“For Vaia’s sake, let us in!” Simeon yells.
Hadrien nods, and the guards pull up the bar, allowing Jax and Simeon to rush inside. Before the guards slam the doors again, I get a brief glimpse of the Dead still gathered in the hall, likely awaiting an audience with Her Majesty.
“Any luck with the Shade-baiter?” Hadrien asks as Jax and Simeon approach. “Sparrow has just finished filling us in.”
“Afraid not.” Jax’s eyes find me as he answers, and I’m struck by how much I’ve missed his gruff voice and roguish grin. I run down the steps without another thought and crash into his open arms. Suddenly thinking of Valoria’s drawing of him, I break away quickly.
“What’s this?” He touches the new pin on my chest and frowns.
“Ooh.” Simeon grins as he realizes what the pin means. “Can you really be a Sparrow and a Serpent? What if you get the urge to eat yourself for breakfast?”
Hadrien clears his throat, and Simeon falls silent as the prince begins to repeat much of what he’s just told me.
The news from Elsinor quickly wipes the smile from Simeon’s face, and I wonder how much longer he’ll be able to keep making jokes when so much is going wrong. Always, I hope. Everyone in the palace could use a bit of laughter.
Meredy blinks at me with an unreadable expression, then strides to the doors. Now that my head is clear and I can think without the potion’s influence, I still don’t want her in the palace, or anywhere else I happen to be. What if she accidentally says or does something that reminds me of Evander, something that sends me right back to the calming potion?
Yet I’m stuck with her. Hadrien is relying on me, and I won’t let the people of Elsinor down, or King Wylding by association. The last thing I need are more dead Karthians on my conscience.
And the longer I stand here, more people might be dying.
“Look after Valoria for me,” I whisper to my friends. I know she’d protest if she could hear me. They nod solemnly, and Jax looks thoughtfully at the princess just a beat longer than normal.
“I’ll be back as soon as I’ve killed the Shades in Elsinor. And you,” I add to Simeon, “be good to Jax while I’m away. Don’t tease him too much. I don’t want to return from one massacre to find another.”
I ruffle Simeon’s hair as he makes a face, and try to ignore the twinge in my chest as his eyes search mine like he’s looking for any lingering traces of potion addiction. The sadness in his gaze when he looks at me—which the blue tonic never let me see—is just one more reason I’ll fight to never touch another drop.
“Be safe.” Jax presses his lips into a hard line, like he’s holding back so much more.
“You too,” I mutter, shoving my hands in my pockets. He and Simeon are the ones who’ll need to be on their guard, staying this close to the deaths and disappearances. I just hope Valoria and Danial will stand by them while I can’t.
I take a last look at my friends before following Meredy and Lysander back through the crowd of masked figures, knowing at least a few of the Dead will be relieved or even glad to see me gone.
XXI
There’s an old saying that sparrows always find their way home. I hope my tattoos or my name make me truly one of them, as this is the farthest I’ve ever been from everything I know. The moment our wagon wheels touch the base of the mountain pass marking the border of Grenwyr and Elsinor Provinces, my stomach does a flip.
Maybe because the land here is unfamiliar and wild, the ancient pines taller and fuller than those in Grenwyr, the air a touch colder, the few houses we pass made of drab wood or dark gray stone, no jewel-bright roofs or potted citrus gardens to speak of. Or maybe it’s because no matter where I go, I’m afraid I have no chance of living up to the new serpent pin on my tunic.
It’s Evander who should be taking jobs like this, not me. He’d have been thrilled to climb these wild, lonely mountains, would’ve gazed around with wide eyes and explored off the trail with an adventurer’s heart, much like Lysander does as he follows our wagon east and upward.
I drink in every new sight for Evander, aided by the fading light of a blood-red sky seeping through the opening in the canvas-covered wagon. I know he’d be proud I’ve come this far.
I clutch the pin tighter, closing my fist over it, and suck in a breath as the gold needle pricks my palm. I hold on through the pain, hoping somehow the little pin will infect me with the courage and strength of one worthy of wearing it—as opposed to the addict and poor friend I’ve been since Evander died.
“Odessa.” Meredy waves a hand near my face, drawing my gaze. “You look ill. What’s on your mind?”
I blink at her in the dimness of the wagon hold for a moment before turning away, toward the front of the wagon where Master Cymbre commands a team of sleek brown horses.
Cymbre had jumped at the chance to leave Grenwyr when we knocked on her cottage door, even as tears were drying on her weathered face. She couldn’t protect her prodigy, Evander, and she couldn’t protect her king. Escaping to Elsinor on a dangerous and potentially deadly mission probably seemed like the only option left to her, the way the potion seemed like my only choice to distance myself from my nightmares.
I see so much of myself in her, she might as well be my mother.
Meredy shifts her weight, pulling me back to the present again as the wagon boards creak beneath her. “Thinking about that rogue necromancer again? Vane?” she guesses.
It’s a safe bet. He’s all I can think of since we left the throne room many hours ago. “Have you ever heard of anyone like him?”
“Maybe,” she answers thoughtfully. “I’m willing to bet he has a different Sight than we do. Which would mean he has a different power.”
I blink at her. “But Vaia only has five faces. So there are only five Sights, five powers—”
“That we know of,” Meredy interrupts. “But when I was in Lorness, in one of the smallest villages buying supplies, I heard a rumor about a wild man with amber eyes, who could change his shape at will. It was terribly painful for him, they said, and his cries in the forest near their village were often mistaken for a Shade’s.” She pauses, fixing me with a thoughtful look. “I don’t know if it was true. I stayed near that village for weeks, camping and foraging with Lysander, and I never heard any sort of screaming. Still, there are many things we can’t explain, aren’t there?”
Her face falls into shadow as she bows her head, searching through her bag for something. “Things that perhaps no one can.”
I rub my gooseflesh-covered arms, hoping she’s wrong about that last part.
A loud, familiar crack rings in my ears as Meredy bites into a handful of coffee beans. “You’re on to something with these,” she mutters thickly. “Kasmira could make a fortune selling them at harbors all over Karthia. I’ll have to tell her.”