Chapter 3
Gage’s comment about working alone and chasing secrets rattled around in Elysia’s mind. He was right. Inevitably, sticking your nose where it didn’t belong would bite you in the ass. The tongue she had just disposed of was a clear example. Given her nature, she wasn’t sure she knew how to stay out of the fray.
She did know secrets, though. The shape and sound of them. How they fizzled with excitement or fear and arched up to their breaking point. Because almost every secret had a breaking point. The key was to capitalize just before the threads snapped loose and the secret was gone.
Her midnight-black cat wound around her legs, and Elysia smiled faintly. Yes, secrets were just like cats. They could smell desperation and longing. One must remain neutral. Keenly present while also thinly disinterested, and they would slink right to you.
Elysia scooped up Sir Larkspur, and he circled thrice before settling haughtily into the warmth of her lap. She rubbed his velvet ears and pretended she could just stay right there in her favorite plush chair with him. She was beginning to dread seeing anyone and everyone. After months of her increasingly odd behavior, it seemed everyone who cared for her was set on demanding answers. She couldn’t blame them, but she didn’t have to like it.
Remy and Daphne were not neutral nor remotely disinterested.
They were going to swarm her like vultures in search of their last bone-picked meal.
Elysia stood, brushing Sir Larkspur to the floor, where he glared at her with purple eyes.
“I’m sorry, Sir. I’m afraid I must beg your leave.” Elysia sketched a bow in his direction. Sir Larkspur merely showed her his ample behind in response.
He sashayed into her bedroom, hips curving in a feline figure eight. The urge to slip in behind him and swiftly lock the door grew with each passing second. Tea date be damned.
She knew what this tea date really was.
There were tea dates, and then there were tea dates . The former was when you got together with your girlfriends and laughed openly over drizzled scones about the latest harebrained antics of your lovers. The latter were penciled into your schedule, when these very same friends became concerned .
We’re just worried, that’s all. We care about you .
A poorly disguised intervention, that’s what this was.
Elysia grumbled to herself. She’d been avoiding this little meeting as long as she possibly could. And how terrible was that? To avoid your oldest friends. Never said I was a good person . Elysia walked over to her vanity, dropping onto the stool. Gods forbid if she showed up looking tired.
The most laughable part was that she had kept her biggest secrets from them since they were children. They had no idea that she sparred with Kava’s Shadow. That she cursed him when he struck too hard and brought him sweets on his birthday. They would die if they knew that her elusive skill for aiding in court matters was often the result of her climbing in and out of windows and blending into busy rooms to listen in on delicate conversations.
She looked at her hands, a familiar bitterness falling over her. They would turn her in faster than a wolf in the woods if they knew the truth of her. The curse. All she’d done to hide it.
Elysia leaned in toward her mirror to dab a bit more concealer upon the dark clouds resting beneath her eyes. This, of all things, was what they had noticed. That she was tired. And a bit short-tempered. Forgetting their usual weekly tea and gin dates.
She dropped the makeup with a clatter. What’s the worst they could say? She pursed her lips at the thought. Knowing Daphne, they could say an awful lot.
Slipping into her favorite emerald cloak, she gave a little twirl. An effervescent laugh tinkled out, the sound so contrary to the dread she felt inside. The cloak’s smooth lining hugged her close while black ribbons at her neck swept into an elegant bow. She tugged at the ribbons until they nestled perfectly at the hollow of her throat and watched as Elysia Parker, daughter of the Kavian court and the Crown, so easily fell into place. She lifted the hood gently over her loose dark hair before stepping out into the faded gray of a Relaclave morning.
The entire kingdom decayed beneath a film of soot, but here in Relaclave, the filth was made into art as it settled layer by layer over the beautiful cream buildings their city was known for. It wasn’t actually soot, not in the truest sense, but that was what it looked like, and that was what everyone called it.
The heels of Elysia’s buttoned boots thudded rhythmically against the worn cobblestone streets. There wasn’t a street or building in Relaclave that had not been tinged with the gray veil that had begun with magic’s end. Some of the cleverer architects and planners had even begun to account for the hazy filter that would layer over their meticulous designs.
The older half of the city, the north side near the sea, boasted of curving cream buildings made soft with soot and contrasted with stark, sharp dark lines.
The city of charcoal came to life on the north side.
Indeed, at night one could see its famous doors of every color holding fast against the dinge. Swashes of blood red and the coldest of blues held the locks and keys to this part of Kava’s world.
Elysia had wondered for years what the colors meant, and how they came to be in a city such as this, but whenever she asked someone old enough to know, they looked away, reminding her not to ask such questions about the time before the Fall. They were fascinating, though, colorful and untouched by the grime layering over everything else.
The doors were a beacon of sorts, always guiding people to where they needed to be.
Elysia trained her eyes ahead, searching for the yellow door that would bring her to this trial. She wove in and out through the crowds with practiced ease and paid no attention to the scurrying droves of people that foretold a wretched storm arriving.
Her gloved fingers pressed down upon a black iron handle. She shoved firmly until the sunshine-painted doorway budged, its heavy frame cracking open just enough for her to slip through. She paused, inhaling the mouthwatering scents of almond and hazelnut wafting through the air. The flames within the wall-mounted oil lamps danced, their soft light warming the hallway. Between the cozy lights and sweet smells, a sense of comfort enveloped her, easing her tension.
More than that, this was their spot. Somewhere to meet and laugh and just be. At least it used to be—she hadn’t come in quite some time.
Elysia walked with measured steps down the narrow and deceptively dilapidated hall until it melted into the snug, candlelit haven that was Fillie’s Café. As much a spot for lovers as it was for friends, Fillie’s rarely had an empty seat.
Despite their lack of reservation, Remy lounged in a high-back velvet chair. Then again, most businesses in these parts could find a spare chair for Remelda Wincraft. Better known as Remy to those she called friends, but to the many she was Ms. Wincraft. And Ms. Wincraft was good at what she did.
Elysia couldn’t help but feel another fissure of warmth crack through the wall she had been steadily building while schlepping across the city as she let the sight of her oldest friend wash over her. She was a shark with the curves of a panther, and Elysia loved her for it.
Her cherry-red dress drew out the warmth of her deep brown skin, and tiny cap sleeves armored her shoulders. She set a trap in the sweeping low-cut of her dress and executed it well with a waistline that nipped in, the fabric smoothing over her hips down to midcalf. A sharp jacket with a high buttoned collar rested on the arm of her chair.
Elysia felt her lips tip up as she drew closer to the table, her hands tucked within the folds of her emerald cloak. Remy was making the poor waiter sweat as she trailed a finger down the menu that she already knew by heart.
Remy’s daddy ran the treasury for the Crown and had passed on his gift for numbers and figures. By the time she was sixteen, Remy knew the Kavian tax code better than most of the decrepit, cheating accountants who swindled folks left and right. All it took was the girl’s favorite local café bankrupting for her business to be born.
Elysia slid silently into an open chair and smiled appreciatively as she always did that Remy had saved Fillie’s. It turned out that Fillie’s wasn’t really bankrupt; they were just getting really, royally screwed. The Crown taxes were like that sometimes, when you offended the wrong person—like the treasurer.
Remy’s daddy still wasn’t sure if his wife had given birth to a terror or a prodigy, but it seemed he held out hope that one day she would come to her senses and leave that nonsense behind. Good girls didn’t fight back against corrupt tax practices. They especially didn’t do it when their father was the face of said corruption.
Elysia thought he was better off taking a swim in the venomous-fish-infested waters of the Valvere Sea.
She tugged off her leather gloves. “Where’s Daphne?”
Remy gave a dip of her chin, and Elysia glanced in that direction. She let out a huff, and Remy nodded dryly in commiseration.
From her baby blue sheath to her icy-blonde locks, Daphne fluttered in like a winter breeze. She made warm hellos to the hostess and offered a knowing wiggle of her fingers to at least three separate groups of people before finally gliding to their table.
She plopped several small brown shop bags to the floor and sat back with a satisfied sigh, crossing one leg over the other. Her bright eyes scanned Remy and Elysia. “Finally, we’re all here.”
Daphne picked up the teapot that had been delivered in her absence and poured out a small cup. Elysia pretended to not hear the words beneath her remark. Pretended that irritation did not flare within her, threatening to tense her posture and heat her gaze. Instead, she settled back in her chair. She let her eyes drink in the delicate gold filigree swirls and dots that danced across the ceramic pot. And let out a soft murmur of agreement.
She ran one finger along the rim of her teacup. “I’ve missed you both.”
The words felt forced. Chalky and dry in her throat. But it was the best peace offering she could scrounge up at the moment. She was too tired for pretty words or sparkling apologies she wasn’t sure she even meant.
She looked between Remy’s shimmering hazel eyes and the light aqua, startlingly pale tones of Daphne’s. The former looked on with neutral curiosity and the latter ready to brandish a Fillie’s jam knife in friendship and propriety’s defense.
Remy paused, considering her words, long fingernails tapping against her arm. She then spoke gently before the jam could fly, cutting a firm glare at Daphne. “We aren’t mad at you, Elysia, but we would like to know what’s going on. There have always been parts of you and your life that are only yours, but now it’s as though all of you has gone away somewhere. I wouldn’t even know where to look to find you.”
Elysia burned with shame as the love in Remy’s words flowed over her. She ignored Daphne’s not-so-subtle mumbles. “What she means is, you’re a sneak.”
She’d been such a terrible friend these past months. But even as the shame pricked her eyes, she could find no words to tell her friends what was wrong. She had known this conversation was coming, but if she couldn’t tell Gage, the most trusted person in her life, then she surely could not tell Remy or Daphne.
Anxiety closed its fist on her lungs as the wordless realization hit her that if this many people had noticed something was off, then it was extremely likely others had noticed as well. Her time was running out before the wrong person noticed and cried magic.
She looked at her friends waiting for her explanation and prepared herself to throw them off her scent for good because she knew exactly what would happen if she didn’t.
Once when she was a small child, Elysia had escaped the castle gates, waiting until the guards laughed and joked as they always did at shift change, and skipped right out the doors.
Because rumor had it that it was Day of the Moths.
It was a time to celebrate the death of autumn, and Elysia longed to see the street filled with vendors and celebration and plumes of scented smoke.
She had heard whispers of this rebel celebration. Curled like a kitten within a library shelf, barely visible to the adults who loomed above her, she listened to them speak of what must be done to these wandering charlatans and thieves.
But she had been transfixed with what she found on Relaclave’s cobbled streets.
Women floated through the city in faded shrouds, their faces painted in shades of bone white and wretched black, all to carve them into ethereal creatures of death. They moved like shadowed wraiths, slithering and writhing like the smoke that coiled up and off of the streetlamps.
Elysia listened in rapt attention to their strange mix of accents and lamenting songs. They were priestesses from the temples in the city of Ryspur in Bellia, celebrating the Day of the Moths. A day to honor all the souls who had returned to the light from whence they had come. A practice Kava no longer knew or acknowledged. Yet old Kavian men who dared to remember Kava’s past offered them coin and food for their travels. Old men who knew they were in their own autumn and wished to pay their tokens to the priestesses as they had been taught.
There was such a mournful joy that evening. The women whirled and danced, their limbs and song pulling everyone back into a world where magic might exist. But it was fraught with fear. The invisible fear that whispers this cannot last, cannot last, cannot last.
They should have listened to that whisper.
One of the priestesses had spotted Elysia, so out of place with her wide eyes in her black woolen dress with its red sash marking her as Crown. The woman threw her head back and laughed to the smoke-laden sky at the sight of her.
Elysia trembled even as curiosity sparked within her.
The woman walked closer with wanton steps meant to ensnare and delight. Ducking down low, she stared baldly into Elysia’s eyes. She clutched her small, soft child arms. “Did you feel it, child? Did you feel the call from behind the towers and gates?”
Curiosity curdled back into fear.
The priestess grinned wildly and rubbed a finger upon her painted face before pressing it to Elysia’s brow. She smiled more gently now because death could be kind, too. And then death blessed Elysia with its mark and peered deep into her eyes. “You will know when you hear your call.”
Death’s servant left as swiftly as she came.
Elysia’s heart pounded and shook within her chest.
Tower bells were ringing now. Feet and armor clashing closer.
Yet small Elysia stood frozen with fright. Her body was heavy with the weight of questions her child’s mind did not know how to form nor answer. So, she stood there clutching an uneaten sweet and sticky treat until a rush of guards flooded past her into the streets.
Because the Crown did not celebrate such things, nor would it tolerate these travelers with their strange, unwieldy customs.
The undead gods of Kava were gone.
The undead gods had no ears here and no one would dare act as their hands.
There was no magic here. There were no gods.
Shocked into numb motion, Elysia had crept inside a wooden vendor cart and listened in bleating panic to the sounds of knives and swords meeting flesh. Through the slats of wood, she watched fresh blood spray onto the streets only to run dark as it mingled with Kava’s soot. A murky lake pooled beneath the vendor’s cart and stung her nose with its copper scent.
Elysia stayed tucked tight into that small cart long after the sounds had stopped clanging and squelching. She stayed until the cart was pried open and curious eyes swept over her sash up to her new mark.
Her heart was too tired to beat in fear. It whimpered on in a slow rhythm.
The stranger held out a hand, a sure kindness in his face. “Hello, little one.”
And with her hand in his, the stranger guided her past the woman with wanton steps with her throat slit so wide, out into the dark beyond that would become hers.
No, the Crown did not tolerate any sign or inkling of strange behavior that did not belong in this land, so Elysia looked up at Remy, and she lied to someone she loved for not the first time that day.
You have to make it real—you have to keep them safe, she coached herself .
She summoned real tears to coat her eyes and gripped her teacup a little tighter. “Work has just been so challenging lately. You know how he is...”
She glanced between them and bit down on her lip, registering their lack of conviction. The heat of the café and its coal powered ovens seemed to envelop her, but she remained cool, processing their reactions and adjusting her response. Her father was not an easy man to work for, but as far as they knew, she had by no means ever become the walking dead in her attempt to please him.
Well then, she’d come prepared for a moment like this.
She clinked the teacup down, lifted her chin, and dropped her voice down low. Tears still glittered in her eyes, adding a thickness to her voice. “Okay, the truth then. You know I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. This stays between us. Understood?” She paused, looking between them seriously.
Both women nodded. Remy’s the barest movement, her eyes focused. Daphne’s chin going up and down so fast she might hurt herself.
Elysia refrained from rolling her eyes. Daphne had never kept a secret in her damn life.
“I happened to do a little side work these past few months. While assisting my father, I kept overhearing all these strange accounts about women disappearing. They made it sound like the women reporting were just hysterical addicts. But something felt off to me. I couldn’t get myself to ignore it, and I ended up making a few folks... angry.”
A truth to set the foundation.
The slight catch in her voice was real as she admitted tensely. “The people involved threatened me. They—they sent me a bloody, chopped-off tongue.”
One more truth to hold the walls.
She knew they would know what she was talking about. Everyone in Relaclave did by now.
She looked her best friends in the eyes and spat out the rest. “I’ve been terrified. Can’t eat, can’t sleep. I’m not supposed to tell anyone while they try to find out who’s threatening me.”
And a lie to cover them all.
Daphne’s already alabaster skin became gray. She latched onto Elysia’s arm, the stone of one of her rings digging in. “Have they hurt you? Have you been given a guard? Are there any leads? It’s their job to protect the court of the Crown!” Her fingers dug in deeper with each frantic question and her eerie eyes grew round.
Elysia kept her own features dismayed and gently pried Daphne from her arm. “No, Daph, they haven’t found anything yet. That’s why I haven’t been around.” Never mind that the threat had only occurred a few hours ago.
She looked back up, her eyes blazing with one last truth. “I would never want either of you to be harmed because of me. I had to turn in what I found, but you don’t deserve to stand in the wake of my decisions.” There was a razor-edged fierceness beneath her words. Their friendships were complicated, but so was every relationship in Elysia’s life—it didn’t mean she didn’t care.
Remy, calculating as ever, tipped her head and tugged on a tight curl. The curl sprung back, but she didn’t say a word, and Elysia internally heaved a sigh of relief.
Daphne remained confused. “Why haven’t you moved back into the castle then? A death threat is the perfect opportunity to end your little I’m so independent streak. No one could possibly blame you for such a poor decision like moving out when they’re busy feeling bad for you. Besides, then you can stay with Topp all the time . I know I would.” She unleashed a dazzling smile, laughing at her own joke while nodding encouragingly, as if she hadn’t just insulted Elysia ten different ways in one breath.
Elysia shook her head and sorted through the plate of tiny cookies, searching for a chocolate one. “Daph, I can’t bring that danger into the castle, and my father wants me to act as if everything is as normal.”
Remy flashed a ruby-red smile. “Then we can expect you to start showing your face again? To stop holing up in your flat all the time?”
Elysia forced herself to sit still even though the question made her squirm. “Only if you promise to tell me all about your latest string of suitors.”
Daphne snorted. “You should ask her about the fisherman.”
Elysia grinned, but let a hint of vulnerability shine through as her smile faded. “I’m really sorry I worried you both. I just really haven’t been doing well. I’m barely sleeping, and I’m shit at pretending everything is fine around people who know me as well as you two.”
Truth and lies. Truth and lies.
It was the only manner of existence that she knew.
Remy nodded in understanding, forcing Elysia to meet her eyes. “But now we know, and if they haven’t caught the bastards yet, then who knows how long it will take. Until then, you can’t let this run your life. This won’t be the last time someone gets pissed off if you insist on cleaning up the trash of Relaclave. Trust me, I would know.” She made a face, likely thinking about all the threats she’d received over the years.
Remy, who fearlessly took on corrupt financiers and lawyers, even when she knew they were backed by men and women who would not so much as blink at removing her from the equation entirely. No, Remy, the shark that she was, would not allow her to wallow or hide.
A wave of anxiety rippled through Elysia. This conversation needs to end now . Before clever, clever Remy spoke all that she might actually be seeing.
“You’re right. As usual,” she acquiesced.
Remy smiled broadly, leaning back in her chair while holding her teacup out in the air. “Why yes, I am always right, aren’t I?”
Elysia’s voice became dry. “I have a meeting with the Golden Seal herself soon. I’m sure I can snag us an invitation to some gala or another.”
Her mother was diabolical and likely to give her an aneurism one day. She also threw a damn good party.
The Golden Seal. Such a ridiculous title. Her mother’s porcelain smile was never brighter than when she bestowed her seal. Like she was doing the person some benevolent service. Parties, funerals, weddings, they were all nothing without the Golden Seal. If the Golden Seal was etched like a tiny medallion onto the calling card, then you had at least for the moment made into that elusive tier of people who steered the tides of Kava.
Daphne’s face lit up. “Yes! That is exactly what we need. Less tongues, more parties.” She nibbled on a shortbread cookie before poking it at Elysia’s face. “Nothing stuffy. I want scandals , dammit. And imported alcohol, I’m sick of gin.”
Remy rolled her eyes, but her smile was genuine as she squeezed Elysia’s hand. “A scandalous evening for all of us then, but no more secrets, okay? I would never tell you to not chase your crazy dreams, but I am glad you’re alright.”
Elysia’s heart squeezed as tightly as her hand. “No dreams here. We all know Jack Parker would never let me go far. Just a one-off, I promise.”
Oh, she was scum. The dirty scum that grouted the cobblestones. Lying like the Crown fools who had raised them.
And even though the rest of tea went smoothly and all had been forgiven, Elysia could not shake the feeling that the lifeline of her secrets was dwindling to its end.