TWENTY
The weathered stone pillar at the crossroads feels older than the road itself, as if it’s been waiting for these kinds of choices longer than I’ve been alive.
I reach the ancient milestone with my heart still lodged somewhere behind me, pounding like it’s trying to catch up.
Above me, constellations burn as though nothing in the world is out of place.
Except for that single star blazing in the Night’s Scar—and now me.
I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders and try not to imagine Bishop standing at the window, reading the note I left behind.
He won’t find it until morning—after I’m long gone.
Thankfully, I have a new problem to deal with: the crossroads are deserted.
A sharp jab of panic rises past my already crippling anxiety.
“Because I needed one more thing to worry about,” I grumble as my mind begins racing with all the potential disasters keeping Kieren away.
But before I can turn around, Kieren emerges, breathless, from the dark with a pack slung over his shoulder. Relief floods his face when he sees me. He grins like this is an adventure instead of an escape, but there’s a weariness in his dark eyes.
“You came.” He sounds genuinely surprised as he gives me a quick hug.
“I couldn’t let you get into all the trouble without me.” Joy surges through the fear I’ve felt since I left Miradores. A quick burst of sunlight on a cloudy day.
“Let’s get going.” He grabs my bag and throws it over his other shoulder as if it weighs no more than a sack of flour before I can protest.
We walk side by side toward Wolf’s Keep, our footsteps the only sound on the empty road. Kieren fills the silence the way he always does when he senses I’m retreating into myself. He talks about ships and places where no one knows our names.
It’s almost enough to keep my thoughts from wandering back to the crumbling estate I left behind or the uncertainty facing us. For the first time, I notice he isn’t wearing his sword, and my heart sinks a few inches. “How are we paying for this?”
“I sold some things. The astrolabe. Other stuff.” His grin is sheepish. “I know it wasn’t really mine.”
But I shrug. It’s probably better that my brother doesn’t have a way to reach him. And Broderic’s wrath is the least of our problems right now. “It can’t have been worth much.”
“It wasn’t,” he says grimly, “but it’s enough to secure our passage.”
“And what exactly are we going to do once we get there?”
“I don’t know.” But he doesn’t sound worried. I’m glad one of us is optimistic, especially since I keep listening for the sounds of people coming to drag the deserter and the harbinger back. “I figure I can work on the boat, and I hear sailors love Liar’s Hand. I can make some money that way.”
I question his sources. “Where did you hear that?”
“The guys who taught me how to play this afternoon in the Commons.”
I resist the urge to grimace. “I’m not sure gambling is a solid plan.”
Especially betting on a game he only learned a few hours ago.
“Life is a gamble.” He bumps his broad shoulder against mine. “The only way to lose is if you don’t play.”
“There are other ways to lose,” I point out, but his excitement is infectious. Still, my fingers keep checking the clasp of my cloak, as if the mark below it might burn through the fabric if I stop touching it and give us away somehow.
“And who knows if I can make something of myself on the continent,” he says lightly. “Maybe I’ll come back with enough coin that Isidore won’t pretend I’m invisible anymore.”
I don’t have the heart to remind him that he’ll be charged with treason if he comes back. It doesn’t matter if he’s moved on to predicting how long we’ll be at sea.
I let his voice wash over me, the sound comforting after weeks apart. It’s the sound of my childhood. Of afternoons spent listening to him in the fields, the two of us flinging dirt clods at each other when it was too hot to work—and Broderic wasn’t watching.
He’s technically a guard, but that title never fit him.
He was always beside me in those fields, our boots muddy as we navigated every painfully awkward moment of growing up.
Like when he caught Coen Hawthorn giving me my first kiss in the barn and made puckering faces at me for weeks behind everyone else’s backs.
Or when I found him with Hanna Aster by the plow shed two summers later and made the same face behind her back.
Kieren turned beet red and chased me halfway across the orchard. Probably afraid I’d tell Isidore.
He stayed by my side the night my mother died, when I couldn’t believe the sun would rise in the morning.
Held my hand when we lost my father. He’s been with me every step.
Maybe that’s why coming to Vennaro never felt right.
He wasn’t here. And as terrified as I am of leaving all I’ve ever known behind, with him, it will be an adventure.
“You’re quiet again,” he says after a few more minutes of him carrying the conversation. “Are you afraid?”
“Yes,” I admit. Only a fool wouldn’t be.
“Of going to the Lost Continent?” he asks softly.
I know he’ll understand. The trouble is, I don’t quite understand it myself.
“Not of going, exactly.” I search for words that explain the churning dread I can’t shake. “But what I’m leaving behind.”
Our family. Everything I’ve ever known. Maybe even Bishop. What if war does come? Or our siblings still pay the price after we’ve fled?
Kieren considers before he nods, and I know he’s thinking about Isidore.
When I fall silent, he does the talking again. He speaks about the Lost Continent like it’s a promise—a place without orders or marks or Stars weighing every choice. I remind him there won’t be magic there. He only laughs again. “That’s why it’s an adventure.”
By the time we reach Wolf’s Keep, he’s distracted me. But as we cross the city’s threshold, I can’t help turning to look back at the road.
“He won’t know you’re gone until morning,” Kieren reminds me, catching my nervous glance.
“Unless he finds my note,” I murmur absently.
Kieren stops dead in his tracks.
“You left a note.” It’s not a question, but his voice pitches up like it should be. “Do you want him to chase after you?”
I roll my eyes, but he waits like he actually expects me to answer him. “Of course not,” I say, pulling my hood tighter as a group of soldiers passes us. “That’s why I left him a note, so he would know that I left Antares.”
My best friend’s mouth falls open. “You told him where we’re going.”
“No,” I say quickly.
“There is really only one way to leave the kingdom.” Kieren rakes a hand through his hair, glancing around like he expects to be ambushed momentarily.
“And we’ll be sailing on the Baron Sea before dawn, right?”
He nods, but his face remains uneasy.
“Trust me, he’ll be glad to be rid of me.” It’s not like Bishop will waste his dwindling resources chasing after us.
Kieren grumbles like he doubts this but doesn’t say anything else.
Thinking of Bishop finding my note makes the knot in my stomach clench with each step, my gaze finding the ground like if I don’t look up I won’t have to face my own feelings—or what I might have discovered about him.
Bishop is a heart collector. He was present when three of the murders took place.
Leaving helps me see it in a way I couldn’t with him always near me.
That’s why he took me in. When the rest of the patrons debated whether or not I was responsible for King Ophelian’s death, he brought me to his home.
He’s never been afraid of me—not even for a second.
And there’s only one way he could have been sure I wasn’t the assassin.
The pieces all fit. Mostly. But the picture is still clear enough to see.
The trouble is that I’ll never know why.
It’s well past midnight, and most of Wolf’s Keep is quiet.
Windows are shuttered and doors are barred, but The Last Drop’s lights still blaze like it’s daring someone to look at it too closely.
The smell of stale ale and smoke hits me the moment we step inside, but it’s the sight of the man behind the bar that raises the hair on the back of my neck.
“Kitchen’s closed, but we have beer,” he calls to us, giving me a glimpse of his gold tooth—the one I saw when he spat at my feet yesterday, right before Vessica held a sword to his nose.
Kieren waves that he’s heard him, and I let him take the lead. A wolf’s head hangs above the hearth, its horns polished smooth by whoever mounted it, its glass eyes dull and watchful.
I tug my hood lower, my pulse skittering every time someone shifts in their seat. I do my best to avoid eye contact with anyone, looking at the floorboards scarred by too many passing boots.
We make our way to a table in the back corner.
The man sitting there looks like trouble wrapped in charm—contagious smile and watchful eyes—with sun-worn brown skin and dark hair threaded with silver at the temples.
His grin widens as we approach, and a thin scar pulls at the corner of his mouth like it learned the shape the hard way.
He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his neck.
“You came back,” he greets Kieren, his eyes sharpening on me too quickly for someone lounging so casually.
“I told you that I would.”
“And she came with you.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” Kieren pulls out a stool for me before he claims one for himself. “Jude”—he greets him by name—“this is—”
“Isidore.” I give him my sister’s name before anyone overhears him use mine. Too many people here have read my name in the Civicus.
Kieren’s brows bunch together, but Jude nods like he understands.
“Nice to meet you, Isidore.” He winks at me.
Jude signals for another round without asking, as if he’s decided we’re staying awhile. The tavern seems louder now, full of shouts and laughter. The noise scrapes against my nerves. I keep my hood up, but I can feel eyes sliding toward us and then away again.