North’s expression mirrors my own. This is a conversation we haven’t yet had, that needs to be said. North is the Prince of Avinea and I am a girl from the Brim. When he returns to New Prevast, there will be councils and crowns and guards and Bryn. There’s no more freedom after tonight. No more North.
Eager to escape his hungry eyes, I stand and stagger to the worktable, finding the piece of iron North dug out of my skin and cradling it in my hand. Something happened to my mother that night between stealing magic and saying good-bye. Instead of running to Avinea, she ran home and buried this inside me. What kind of spell needed nine stitches to stay hidden? And how could my father not notice this?
Unless he’s the one who put it there. But was he helping her, or hoping to bury her treason where no one would find it? When have I ever saved anyone? I think, with a chill.
“You said the magic in me could be traced to Merlock,” I say, bouncing the iron across my palm, turning to lean my weight against the table.
“Yes.”
“But Bryn’s spell was scraped clean?”
“According to Tobek. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, mind racing. If my mother stole this magic ten years ago while it still bore Merlock’s mark, but a spell cast afterward was scraped clean . . .
Did my mother know Perrote wasn’t a king? Was that why she planned to leave Avinea? To bring back an army and expose the truth? Perrote must have panicked and scrubbed his magic clean—and ordered every magician in the kingdom executed—to ensure no one else could do the same.
North frowns, concerned. “Faris?”
I shake away my thoughts, dropping the iron. “It’s nothing,” I say, yet it could be everything if it means my mother never intended to kill me, only to warn me.
The door swings open and Solch returns, humming beneath his breath. Clapping his hands, he rubs the palms together with an eager smile as he looks from me to North.
“So,” he says, “I’ll be the drunken uncle who makes a scene at dinner by discussing the family fortune.”
North straightens. “I thought we agreed—”
“I know.” Wincing, Solch offers his hands out in peace. “We did settle up at the start of the tour, but unfortunately, my boy, terms and conditions subject to change without notice.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A girl like that glows bright as the sun out here in the dark,” says Solch. “Intuits will be at my door for days wanting a taste. Lord Inichi will send his usual dog to sniff around back. That’s a lot of hassle. A lot of headache. We have to factor in surgery, she made use of a bed—I’ll round down for the hour out of respect—and there’s the matter of medical supplies.” Solch wets his lips. “I want more than a spell, North. I want half of what’s inside.”
“Solch.”
“Your majesty,” says Solch, all joking aside. His hand strays toward his hip, beneath the edge of his unbuttoned waistcoat. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
“You understand the position you’re taking,” says North, edging closer to me. His fingertips hang in the air, searching for contact, and I curl my little finger around his with a sudden rush of blood, a sudden twitch of power in my veins. “There’s no ever again between us after this.”
“You take magic like hers to New Prevast and there’s no ever again for me anyway,” says Solch. “The days of the transferent are numbered, North. I’ll take what I can and hide while I can before the gods come calling my name.” He smiles, bittersweet. “You’ll make a damn fine king, my boy, but we both know there’s no market for a man like me after a man like you finds Merlock. Final offer.”
“No,” says North.
I catch the flash of glass a second too late. I twist out of the way as North curves his body to protect me.
Solch wasn’t aiming for me.
The needle sinks into the slope of North’s neck and Solch depresses the plunger halfway before North knocks him aside. Dirty liquid sloshes in the glass tubing as North wrenches the needle out of his neck and hurls it to the floor. It shatters, glass and something thicker that glistens in the light.
I attack without strategy, barreling Solch through the doorway behind him. We stumble and land, arms and legs entwined on the floor. Despite a lingering weakness, I know how to fight, and I strike him across the face, knocking his glasses askew before slamming his head against the floor.
Solch swears, making a halfhearted grab for my hair, but I block his arm, twisting it back until I hear something crack near his shoulder. His sharp cry of agony sends chills down my back, cutting through the fog of primal instinct. It gives me pause, and in that instant of hesitation, I’m dragged off and hauled to my feet, pulled against a hard lanky body that smells of animal and beer. A cold blade touches my throat.
“Fanagin was right,” a voice laughs, oily and familiar. “Soft in all the right places. Let’s see if he was right about bleeding fire too.”
Kellig.
“Don’t touch her,” North says, already slurring his words. A thin dribble of fluid rolls down his throat into the collar of his shirt, shiny with a watery thread of blood.
“It’s not that much of a pleasure,” Kellig says with a sickening laugh, casting a derisive glance to the faded poison beneath my skin. “You already spoiled the meat. But Baedan won’t want leftovers, your majesty. She’ll want you.”
North bends over, hands on his knees as he looks to Solch, wounded. “You sold me?”
“I sell everything here,” Solch says darkly. Blood drips from his nose. “You’re hardly the most exotic item in my catalog.”
I test Kellig’s hold to find it loose, arrogant—he doesn’t believe I’ll fight back. I don’t know if I can. Blood seeps through the bandage on my chest and my heartbeat is weak, erratic, but I haven’t come this far to let someone like Kellig defeat me.
Dropping into a crouch, I slip out from under his arm and twist, kicking his knee. It knocks us both back and I crash into the worktable with enough force to make the ceiling dance. Needles and metal instruments scatter as he grabs my ankle and drags me back. Grinning, he levers his body over mine and presses a sweaty hand to my chest.
“Good girl. Keep that heart rate up,” he says. “The magic comes easier when your blood runs hot.”
“No,” Solch says. “She’s mine, he’s yours—that was the deal.”
“Terms and conditions subject to change without notice,” Kellig says, leering down at me. He’s as graceless as Solch as he fists threads of magic and snaps them loose, too greedy to be delicate. My skin tightens with goose bumps; tears flood my eyes.
With a grunt, Solch knocks Kellig in the side of the head with a bone awl, knocking him off me, onto the carpet. He then drives the awl through Kellig’s shoulder, pinning him in place. Kellig screams as blood immediately pools across the floor.