Tolya ignored me, pushing his way through the crowd; Tamar circled around him, blades in motion, widening the path. The pilgrims groaned and wailed, their arms outstretched, straining toward me.
“Now,” Tolya said. Then louder, “Now!”
He bolted. My head banged against his chest as we plunged toward the safety of the city walls, Tamar at our heels. The guards had already seen the turmoil erupting and had started to close the gates.
Tolya bulled forward, knocking people from his path, charging through the narrowing gap between the iron doors. Tamar slipped in after us, seconds before the gates clanged shut. On the other side, I heard the thump of bodies pounding against the doors, hands clawing, voices raised in hunger. Still I heard my name. Sankta Alina.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Tolya bellowed as he set me down.
“Later,” Tamar said curtly.
The city guards were glaring at me. “Get her out of here,” one of them yelled angrily. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t have a full-fledged riot on our hands.”
The twins had horses waiting. Tamar yanked a blanket from a market stall and threw it around my shoulders. I clutched it to my neck, hiding the collar. She leapt into her saddle, and Tolya tossed me up unceremoniously behind her.
We rode in harried silence all the way back to the palace gates. The unrest outside the city walls had not yet spread within, and all we garnered were a few questioning looks.
The twins didn’t say a word, but I could tell they were furious. They had every right to be. I’d behaved like an idiot, and now I could only hope that the guards below could restore order without resorting to violence.
Yet beneath the panic and regret, an idea had entered my mind. I told myself it was nonsense, wishful thinking, but I could not shake it.
When we arrived back at the Little Palace, the twins wanted to escort me straight to the Darkling’s rooms, but I refused.
“I’m safe now,” I said. “There’s something I need to do.”
They insisted on trailing me to the library.
It didn’t take me long to find what I wanted. I’d been a mapmaker, after all. I tucked the book under my arm and returned to my room with my scowling guards in tow.
To my surprise, Mal was waiting in the common room. He was seated at the table, nursing a glass of tea.
“Where were—” Mal began, but Tolya had him out of his chair and slammed against the wall before I could even blink.
“Where were you?” he snarled into Mal’s face.
“Tolya!” I shouted in alarm. I tried to pull his hand from around Mal’s throat, but it was like trying to bend a steel bar. I turned to Tamar for help, but she stood back, arms crossed, looking just as angry as her brother.
Mal made a choking sound. He hadn’t changed his clothes from last night. There was stubble on his chin, and the smell of blood and kvas hung on him like a dirty coat.
“Saints, Tolya! Would you just put him down?”
For a moment, Tolya looked like he had every intention of crushing the life out of him, but then he relaxed his fingers and Mal slid down the wall, coughing and gulping air.
“It was your shift,” Tolya rumbled, jabbing a finger at Mal’s chest. “You should have been with her.”
“I’m sorry,” Mal rasped, rubbing at his throat. “I must have fallen asleep. I was right next—”
“You were at the bottom of a bottle,” Tolya seethed. “I can smell it on you.”
“I’m sorry,” Mal said again, miserably.
“Sorry?” Tolya’s fists flexed. “I ought to tear you apart.”
“You can dismember him later,” I said. “Right now I need you to find Nikolai and tell him to meet me in the war room. I’m going to go change.”
I crossed to my room and closed the doors behind me, trying to pull myself together. So far today, I’d nearly died and possibly started a riot. Maybe I could set fire to something before breakfast.
I washed my face and changed into my kefta, then hurried to the war room. Mal was waiting there, slumped in a chair, though I hadn’t invited him. He’d changed clothes, but he still looked rumpled and red-eyed. There were fresh bruises on his face from the previous night. He glanced up at me as I entered, saying nothing. Would there ever be a time when it didn’t hurt to look at him?
I set the atlas on the long table and crossed to the ancient map of Ravka that ran the length of the far wall. Of all the maps in the war room, this one was by far the oldest and most beautiful. I trailed my fingers over the raised ridges of the Sikurzoi, the mountains that marked Ravka’s southernmost border with the Shu, then followed them down into the western foothills. The valley of Dva Stolba was too small to be marked on this map.
“Do you remember anything?” I asked Mal without looking at him. “From before Keramzin?”
Mal hadn’t been much older than I was when he came to the orphanage. I still remembered the day he’d arrived. I’d heard another refugee was coming, and I’d hoped it would be a girl for me to play with. Instead I’d gotten a pudgy, blue-eyed boy who would do anything on a dare.