me go. “I’m sorry, my little bird. It’s to protect you. What I do is always to protect you.”
Then the world went white, and when it faded, when sound returned, all of us were gasping for breath on the floor, and Philippa was gone.
Tears burning in my eyes, anger sour at the back of my throat, I grabbed the invitation from where it lay on the floor and crushed the delicate paper between my palms. A hiss wafted up from it, as if it were a living thing I’d stomped flat. Alastrina clapped her hands over her ears with a soft cry of despair. I ran for the hearth; Father was already there, lighting the wood. He’d heard Philippa’s words, or else he simply sensed the wrongness of this thing in my hands and knew it must be destroyed. Either way, I was grateful. I tossed the wad of paper into the tiny fresh flames, watched it light up and blacken. A wheezing sound puffed up from it as it burned. It was laughing at us; Kilraith was laughing at us.
I watched the fire grow and snap until the paper was ashes in its teeth, swearing to myself all the while that he would not be laughing for long.