34. 33
Iknocked on the door for the second time that day. “Camriel?”
There was a pause on the other side, and I forced myself to breathe normally. I looked down at the plate of food I had randomly grabbed from the kitchens. A piece of bread, a spread of soft cheese, and a plum. Not a standard dinner, but I hoped he wouldn’t look too closely.
Holding the heavy plate stopped my hands from visibly shaking, at the very least. I was terrified I had made a mistake. I was even more terrified that I could be right.
We would find out soon enough.
I exhaled as Camriel opened the door. He held it ajar, with only the space for his face. His eyes had sunken further into his haggard and exhausted face. He checked behind me, then he looked down at the food in my hands.
“I brought you some food,” I said, before he could close the door on me.
His mouth quivered in an imitation of a smile. “You shouldn’t have.”
I shuffled forwards, the toes of my right foot past the threshold. I forced a smile back. “Can I come in?”
He studied my face, and then looked behind me once more. If he refused me now, I hardly knew what I would do. The plan relied on him letting me in.
Then something shifted behind his eyes. Guilt overlapped into something akin to relief. His lower lip shook. “Sure.”
He pulled the door open wider, and I immediately stepped into the room. He closed it behind me, and there was the telltale click of a key in a lock. He coughed to attempt to cover it, but I heard it nonetheless. “Has Davian shown up yet?”
I stiffened, and then placed the plate down on his overly neat desk. It hadn’t seemed suspicious to me before how little paperwork there was. Now, it did. Now everything read differently.
“No,” I said, turning to him. “Not yet.”
Camriel nodded, pocketing something—the key, most likely—as he approached the opposing side of the desk. He sat heavily, and picked up the plum by the squat stem.
I sat, even knowing I might never leave this chair. The stage was set. This would end badly for one of us, but I knew that as soon as I had knocked.
I hadn’t been sure. Not when I had scurried out of Granville’s faded yellow door. Not when I had relayed my theory at my next stop.
But the turn of the lock, the key slipping into his pocket. It was as good as an admission. Now, I needed a real admission before it was too late.
I let him bite into the crisp fruit. I waited for him to swallow, listening to the fleshy noise of his chews. In the silence, I listened for any other noise. But wherever they were, it was far enough not to hear them. If there was anything left to hear.
I cleared my throat, gathering all of my courage. The reality of being here was so much worse than I could have ever expected. “Are they still alive?”
Camriel’s fingers clenched on the ripe purple surface. Nothing else about him changed. “What?”
My voice broke. “Fella. Davian.”
He turned the fruit, and took another bite. “What are you talking about?”
The relic had to be on the shelves behind my head, as my view of the room was almost identical to the view from the House of Wisdom. Except, the door was gone now. Hidden back away.
An hour ago, when I had asked Theolis to show me this room, a shelf lay open, revealing a darkened passage beyond. Here, there was nothing to suggest a false wall or cabinet. No levers, no obvious hinges.
This time, I didn’t wait for Camriel to swallow. I had already laid the accusation. There were a few ways this could go now, and their time might be running out as we spoke.
I stared at where the door should be, and pointed. “They’re down there, aren’t they?”
Camriel reacted this time. He followed my point with a look of genuine shock. When his eyes met mine again, there was anger, suspicion, and fear. I didn’t expect the fear.
Then he shook his head, and put the fruit back down, wiping his fingers on his trousers. “Annie, I don’t know what you drank last night, or how tired you are. But I haven’t seen them since yesterday.”
I knew without a doubt he was lying. Part of me had suspected that morning, but I hadn’t thought much beyond him covering up some tryst. If I was right, and I hated that I thought I was right, I couldn’t handle it. But I had to. For them. Gods, for them.
My eyes welled up with tears. “Please don’t lie to me. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but please. Camriel. I just want them to live.” I took a shivering breath as Camriel stood. “Don’t you?”
Something crumpled on his face, but it was gone within a second. He stood beside his desk with his arms folded. “I think you should leave.”
I didn’t look away. “Your Oath is tomorrow. That’s the deadline, isn’t it? For bringing Ragnifort back?”
Camriel’s eyes widened. He didn’t know I knew about the circles, about the cast-down god.
Whatever he might have expected from me, it wasn’t this. And such was my armour. It was the only way this could play out. I had to be alone, I had to come to him this way, because he didn’t believe me capable of connecting the dots.
There was no satisfaction in being right. All I wanted to know was that Davian and Fella were safe. All I felt was a sickness, bone-deep and yet desperately hungry. It couldn’t be too late. It couldn’t.
I reached my hand towards him. “Are they alive?”
Camriel stared at my hand as if it held a knife. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“All of it,” I said softly. “I am accusing you of getting Jusia and Saskia delivered to you in exchange for paying off some debts. I am accusing you of killing both of them.” I didn’t picture my friend when I said her name.
It was just a name. I couldn’t let myself consider what he had done. “I think you killed Seera, too.”
Camriel folded his arms. “Why would I do that?”
“That’s the part I can’t understand.” My hands were shaking at my sides, and my voice stuttered over the words. But I had to know. “I thought you loved Fella. Davian, too. You were so close. How could you hurt them?”
Camriel breathed in through his nose, his nostrils flaring.
He looked at the door he had locked behind me. He looked at my hands. Empty and unarmed.
I watched him decide I was no threat.
Then, he dropped the mask. The pain settled into every fine line. His dismissive look widened into a haunted gaze. “It’s only temporary. He’ll bring them back.”
Cold like I had never known before drained through me. “What?”
“The sacrifices,” he said. “Ragnifort will bring them all back.”
It was a confession. A freezing, icy one. I couldn't be too late. Please. “Are they both dead?”
He said nothing.
My vision swirled, and I held the edge of the desk. “Why kill them in the first place? Why kill them just to bring them back?”
Camriel clucked his tongue. “It was very stupid of you to come here alone. And yet, I have been waiting so long for someone to know. It has been so lonely.”
I prayed, then. For the tenth time that day. To every God. Ekris and Samiscus. Knessus, Akaur, and Otori. To the Harvest, and Merriment, to War and the Sea. To Ragnifort, too, for good measure. Just one word. Please.
“Where are they?” I asked, with no blood left in my face. Help was coming, but I needed to live long enough to see it. “Are they still alive?”
I turned to Camriel when he said nothing. He had walked into the middle of the room, and now stared at the wall, running his hand over the edge of a shelf.
Then he turned to me. He shook his head, as if denying some thought. “I only killed the ones I had to. One of each. He told me where to find them.”
“Granville?” I asked.
He didn’t react, continuing in the same monotony. “It was quick. They’d be asleep, then I would carve the marks. Take the blood. They’ll be back soon.”
My voice cracked. “But why? You have the love and favour of Samiscus. Why serve Ragnifort? What can he do for you?” If there was any chance either of them was alive, I had to keep him talking. Make him see sense, make him doubt, even for a second.
But there was nothing wavering about Camriel’s expression. “Everything.”
I stared at him, and it was clear that whatever deal he had been offered, it was enough to kill his closest friends. “I don’t understand.”
The mask was back. “I can’t let you ruin it. Not when we’re so close. I shouldn’t have let you in, but you have to know it was for the greater good. Everyone has to know. I’m not a monster.”
Now, and only now, I stood. So close. Hope clawed into my throat. “So it’s not over.”
Camriel looked towards the empty shelf, and the passage it hid. Something I hadn’t known existed until an hour ago. “The ritual is nearly complete.”
Nearly. Gods, it was barely anything. A word. And yet, it was everything. The way Camriel didn’t look at me, the way his hand clenched.
“He’s still alive, isn’t he?” I whispered.
Camriel flashed his eyes to me, and I knew it to be so.
Davian wasn’t dead yet. Was he hurt? Gods, how alive was he? The nausea rose up, and I smothered it.
Camriel took a step towards me. “Do you want to see him?”
Yes. A thousand times. A tear fell down my cheek, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. “If I say yes, are you going to kill me?”
Camriel flinched, then. I might as well have slapped him, for he looked stunned by the suggestion. “No.”
I stared at the hidden door, then back at him.
He frowned. “I don’t need to. I don’t kill unless I have to. I’m not evil.”
“Please. Can I see him?”
He scanned me once more, then his frown deepened. “You’ll have to let me chain you up.”
My heart leapt.
For the second time that day, I was speaking to a man who was clearly unstable. This man might even kill me. The accusation sat on his doorstep, and he had accepted it. What good reason did he have for keeping me alive, but for his fraying conscience?
And yet, he had underestimated me once.
“I promise I won’t do anything,” I said.
He shook his head firmly. “Once Ragnifort has taken me through to the other side, there will be no justice or revenge that can find us. I can’t let you interfere. You’ll have to be chained. Someone will find you eventually.”
My blood chilled yet again. He had locked the door.
If he took me down there, and then he left, who would find me?
Who would ever find me? If I was wrong, and my plan didn’t work, or something had changed, then chaining me down there was as much a death as a knife through my heart.
As far as he knew, chaining me down there would kill me.
“And if I try to leave here?” I asked.
He sighed. “Then I would have to kill you.”
I tried to map the time, then. The time from his first confession, to now. Five minutes? It wasn’t enough time, even riding hard. I had to stall. To do that, I had to stay alive.
Whoever Camriel had once been, the man was gone. He had been gone as long as I had known him. Fella had said he’d been acting strange for months. He wasn’t grieving Seera, like I’d assumed. It was guilt, even then.
If he believed he wasn’t evil, then he wouldn’t kill me unprovoked. I just had to keep him calm. This was a study for a woman. We spent our lives learning how not to poke the bear, and now, it had to save my life.
“I understand.” I smiled. “You can chain me up. I want to see him.”
He looked at the fresh tear glistening on my cheek. Then he turned and kicked out hard against a wooden chest.
I said nothing. I stayed as still as I possibly could, breathing through my nose. Another minute had passed. I didn’t need many more.
Camriel knelt down, and opened the chest.
For a second, I thought of grabbing something, anything, and hitting him over the head. But even if I succeeded, even if I knocked him cold or even killed him, I didn’t know how to access the room. I couldn’t rescue Davian until he revealed the door.
And worse, I would likely miss, or he would overpower me. So I stayed as still as a gravestone.
“I’m not a bad person, you know,” he said softly, rustling through the chest. “I only killed Seera because she figured it out. I was going to use a different sunner. Different Wisdom. Different Pain. But they’re coming back. All of them. He promised me.”
Camriel waited.
I answered, if only to string it out for a few more minutes. “Ragnifort?”
“Yes.”
If I might die here, I did want to know. “Who is he?”
“What?”
I cleared my throat. “The fallen god. He’s inhabiting someone.”
Camriel turned, thick chain loops clinking in his hands, and sliding down to hit hard against the floorboards.
I cursed myself for even asking, but did not move a muscle, only watching him as blankly as I possibly could. I didn’t want to show him fear. He didn’t want to be seen as a monster, and I was terrified of who he would become if he knew how much I loathed him.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Another minute. I heard something in the distance. Barely anything, but maybe a raised voice. I prayed once more, to any God that might be hearing. Please let me live. Please let Davian live.
He stepped towards me with the chain.
I lifted my hands as slow as I dared. He reached forwards and snatched my left wrist. As he did, his shirt parted. Only slightly, but enough for me to see the edge of his mark. Or what was left of it. The golden glow had faded to black.
Closer now, somewhere in the building, I heard a door open and slam shut.
“Samiscus left you?” I asked, hoping my voice might cover up the noise, or distract from it.
He grunted, and looped the chain around my left wrist. “When I killed the first one.”
The first one.
There was nothing to say to that. Nothing I could say, even if my voice tried. My legs felt wobbly, and as he grabbed my right wrist, I stumbled.
He sighed, and wrapped the chain around that wrist. “You really shouldn’t have come alone.”
A rhythmic noise pounded against a surface and approached fast as Camriel wrapped the chain in loops. I hoped for a few more seconds before he clocked it, too. But his head shot up, and he turned to the door.
I retreated, loosening the chains.
Camriel stared at me with a wild look.
I kept retreating until my back hit hard into the bookshelves. My wrists were still looped together, but not locked. “Maybe I didn’t.”
The boots pounded ever closer.
Camriel skittered a step towards me, his fist raised. “Annie. What have you done?”
I watched him, my face devoid of all emotion.
His voice dropped into a deadly rage as he repeated his question. “What have you done?”
Then, he stormed at me, closing the distance in the space of a breath.
I ducked and flinched against the bookshelf as the lock shattered behind him and two men burst into the room.