“You’re going to tear apart Empress Aki’s castle to use it as a giant magnifying glass?” His eyes were wide.
“If I can control the magic,” Sora said. “I have no idea if I’m strong enough. But yes, that’s the plan.”
Broomstick chuckled despite himself. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you, Spirit.”
She didn’t laugh, though. She kept her gaze on Rose Palace. “Yes, well . . . Let’s hope that’s true.”
Chapter Sixty-One
Fairy startled awake and sat straight up. Her mouth tasted like sand. And everything was too bright.
She squinted at all the white around her. Where am I?
Everything that had happened at Copper Bluff came rushing back to her. The invisible ryuu putting her in a headlock. Wolf breaking Prince Gin’s spell. Spirit, giving her rira and promising she would be all right.
That must mean she was somewhere safe, right? Because Spirit had been bad but then she was good. She must have been, if Fairy was still alive.
She frowned. She was so confused.
Am I back at the Citadel? But no, it was white here, and everything at the Citadel was black.
Except the infirmary. The inside of the Society infirmary was white. But how would she have gotten back here?
Fairy shoved aside the thin blanket that covered her. She threw her legs over the cot and stood up.
Rather, she tried to stand up. But her muscles were as wobbly as yuzu jelly. She grabbed for the rails on the side of the cot, missed, and fell to the ground with a crash.
No one ran to her aid. No doctors. No nurses.
But also, no ryuu.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset that she’d been left all alone.
And where was Broomstick? Or Wolf? Had they made it out of Copper Bluff?
Fairy began to cry.
She hated it. But she couldn’t stop the tears.
Five minutes later, though, Broomstick burst through the infirmary doors. “Fairy?” he shouted as he tore down the corridor.
“Broomstick!” she shouted. She sobbed at the sound of his voice.
Stop crying, she reprimanded herself. You’re a taiga, for gods’ sake.
The confusion began to clear in her head, and she could feel their gemina bond light up. Broomstick’s relief and happiness flooded in.
She reached up for the cot’s rails again, and this time, she managed to pull herself up. Her arms and legs prickled with pins and needles, but it was a vast improvement from being composed of jelly. The rira had worn off her brain first, and now it was wearing off the rest of her body.
Broomstick careened around the corner, into the room. He helped her sit on the cot, then threw his arms around her and held her tight. “You’re alive. You’re alive and you’re all right.”
“I’ll only be alive if you don’t squeeze me to death,” Fairy said, gasping.
“Oh, sorry.” He released her but kept grinning and shaking his head, as if the fact that she was awake hadn’t quite sunk in.
She was still working on believing it too. As all the feeling returned to her limbs, though, she was able to smile. No more stupid tears.
“How long was I out?” Fairy asked. “And where is everyone? I fell and made a racket, but no one came.”
Broomstick let out a long exhale. “Do you remember what happened in the desert?”
“Yes.”
“Well . . .” He quickly caught her up, from how her body had been taken as evidence of the empress’s death to this very moment, when Spirit was on her way to demolish Rose Palace, Wolf was delirious from gemina-transferred genka, and Broomstick was supposed to alert the Council of the plan to blind the ryuu when they arrived. Which was a matter of hours.
Fairy blinked at him. “You’re saying I didn’t miss much while I was unconscious.”
Broomstick shook his head and laughed. “Something like that.”
“Well, I guess since it’s been incredibly boring in the past few days, we’d better go out there and make something interesting happen, huh?” Fairy scooted off the cot. She wasn’t feeling disoriented or sleepy anymore; the shock of all that had happened dispelled it.
And she’d been out of action for too long. Time to get back into it. “Go do what you need to do to spread word of Spirit’s plan. I’m going to grab my potions from my room. I might be able to mix together an antidote to genka for Wolf.”
“It might not work, since he didn’t actually get shot with genka,” Broomstick said. “Spirit is the one with the genka in her system. Wolf only has the effects.”
Fairy frowned. “It’s still worth trying. If we’re going to battle the ryuu, we’re going to need all the taigas we can get, and Wolf is one of our best fighters.”
Broomstick put his fist over his heart. “Cloak of night.”
She shook her head. “Wrong salute.”
“You’re right.” He pounded his fists to his chest again. “Work hard.”
“Mischief harder.”
Fairy let herself look at her gemina for a few more seconds, while at the same time basking in the fierce, brotherly love Broomstick sent through their connection. Heavens, it felt good to be back.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Your Majesty,” one of the Imperial Guards said, “I’m sorry to bother you in these early hours, but there is an apprentice here to see you. She’s not on your schedule, but she insisted it was urgent. She has news of Prince Gin.”
Aki rose from the meditation cushion. “Who is this apprentice?” she asked.
“She says her name is Spirit.”
“The one the Council arrested? Interesting.” Aki nodded. Spirit was the chief rogue, the one who’d plotted the fireworks at the palace. Some of the councilmembers thought she might be a traitor, but Aki thought they were shortsighted, limited by how they understood the world. Spirit saw and did things differently than tradition dictated. It was precisely what Aki needed, and she’d judge for herself whether Spirit was loyal or not. “Please send her in.”
Spirit entered the room and laid herself on the ground in the requisite bow. When she rose, she said, “Your Majesty, thank you for meeting with me. I don’t have much time. I came to ask permission to break off part of your palace. It’s the only way to defeat the ryuu.”
Both of Aki’s brows shot straight up. “I knew that you were creative, but this was more than I imagined.”
“I know I’m asking a lot. More than a lot. You don’t even know who I am, and—”
“You are asking for a great deal, but you’re wrong about one thing: I do know who you are.”
“Oh.” Spirit looked around nervously, as if anticipating guards jumping at her.
“Some of the Council believe you’re working for my brother,” Aki said. “But I don’t. If you were, I’d already be dead, wouldn’t I?”
Spirit nodded carefully. It must be strange—scary, even—for the empress to talk about assassination. “Yes, Your Majesty. If I were a ryuu sent to kill you, you wouldn’t have even known I was here.”
“All right,” Aki said, settling back onto her meditation cushion and surprised even at herself for feeling so calm and sure about Spirit. But now was the time for action, not overthinking. “Explain to me why I should let you demolish part of my palace. The Council has a battle plan. How is yours better?”
She didn’t say anything. Instead, Spirit held her arms out in front of her. Almost immediately, they disappeared from view, as if they’d been sliced off at the elbow.
Aki gasped. “How . . . ? What did you do?”
“I can make myself invisible,” she said, her arms reappearing. “I’m not the only ryuu who can. There are others who can make blood boil. They can form hurricanes. Cloud the sky with an army of locusts. Bend steel to their will. The Council doesn’t comprehend the full power of the ryuu. But I’ve trained with them. I know what they can do, and we don’t stand a chance fighting them the old way.”
The old way, Aki thought. That was, indeed, how Glass Lady and the others at the Citadel had been operating. In the busy lead-up to confronting Gin, she’d forgotten her frustration with the Council. But it was because of their inability to adapt, their sticking to traditional methods of warfare, that Aki had taken matters into her own hands and asked Fairy and Broomstick to go to Copper Bluff.
If it was true what Spirit said about the ryuu, then following the Council’s strategy of simply fighting Gin’s warriors head-on was a prescription for death. Not only for the soldiers themselves, but also for Kichona. Once the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts was completed, Gin would turn their peaceful kingdom into a war machine. Tiger pearls and whispering maple leaves would be replaced with blood and destruction. And the people would no longer be themselves at all once he hypnotized them. They’d just be extensions of Gin’s will.
“This isn’t simply the Rift all over again, is it?” Aki said.
“No, Your Majesty. You won’t win against Prince Gin this time, unless—”
“We think and fight differently.”
Spirit nodded. Her jaw set with a determination that reminded Aki of herself when she was young and fighting for the kingdom.
“My brother is almost here?” Aki asked.