“Oh, Sparrow.” Valoria wraps her arms around my waist, trying to haul me to my feet, but I shake my head in protest. “I’m taking you inside. You need rest. And quite possibly a healer.”
The image of the maimed peacock feels like a gut punch. How did I get here, where I can’t tell the difference between a defenseless creature and a monster? Me, the girl who once tried to put the wings back on a trampled butterfly. The girl who coaxed reluctant plants to blossom in the convent garden. The girl so in love with life, she couldn’t harm a living thing.
I should be helping Valoria find the missing Dead right now, but instead, I’m shoving my head into a bush so she won’t see me heave up the contents of my stomach. I should be protecting the country I love and the Dead I’ve always guarded. I should console the worried princess who’s holding back my hair while I vomit all over the violets and marigolds.
Through the bewildering haze of too much potion and wine, the question nags at me: How did I get here?
For the first time, I’m glad Evander’s gone. Glad he can’t see how far I’ve fallen.
XIII
I open my eyes to a room blazing with torchlight and wide windows showing a sky as black as pitch. Pain rips through my head when I try to sit up, and someone presses a hand to the center of my chest, shoving me back down against the pillows.
“Drink this.” Valoria touches a glass of water to my lips and gently tips it until I’ve sipped about half the contents. “It’s only been a few hours. I’m surprised you’re awake already.” As she pulls a chair up to the bed—her bed—she opens her mouth like there’s something more she wants to say.
“What is it?” I gingerly check my face for crusted bits of vomit and dirt from the garden, then touch my tender right knee where the dagger kissed it. Valoria’s bandaged the wound, but even the light pressure of my fingers makes it ache.
The princess scoots to the edge of her seat, frowning. She cleans her glasses on her mint-green gown and still says nothing.
“Come on.” I manage to prop myself up on my elbows. The room spins like a pinwheel, complete with mesmerizing colors. “Out with it.”
“Fine.” Valoria sighs, meeting my eyes. “Evander Crowther is dead and gone, and no amount of drinking anything—say, too much wine, or certain potions meant to dull the senses—can bring him back.” She bends down to toy with loose threads on the rug beneath her chair. “But there are others here who need you. Two necromancers have been killed in the Deadlands. That never happens. And Duke Bevan went missing from his own province and reappeared here as a Shade.” She raises her glistening eyes to mine. “And now my mother and several other Dead, the nobility that you and Evander and your friends raised, have vanished. Something in Karthia reeks, but I can’t figure it out on my own. I need your help.”
I shake my head. “Look, Valoria. I don’t have the answers either. All I have is a score to settle and one nasty Shade waiting for me in the Deadlands.”
“Then you’re not who I thought you were.”
“Seems that way.”
Valoria rises to her feet, turning her back on me, and for the first time I notice the many curved shelves lining her tower room. She fusses with something I can’t see from here, but around her, I take note of coils of copper wire, ropes, odd silver bits, and what look like wood-and-metal arms and legs, complete with moveable joints.
I climb off the bed and approach a shelf that holds several strange glass balls with tiny wires inside. I bump one with my hand, and it fills with an orange glow that steals my breath and freezes me on the spot.
“It’s just a light,” Valoria calls from across the room. “I made them for my little sister. Ever since she saw the Shade at the Festival of Cloud, she’s been scared of the dark.”
I nod, backing away from the glowing ball, and something brushes the top of my head. I glance up to find a long and heavy-looking sack of fabric dangling from the vaulted ceiling.
“That’s my air balloon.” There’s a hint of amusement in Valoria’s voice. “Rather, it will be. It’s not finished, for obvious reasons. It’s not like I can take it into the gardens and tinker with it where any of the Dead might see.”
“Air balloon,” I repeat.
A chill spreads up my arms the longer I gaze around the cluttered room. My feet suddenly seem to have a mind of their own, carrying me to the princess’s side.
She stands by a table pushed up against the wall, gazing down at a tiny, perfect model of Grenwyr City.
“There’s Noble Park!” I point to houses that are hardly bigger than my thumbnail. “And the apothecary. And the Ashes. And here’s where we are now!” I tap a tower on one corner of the little palace, realizing when it wobbles that I could’ve knocked it over. I tuck my hands in the folds of my dress. “Valoria, this is amazing!” Unlike the metal arms or lengths of wire on the other shelves, the model city doesn’t frighten me—it inspires me. “Did you make all this yourself?”
Valoria shakes her head. Without meeting my eyes, she says, “Hadrien carved some of the buildings for me. He doesn’t know half of what I do up here.” Her lips curve into a slight smile. “He probably thinks they’re for a dollhouse or something.”
“Well, whatever this is, it’s perfect. Except—you made the roads too wide.” For some reason, my comment makes Valoria’s smile widen. Carefully, I point to some twisty painted blue lines that definitely aren’t part of Grenwyr City. “And we don’t have all these rivers.” I motion to a large building near the palace. “Our horse stables aren’t that big, either.”
“That’s right. I call this my Dream City. It’s what I’ve been working on all year.” She meets my gaze. “The bigger stables are so our animals can be more comfortable. They deserve more space.” A hint of pink appears in her cheeks, and I nod to encourage her to go on. “The wide roads are because the ones we have now are too narrow. And the canals are to help carry sewage and muck out of the city. With the city so cramped, it’s no wonder the black fever rips through Grenwyr like wildfire each year. I think . . .” She pauses for a deep breath. “I think my designs would make the city cleaner and help stop the spread of sickness, putting less strain on our healers so they can focus on other things—say, learning how to restore the mind.”
“This is incredible.” I stare at her, amazed King Wylding discourages her inventions when she’s finding ways to combat the black fever and perhaps give people from the Ashes a chance for some paid work. “With ideas like this, you could be a real leader in Grenwyr City, or even Karthia. Have you asked about being on the king’s council?”
Valoria arches her brows. “I couldn’t possibly. Having someone new on the council would upset the Dead.”
“But you’re brilliant! You deserve to be there.”