Runajo stood and walked numbly to the little garden outside her room.
It was a beautiful place; she could recognize that. Carp glittered in the murky green depths of the pond. Rushes bent in the breeze. A dragonfly hummed as it hovered near the surface of the water. The warm, humid air smelled of growing things and hot water on stone.
A long time ago—when she was just a child, before anyone she knew had died, before she’d known the world was dying—Runajo had sat in her family’s garden and watched the light and the shadows dance beneath the trees. The sky had dazzled blue above her, the cool breeze had caressed her face, and for one moment she’d felt as if the world was peeling open, and she could glimpse its secret heart.
This garden now was just as beautiful. But beauty no longer seemed to have any meaning.
Runajo knelt by the edge of the pond. Her eyes stung and her throat ached. She thought that maybe all her life, she’d been trying to catch at the beauty she’d seen on that long-ago morning: by joining the Sisterhood, by stopping the Ruining, by saving Juliet. She’d thought she was so clever and so brave every time, but all she’d ever done was ruin everything that she grasped at, and learn she was just as weak and foolish as every other person in the world.
She thought, I don’t want to do this anymore.
She thought, I don’t want to be this anymore.
But there was no way out, and nobody to help her.
The sun beat down on her hair. The air was a warm weight on her shoulders. Before her, the dragonfly droned lazily as it wove between the rushes, its dark body shimmering iridescently in the sunlight.
And the world changed.
The shapes and colors, sounds and smells, were all exactly the same. But Runajo experienced a sudden conviction that every splash of a carp’s tail, every bright-green hue of the rushes, was not itself only, but a word spoken into silence. A bell tolling the night hours, or the string of a lute plucked with urgent intent.
Sunlight drenched her, thick as honey, and the warm air in her lungs was like wine. Runajo’s eyes were watering in the brightness, or maybe she was actually crying, because she felt absurdly small and worthless of the dazzlement around her.
Worthless, yet comforted. The world had been dying for a hundred years, torn apart by deadly magic and human foolishness. The city was tearing itself apart now, festering with cruelty and pride and revenge. Runajo and Juliet tore each other to pieces at every opportunity.
And yet, and still, the dragonfly’s giant, bubble-shaped eyes glittered in the sunlight. It droned low over the water, then landed on a water violet, and the long stalk of the flower bowed under its weight. Something fathomless and inexhaustible welled up through the cracks of the world, drenching it with glory and making it more than she could ever destroy or create or even, perhaps, comprehend.
Runajo closed her eyes. Sunlight glowed red through her eyelids. For a trackless time, she was still.
Then she thought, I can’t fix this.
Later—perhaps very soon—she would despair over that again. But here, now, the thought couldn’t hurt her. She could imagine she was like Viyara, like the whole world, cracked and ruined and broken, but still able to shelter the jewel-like glitter of a dragonfly.
She could believe that any least, little thing she might do to amend that breaking was worth it.
And when she stopped thinking of everything she’d done wrong, it was very clear. There was only one thing that she could and must do.
Juliet returned in the late afternoon. She stood before Lord Ineo, her head obediently bowed, as Subcaptain Xu reported that the sacrifice had been accomplished and the fugitive Catresou hadn’t even tried to attack.
Lord Ineo smiled and said, “Well done.”
“I am pleased to serve the Exalted,” Subcaptain Xu had said with the barest and most regal of nods, and left.
Runajo was silent. But after Lord Ineo had dismissed them, she told Juliet, “Come with me.”
And silently, Juliet followed her, back to her bedroom.
Runajo realized that her heart was beating very quickly. That she was afraid. Because she had no idea what would happen next. This might be the last moment she was alive. Or that Juliet was alive.
There were a thousand things she wanted to say first. But most of them were some form of I’m sorry, and she no longer had any right to say that.
So she turned to face Juliet, who still was not meeting her eyes, and said the words that she had shamefully held back for so long.
“Juliet,” she said. “I release you from all the orders I ever gave you.”
18
FREEDOM FELT LIKE DEATH: A vast, dark emptiness all around her, and the whispering of a thousand voices. Juliet stared at Runajo. She thought murderer and traitor—and, yes, she remembered friend.
She thought, My people are dead because of her, and also, She saved my life.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice low and unsteady.
Runajo’s chin lifted slightly. “Setting you free,” she said. “As much as I can.”
Juliet didn’t know what this glittering, white-hot feeling was.
“Why,” she said breathlessly, and then her voice found strength and the words ripped out of her, “why didn’t you do that earlier?”
She realized that the feeling was rage, that she had seized Runajo by the shoulders and pressed her against the wall.
“Now you’re going to set me free?” she demanded. “When my people are destroyed, and I am a murderer, and Romeo must die by my hand? Now, when all the world is doomed and I’m one of you?”
Runajo said nothing. She was very pale, her lips pressed together, and she stared over Juliet’s shoulder at nothing.
Juliet wondered, Does she expect me to kill her now?
Runajo deserved to die. It was something Juliet had thought often enough, from the first day they’d met. But this was the first time she’d had the power to do it—because while the bond still existed, she felt sure that Runajo would give no order to stop if Juliet decided to kill her.
If she chose to be the killer that everyone wanted to make her.
Juliet let go of Runajo and stepped back, trying to collect her scattered wits. She was still the Mahyanai’s Juliet. She still could never return to her people, and she was still bound to kill Romeo as soon as she saw him.
The world was still dying, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Her freedom meant nothing except that she might be able to kill herself before killing again, and that thought was so bitter that for a moment it threatened to swallow her whole.
Then she thought: if there is nothing I can do, then I may do as I wish.
And she wished for a thousand things, but there was one she might still possibly accomplish: to send Romeo a letter. To tell him, before one of them died, the ten thousand ways she still loved him.
She had no idea where he was hiding. But she knew of somebody who might.
“There’s an apothecary in the Lower City,” she said. “A friend of Romeo’s. I need to talk with him, which means I need your help.”
“To talk with him,” Runajo echoed. There was a dazed look on her face.
“No, I need your help getting out of here,” said Juliet. “And if I run into Romeo in the Lower City, I need you to give me orders. It won’t stop me for long, but it might give him a chance to run.”
Runajo stared at her.
“Will you help?” Juliet asked.
She didn’t say, You owe me. She didn’t say, I can make you. They both knew that. And besides—
Juliet realized that her whole body was tensed like at the start of a fight. Her heart was pounding against her ribs. She could tell herself that she only wanted this plan to work, but she knew that was a lie.
Runajo had enslaved her and destroyed her clan. Juliet had sworn a vow never to forgive her. She didn’t intend to break her word.
And yet she desperately wanted Runajo to help her willingly.
“Yes,” said Runajo.