Mal lifted his bound hands, reaching for me. His fingers grazed mine briefly, then Ivan was hauling me back toward the hatch.
My mind was racing as we descended into the dank belly of the ship. I stumbled along behind Ivan, trying to make sense of everything that had just happened. The Darkling had said that he wouldn’t harm Mal as long as he needed him. I’d assumed he just meant to use him to keep me in line, but now it was clear there was more to it than that. Did Mal really think he could find the sea whip, or was he stalling for time? I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be true. I didn’t savor the idea of being tortured, but what if we did find the ice dragon? What would a second amplifier mean?
Ivan pulled me into a spacious cabin that looked like the captain’s quarters. Sturmhond must have been squeezed in with the rest of his crew. A bed was pushed into one corner, and the deeply curved aft wall was studded with a row of thick-paned windows. They shed watery light on a desk behind which the Darkling seated himself.
Ivan bowed and darted from the room, closing the door behind him.
“He can’t wait to get away from you,” I said, hovering by the door. “He’s afraid of what you’ve become. They all are.”
“Do you fear me, Alina?”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
The Darkling shrugged. “Fear is a powerful ally,” he said. “And loyal.”
He was watching me in that cold, assessing way that always made me feel as if he were reading me like words on a page, his fingers moving over the text, gleaning some secret knowledge that I could only guess at. I tried not to fidget, but the irons at my wrists chafed.
“I’d like to free you,” he said quietly.
“Free me, flay me. So many options.” I could still feel the press of his knife at my cheek.
He sighed. “It was a threat, Alina. It accomplished what it needed to.”
“So you wouldn’t have cut me?”
“I didn’t say that.” His voice was pleasant and matter-of-fact, as always. He might have been threatening to carve me up or ordering his dinner.
In the dim light, I could just make out the fine traces of his scars. I knew I should stay quiet, force him to speak first, but my curiosity was too great.
“How did you survive?”
He ran his hand over the sharp line of his jaw. “It seems the volcra did not care for the taste of my flesh,” he said, almost idly. “Have you ever noticed that they do not feed on each other?”
I shuddered. They were his creations, just like the thing that had buried its teeth in my shoulder. The skin there still pulsed. “Like calls to like.”
“It’s not an experience I’d care to repeat. I’ve had my fill of the volcra’s mercy. And yours.”
I crossed the room, coming to stand before the desk. “Then why give me a second amplifier?” I asked desperately, grasping for an argument that would somehow make him see sense. “In case you’ve forgotten, I tried to kill you.”
“And failed.”
“Here’s to second chances. Why make me stronger?”
Again, he shrugged. “Without Morozova’s amplifiers, Ravka is lost. You were meant to have them, just as I was meant to rule. It can be no other way.”
“How convenient for you.”
He leaned back and folded his arms. “You have been anything but convenient, Alina.”
“You can’t combine amplifiers. All the books say the same thing—”
“Not all the books.”
I wanted to scream in frustration. “Baghra warned me. She said you were arrogant, blinded by ambition.”
“Did she now?” His voice was ice. “And what other treason did she whisper in your ear?”
“That she loved you,” I said angrily. “That she believed you could be redeemed.”
He looked away then, but not before I saw the flash of pain on his face. What had he done to her? And what had it cost him?
“Redemption,” he murmured. “Salvation. Penance. My mother’s quaint ideas. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention.” He reached into the desk and drew out a slender red volume. As he held it up, light glinted off the gold lettering on its cover: Istorii Sankt’ya. “Do you know what this is?”
I frowned. The Lives of Saints. A dim memory came back to me. The Apparat had given me a copy months ago at the Little Palace. I’d thrown it in the drawer of my dressing table and never spared it another thought.
“It’s a children’s book,” I said.
“Have you read it?”
“No,” I admitted, suddenly wishing I had. The Darkling was watching me too closely. What could be so important about an old collection of religious drawings?
“Superstition,” he said glancing down at the cover. “Peasant propaganda. Or so I thought. Morozova was a strange man. He was a bit like you, drawn to the ordinary and the weak.”
“Mal isn’t weak.”
“He’s gifted, I grant you, but no Grisha. He can never be your equal.”