Chapter 21
I approach warily, as though the envelope is a trap. It’s the same exact shade and type of paper as the drawing in my pocket. Undeniably Silas.
Sucking in a breath and leaving the rest to fate and luck, I open it. In the center of the paper is a string of letters and numbers written in Silas’s script:
It’s a book in the library. I recognize the numbering system instantly. I’d spent enough time there last year studying and researching.
Why would he dare risk putting something so overt where, theoretically, anyone could find it? Even if this room has been abandoned for the entire time I’ve been in the academy and I’ve never seen signs of anyone else entering, it’s not as if someone couldn’t stumble upon it.
Then there’s the vague notion that this could be a trap. But the only person who could’ve laid it would be Ravin—probably the same person who ransacked Silas’s room. He could’ve altered one of Silas’s drawings. The letter crumples in my fist as I halt.
Do I dare? Is it worth the risk? I look at the sketch and pick up my pace again, making my choice. The lines on the drawing are undeniably Silas’s. Twenty, I’d know it from the ink alone. He always had a fascinating mixture of pigment he’d use just for sketching.
Running through the halls, I make it to the library in no time. Of course, it’s completely empty. Students and faculty all go home for the longest break in the academic year. Even still, I listen and look for signs of anyone else and stick to the shadows.
If I had a different face, I wouldn’t need to worry.
The thought is hard. Grim in its truth. I banish it, focusing on the here and now as I arrive at the twenty-third section of the library, fourth bookshelf in, fifth shelf.
Fingertip dragging across the ink that has long since seeped into the spines, I search for the book numbered 10081.
10079…10080…
10082.
My hand falls to my side, and I skim the shelves around where the book should be. All the others appear to be in order. I pull the letter from my pocket again, studying it.
“What do you want me to see?” I whisper, as if his ghost might hear me and answer. There must be something I missed.
Then, as I move my thumb to fold up the letter, I see it.
A streak of black in the bottom left corner. One that almost looks as if his pen slipped and he struggled to catch it. Something easily disregarded.
Except…
Holding out my right hand, I grasp an invisible pen, hovering its tip over the page, which I brace with my left. I scribble over the numbers. I pretend to drop the pen four different times, in four different ways.
The only way for the pen to make that mark on accident would be if Silas was left-handed. And I know he wasn’t.
This mark was intentional. But what does it mean? I flip over the page, nothing on the back. Then I rotate it.
10081 becomes 18001.
I skim the shelves, searching. The book is in a completely different section. My hands quiver as I reach for it. Its title is faded, gilding completely flaked off. I flip through the pages, and one falls out.
There, written in the margins in a familiar script, is the message.
Go to my first prison.
“Silas.” I choke out his name with a disbelieving laugh. When did he leave this for me? It must’ve been during the Feast of Cups. Did he know that I’d use the card he gave me? He probably did.
Pressing my eyes closed, I fight a rush of guilt. I was so predictable. He knew I’d damn him…and he gave me that card anyway.
I’m running again, back through the depths of the academy. This time, two letters are tucked into my pocket alongside his drawings. I leave through the tunnel inside the bridge.
Down Silver Street, not far from Ravin’s manor, is a decrepit, tucked-away building.
The windows are a mix of boarded up, cracked, and grime-coated.
I let myself in through a familiar back door and head upstairs.
The entire time, I have my magic focused on my cards, ready to summon any at the first sign of trouble.
But all that greets me are the faded outlines of our boots in the dust, heading down the stairs, from when we teleported here—none are heading up.
The bedroom is exactly as I remember, from the threadbare sheets to the dusty aroma.
It’s getting late, so I waste no time scouring the room from top to bottom.
At first, I move slowly and methodically, searching for any signs of Silas’s presence.
When I find none, I begin to search more vigorously.
Still nothing. After what feels like an hour of turning the room upside down, I stop and rake my fingers through my still-damp hair.
“Where is it?” I say with a groan.
Crossing to the window, I scan the sky. There’s the faintest blush of dawn kissing the stars. I’ll need to be back soon. I wouldn’t dare move around Eclipse City right now in broad daylight. At least, not with my current face…
Sighing, I spin in place and lean on the windowsill, about to consider my options.
Except the sill moves ever so slightly under my weight. Jumping away instantly and assessing it, I give it a gentle tug. It shifts again.
The last time I was here, I came to this very window, I rested my hand on this very sill, and it did not move.
With a determined yank, I pull it right off.
The wall inside has been hollowed out, mostly by termites, but also from what looks like clumsy knife work gouging at the remaining wood.
There’s a gap just wide enough for a familiar journal.
It’s worn, leather-bound. The edges are covered in dust and ink splotches. I run my fingertips over its front, very nearly unable to bring myself to open it.
Every time we ventured out, he never left without it. Tears roll off my cheeks, darkening the leather. It wasn’t there when I was throwing things from his desk into a bag as we were running.
“Did you know that you were going to die?”
Silas knew.
He had to have.
He knew everything. About me. About my crew. The people we were and what we would do. He knew I would go back to his room and find his trail that would lead me here.
Because when I open the journal to the very first page, scribbled across the back side of the cover is a message that begins with:
At the end of it all, I decided if I was going to die, I’d do it free. On my own terms.
I was the Chariot, after all. I was never meant to be chained.
“You bastard,” I whisper. I’m laughing again. And crying. I rub my face vigorously with the heel of my hand, wiping the tears from my eyes. The last thing I want is to smudge the ink on the pages as I flip through them.
It’s like turning the pages of the last year of my life, but through Silas’s eyes.
The journal starts distant and emotionless.
It’s a report of my movements within the academy.
He even recalls the details of my battle for the Arcanum Chalice—he must’ve sneaked in to watch.
Now that I know all the tiny threads tying him and Ravin together, I can clearly see exactly how it all unfolded, unbeknownst to me.
Warden Glavstone ran to Ravin like the rat he was after Kaelis broke me out.
Ravin came to the academy, to see for himself.
He used a Chariot card. I always thought Silas was taking him in and out…
but Ravin could use the Major Arcana all along.
He’s one of us. Then Ravin went to Silas after the first time I saw him in the academy.
He must’ve told Silas to follow me and get information—to get closer to me.
Silas followed my every movement. That’s why he was there that first night as I made my way through the wards leading to the workshop of the Fool. That’s how he was there to save me.
My eyes snag on a note that is dated just after our first meeting.
She looks so much like Arina.
One line, set off from the rest. Written in a slightly different script, as if added as an afterthought at the end of the day. As if meant just for him, more than anyone else.
The next page stops my heart.
A sketch of Arina as I remember her—not the broken woman I found locked away, but the radiant and rebellious force of nature I always knew as my little sister. My hands drag over the inked curve of her cheek, trailing to my own profile beneath hers.
How cruel the world has been to us. How I would die to bring her back if it would be enough…
That’s not the last mention of Arina. His anecdotes now and then are written as if directly to her.
His guilt at the betrayal he committed against her.
His genuine belief that she’d died. His joy at feeling like he might be able to do good, for once…
even as it killed him inside with worry for his family.
Sketches of the townhome are positioned next to details on how to get there.
That’s how Ravin must’ve known how to find us.
“You bastard,” I whisper. Yet my venom has dried up.
I can see on the page Silas’s journey from cold executor of Ravin’s will to questioning acquaintance to cautious ally and even… friend.
Then I reach the final page of writing.
Well done.
Though, if I didn’t think you’d be able to get here, I wouldn’t have left this for you. I’m not sure when my death will happen, but I know it will. I won’t be able to help you as I intended for long. Probably not nearly long enough.
He knows my name, after all…
Find my family, please. If they’re still alive, save them. And get the bastard. Though, I probably don’t need to tell you that. That much I’m confident you’ll do no matter what.
Thank you. For everything you’ll do. For giving me hope, however fleeting it might have been.
I wish I could’ve done more. But this is the best I can do…Be free, Clara. Charge ahead. Don’t ever let them chain you down again.
I flip the page and find the next page folded into a makeshift envelope. Tucked into it are ten silver cards. On each, the chariot charges forward, as if to leap off the surface. I pull them out with reverence.
Clutching the cards to my chest, I draw a shuddering breath and whisper, “Thank you. I will make sure your family is safe, and I will get the bastard.”
I pocket the cards, and I tear out some pages, notes about his family—things they might want to see as a token of their son and brother. But I leave the rest in the journal and place it on the bed. No one needs evidence of Silas’s crimes. His alliance with Ravin.
Let him be remembered not as the man he started as, but as the man he became.
“Goodbye, Silas,” I whisper and turn for the door.
I walk down the stairs and bid the place one last farewell. The King of Wands rises from the deck Kaelis made for me, its crimson ink shimmering nearly golden in the first light of dawn.
It bursts with a shower of sparks, and the whole house is ablaze in a blink. I visualize that journal, resting on the bed, as the epicenter of the fire. I’m two blocks away when enforcers rush to the scene.
I lurk in an alleyway, making sure it all burns—that their magic can’t put it out. That’s how I overhear one saying, “It’s her. Fan out. Find her!”
I turn, sinking deeper into the shadows shrinking with the dawn.
I need to get back, and I’d rather not use one of the precious cards Silas gave me.
Two enforcers come down my alley, and I quickly turn in another direction before they see me, pressing into an alcove and holding my breath.
Deck at the ready. But luck is on my side; they completely overlook this narrow gap between buildings.
“This is futile. We’re not going to find her if Emilia Ventall and the Stellis couldn’t,” one says grimly. The lack of hope fills me with pride.
“Just look at what happened to them.” I can hear the wince in his voice.
“Exactly. So, no point in exhausting ourselves. I hear Prince Ravin’s bringing someone new in, someone he’s confident can find her.”
“Who?”
“How would I know? Whoever he is, I hear he’ll sniff her out like a dog.”
“Lord Moreus Ventall? Bring in the father where the daughter failed?”
They’re growing distant now; I strain my ears and hold my breath.
“Not him. Someone else coming…but not…”
“…about time…”
The two enforcers are gone, and suddenly the balmy morning air is cold. Cold as the ice in my veins. Ravin is bringing someone in who can sniff me out “like a dog.”
Fuck. I dare not speak it. I turn on my heel and slink toward the nearest entrance to the tunnels. I speed back to the academy through cramped and dimly lit passages, emerging only to make my way through the graveyard before plunging into the bridge once more.
I quickly stop to see Arina and leave a note for Gregor, explaining I’ll be gone a bit longer. Then, I make my way to Kaelis’s apartments. He’s asleep in his bed, and I stand at his bedside.
“Kaelis,” I say firmly.
He jolts awake. Several cards hover instantly—rising from different points around his bed. The man’s armed to the teeth even when asleep.
“By the Twenty, Clara,” he groans. “What?”
“We’ve made a mistake.”