“What are you doing here?” he asked, and pressed a kiss on my head.
I blinked back my emotions as I fought to awaken myself from the spell of his tenderness. “We’ve come to free you.” I pulled away. My hands trembled as I flipped through the keys for a size to match the lock. “Yuri knows one of the guards,” I explained.
Tosya stood and glanced past me. “Yuri? Is that you?”
The soldier came to my side. “Apparently a beard makes me invisible. I should have grown one long ago, but Pia . . .” His voice hitched. He cleared his throat and took the ring of keys. “Let me. Our time is running short.”
As he tried key after key, I looked to Anton and Tosya, my spirits lifting. “The peasants did not wait until tomorrow. They’re marching on the palace as we speak.” When Anton’s face fell, I said reassuringly, “This is good. The emperor planned to have you both executed in the morning.”
The prince stepped back and rubbed a hand across his jaw. Tosya quietly studied him, as if he knew what he was thinking. “This isn’t good,” Anton replied. “Our lives aren’t worth the deaths of so many. And make no mistake, the casualties will be enormous—no matter which side wins.”
I stared at him in bewilderment. “They’re coming whether you like it or not, and I won’t leave you here if the palace burns. Now is your chance to fight for the dream you’ve given these people!”
“I have been fighting, Sonya. For years. But not like this. Not with gunpowder and sabers. If that is the dream I gave, I want no part of it.”
“Will you not even defend yourself?” His obstinate idealism made me want to reach through the bars and shake him.
“Hush, you two!” Yuri struggled with another key. “You’ll alert the guards and—” His words fell silent as he put all his strength into turning the lock. His fingers went white. His veins bulged at the temple. But it was no use. “Damn!” He hit the barred door. The noise rang through the chamber with greater volume than that of my or Anton’s voice. “None of these fit.”
I gaped at him. “Well, then go and tell your friend he fetched the wrong set.”
“This is the only set, the only ring! Don’t you understand? The jail master doesn’t have the key.”
The weak fabric of hope holding me together threatened to rend at the seams. “Then we must find it.”
“If he doesn’t have it, no one in the dungeons does.” Yuri paced away and kicked up the straw. He left the last key jammed in the lock.
“Valko has them,” Anton said, looking at all of us with grim acceptance. “He must. It makes perfect sense. He’s sought to have me imprisoned for ages. Now that he’s succeeded, he won’t trust anyone one else with the means of releasing me. He’s too suspicious of his own people—too worried, in the end, of their loyalty to him.”
My stomach hardened into stone with the heavy weight of dread. “I must return to the emperor.”
“No, Sonya,” Anton said resolutely. “I won’t ask that of you.” Tosya kept his lips sealed and lowered his eyes, entrusting his fate to his friend.
“I must. I won’t leave you here! What if the revolution doesn’t succeed?”
“It’s going to succeed.” Yuri broadened his chest. “And you needn’t worry about the emperor. Just grant me access, and I will finish him. I won’t fail this time.”
Despite the desperation of the moment, the urgency, and the blood rushing through my veins, I felt a darkness in Yuri. And I recognized it—its snakelike writhing in my gut. I’d also felt it the night of the ball, when I was sure someone meant to kill Valko. But Yuri never tried to kill him then—never failed at that time—only plotted. What failure, then, was he referring to? Suddenly understanding dawned on me, as crystal clear as the goblet Yuri must have tainted. “You killed the dowager empress,” I gasped.
Yuri’s mouth fell open. His eyes flew wide, darting to Anton. “What are you speaking of?”
“You tried to kill the emperor before, by poison,” I said. “You evaded Izolda by using Pia.” The mystery unfolded before me like a row of painted murals. “The sovereign Auraseer would never have detected an unknowing girl’s involvement. You wouldn’t have told Pia, of course. She was too pure to ever consider being your accomplice. But it would have been simple enough—perhaps something laced in the herbs of the emperor’s tea. You could have dropped it in while kissing Pia in the kitchens. Of course, you would have made sure to be far away when it was administered, so Izolda wouldn’t sniff you out. But you still failed. The empress consumed what was meant for her son.”