TWO
AFTER DROPPING INTO the apothecary and lifting a few bandages and powdered herbs, I made my way to the Peacock Inn and slipped inside through the open window on the top floor.
We couldn’t afford the room, even though it was the worst one in the building; but Patrick, Melanie, and I had once broken up a huge fight that would have ended with five dead men on the floor, police swarming through White Flag, and the Peacock’s owner in jail. Now the innkeeper always let Ospreys stay when we were in town.
The others were there, starting a small fire and rinsing their wounds. I shut the window behind me and tossed my bag of medical supplies to Quinn Bradburn.
“Ezra.” I nodded at him. “Glad you’re awake. That was quite the hit you took.”
He ducked his face and shrugged. “I’m better now.”
I raised an eyebrow at Connor, who gave a small, frantic shake of his head; he hadn’t done anything. A knot of tension in my chest untangled. I smiled and moved on to gathering the stray weapons the boys had tossed everywhere. “Good. Next time, try not to get knocked out or cut, you two. It’s embarrassing. People are going to think kittens trained you.”
“What was wrong with those men?” Connor winced as he dabbed a damp cloth on his throat where the glowman had cut. “They looked human, but they were wrong.”
“They were huge,” Ezra added. “And strong.”
“They were glowmen.” The tiny room was packed, three sitting on the bed and two in the only chairs. I perched on the windowsill, ignoring the way the old wood creaked. Muffled shouts and thumps came from the lower stories; the inn stank of waste and smoke and sweat.
Connor finished inspecting his neck in a tarnished silver mirror he kept in his pocket; he’d fallen hard for the whole mirror-and-wraith superstition. With a frown, he set the mirror aside. “What are glowmen? And are there glowladies?”
“There are women like that, but the term is just glowmen.” I raised an eyebrow at Quinn—Ezra was her younger brother, after all—and she nodded. We couldn’t keep the younger boys sheltered forever, especially now that they’d faced a pack of glowmen. “Sometimes people use wraith to make themselves feel happier, stronger, whatever. Like people once used magic.”
“Wraith isn’t magic, though.”
“Wraith was magic. Once.” Quinn shook her head at the boys. “Haven’t you been paying attention to your lessons?”
Both boys slumped. “Yes,” said Ezra. “If magic is like fire, then wraith is like smoke. Magic isn’t created or destroyed. It just gets changed.”
“That’s right.” I leaned against the window, the glass cool on my spine. “Wraith is another form of magic—a toxic form.”
“Wait.” Ezra held up a hand. “We’re not finished. We did study.”
“People once used magic for everything, from building to farming to war.” Connor parroted the history papers we’d written for the younger Ospreys. “Radiants had even built a railroad system for transporting goods and people. Magic was useful, and families with a lot of radiants became powerful and rich. There was always wraith, but never enough of it to be a danger.”
Ezra took up where his friend left off, his voice pitched to mimic Quinn’s: his impression of her giving lessons. “But just over a hundred years ago, the western kingdoms noticed the wraith accumulating, obscuring sunlight, and making storms worse. It’s been creeping across the continent ever since, destroying everything in its path. Liadia was the most recent victim.”
“When the wraith was first discovered as a problem, King Terrell Pierce the Second, sovereign of the Indigo Kingdom, forced most of the surrounding kingdoms to sign the Wraith Alliance, making magic illegal, and now radiants are persecuted and hunted. People call them flashers now, to be rude. The once-powerful families and businesses who’d used magic to gain their wealth were replaced by those who could produce similar results without magic. Lots of people went into ruin, even in Aecor, which didn’t sign the treaty. But Aecorians did change their methods of industry, and the kingdom became a safe place for radiants to hide. Until the One-Night War.” With a chuckle, Connor snapped and thumped his chest at Ezra—the Osprey salute.
“I’m glad your studies amuse you so much,” said Melanie.
Connor turned back to me. “But what does history have to do with glowmen?”
I shook my head. “Wraith isn’t magic like people are used to, it manifests physically. But wraith is still magical. Sometimes people add certain chemicals to wraith mist and sell it to others to drink or inhale. That’s called shine. A little will make people feel however they want to feel. Stronger. Braver. Bigger.”
The boys exchanged glances and raised eyebrows. “That doesn’t sound bad.”
“It’s dangerous. If you take too much, the changes become real and permanent. You don’t just feel amazingly tall or muscled. You are. Those people will never be normal again.”
“When they’re caught, glowmen are exiled to the wraithland.” Melanie placed her bag on the small desk and fished out a notebook and pen. “I’ve seen the prison wagons. The glowmen are sedated, loaded like sacks of grain, and taken as far west as horses are willing to go.” Almost nonchalantly, she shook a bottle of ink and twisted off the cap.
Both of the boys were silent.
Theresa nodded. “It’s true. They’re dumped while they’re still unconscious. Sometimes soldiers in West Pass Watch can see the glowmen waking up, if it’s still light out. If the wraith beasts don’t find them first, the glowmen usually attack one another and—”
“That’s enough.” Quinn twitched her little finger at Theresa, who just smirked at the rude gesture and unfolded enough bandages for everyone’s wounds.
Sufficiently frightened, the boys shuddered and turned toward creating a paste from the powdered herbs I’d brought. While they were engaged with treating cuts and bruises, Melanie and I wrote a quick report to Patrick, the leader of the Ospreys.
When we got to the glowmen, Melanie paused. “What was Black Knife doing there?” Her voice was low.
“Hunting the glowmen, I assume.” I turned a pen in my hands. “He doesn’t know what we were doing, and he didn’t follow us. That’s all I care about.” I glanced back at Connor, who was helping Theresa put away the last of the medical supplies. Hard to believe I was grateful to Black Knife for something. “Did the boys realize who he was?”
“Oh yes.” Melanie hunched, hiding a smile. “Ezra made fun of Connor for getting rescued by Black Knife, of all people. Connor made fun of Ezra for getting knocked unconscious almost before the fight began. Then they punched each other.”
“Clearly, they’ve made up,” I muttered. The boys now wore matching bandages around their heads and on their necks.
“Clearly.” Melanie smiled and shook her head. “Maybe you were right about him being a problem. At least he was more interested in the glowmen than us.”
This time. “We see him too often,” I muttered. “Maybe he’ll trip and fall on his knife.”
“Say it again.” She glanced at the others, all engaged with their tasks throughout the room. “Hopefully, we can stay clear of him for a while. We have a lot more work to do before our masquerade begins.”
I covered a shiver by folding our report. “Now that we have the right paper and ink, our masquerade may actually happen.”
She grinned and poured a glob of melted wax onto the folded paper, and I pressed my thumb into it as it cooled. “You’ll make a lovely refugee duchess,” she said, making room between us as Quinn approached.
“As long as I’m a convincing refugee duchess.”
“I wonder if you’ll meet the crown prince,” Quinn mused. “I hear he’s very handsome.”
“I won’t be there to admire the royal scenery.” I dropped our report into the bag with the stolen ink and paper. “I’ll be there to learn about the occupation of Aecor so we can reclaim the land and go home.”
“I know.” Quinn’s mutter hardly carried. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun while you’re working. Admiring the royal scenery might do you some good.”
The room grew quiet, everyone looking between Quinn and me.
“In case you forgot,” Melanie said, voice roughening, “the royal scenery is why we’re trapped in a crumbling old castle in the Indigo Kingdom, scraping for food and stealing all the time. If it wasn’t for the royal scenery, we’d be in Sandcliff Castle overlooking the Red Bay. We’d be with our parents.”
There was a long pause. Melanie had seen her parents murdered in their beds, the fate of so many of Aecor’s high nobility. My mother and father had been dragged into a courtyard and beheaded in front of everyone; their deaths meant the kingdom had been conquered. Afterward, King Terrell sent one of his younger brothers to rule the puppet state.
My kingdom. In their hands.
I couldn’t allow those murderers to continue ruling my land. Reports from our Aecorian contacts indicated my people were suffering hunger, oppression, and crippling taxes, not to mention the sudden disappearances of all known flashers. It wasn’t right. I had been born with the responsibility to lead the people of Aecor, and I could not fail them.
“I know.” Quinn dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I stood and handed her the bag. “It’s hard to remember sometimes.” Quinn was fifteen; she’d been only five during the One-Night War and could barely recall it.
My memories of that night were crystalline, and sharp. I would never forget the horror of blood and fire and steel, or that King Terrell and his family were why I was left without a home, and my kingdom was a handful of orphans. With only them and a few rebel groups in Aecor who opposed the foreign military presence, I was expected to resurrect an entire kingdom.
Queen Wilhelmina Korte. It sounded a little ridiculous.
“Why don’t you take these back to Patrick? Melanie and I will stay the night in Skyvale to gather more supplies.” Food, clothes, and other necessities were hard to come by in the old palace, and it was already autumn. With winter coming, and Melanie and me leaving soon, the rest of the Ospreys needed everything we could bring them.
Quinn apologized again, saluted, and then took Theresa and the boys from the inn. Their footsteps thudded on the floorboards and stairs, all traces of their training vanished like they didn’t even know the word stealth.
Melanie rolled her eyes. “Ready to get back to work?”
“As long as Black Knife doesn’t show up.”
“Say it again.” She tossed me a backpack, and a minute later, we were out the window.