“Wait,” I say, panicked.
“I have orders,” he says, holding me back.
Blood beats in my ears, rising to a scream. No. After all that I’ve done, all I will still do, they cannot keep my sister from me, not when she’s right there.
Chadwick hangs back to allow me to go first up another narrow flight of stairs. I feint a step forward before darting around him, bolting back for the door.
“Cadence!” I crash into the door frame and for one breathless moment, my sister’s eyes lock on me, bright blue and free of any magic spells, before a man tackles me to the ground, dragging me outside. A second man darts forward and closes the door, standing in the threshold with his hand on the knob, his other hand hovering over the hilt of his undrawn sword. He eyes me in silent assessment before his gaze flickers higher, to the roofline.
Guards. I didn’t even see them before. Over a dozen hidden in the shadows, their loaded crossbows aimed for me. A perceived threat.
Fear brines my tongue and I don’t resist when the first guard pulls me to my feet. Chadwick gestures to the others and they lower their weapons, but I watch them warily, chilled by how quickly they fade back out of view.
“Why can’t I see her?” I ask.
Chadwick takes my arm, more firmly than before. “She is a prisoner,” he says. “I have no power to intercede.”
“What was her crime?” I twist in his grip, watching the two guards at the door, desperate for another glimpse of Cadence.
Chadwick looks at me, pity splashed across his kind face. “She’s your sister,” he says simply.
The third floor is shorter than the one below, with only two doors. Jostling a key from his pocket, Chadwick swings open the first and I stumble inside, blood humming, barely noticing the bed or the window or the fireplace. The wooden floors creak as I cross to the window, my shaking reflection thrown across the city. Chadwick watches silently behind me, his hands folded in front of him.
“The water is warm,” he says, and I vaguely notice a bathtub in front of the fire. “We’ve sent for a girl to attend you; I’ll send her up as soon as she arrives.”
I stare at my reflection, hugging the chill from my bones as I replay that stolen glimpse of Cadence again and again. How did Perrote even know about her?
Alistair.
I’ll kill him, I think, and my savageness surprises me even as I welcome its heat through my veins. But my hate is chased with self-reproach: It’s my fault for trusting my sister to a boy bred to show no mercy.
Chadwick reaches for the door but hesitates. “Will you be all right, Miss Locke?”
I close my eyes, leaning my forehead to the glass. Despite myself, hot tears roll down my cheeks. “Yes,” I say, and it’s a beautiful lie—the first of many I’ll have to tell if I’m going to survive any future involving Bryn and her father.
Chadwick taps an uneven rhythm against the doorknob. “I’m sorry,” he says at length.
I open my eyes and turn toward his words, but the door shuts behind him with a soft but solid click. A moment later, a key turns and footsteps recede.
Locked in, alone.
Only North fills every corner of the room, from the jars of rocks to the spine-cracked books, to the indelible smell of chimney smoke that clings to the walls. Tidy stacks of old lessons fill a desk; more rocks line the windowsill. Reaching into my pocket, I find the rock he gave me earlier, the one that would earn me Chadwick’s trust. Rough in places, worn smooth in others, the hole through the center is big enough for my little finger to slide through.
With a growl, I hurl the rock across the room where it clatters beneath the bathtub. I don’t want a rock; I want a spell above my heart to protect it from feeling like this, like it’s held together by weak stitches and hanging threads.
An instant later, I’m on my hands and knees, retrieving the rock. I do have a spell above my heart, and while North removed the iron from beneath my skin, the memory of it remains.
I have to be stronger than this.
The sun is falling by the time a girl knocks and announces herself as Gretik, a dress carried over one arm to replace the filthy one I’d shrugged off before my bath. She’s all patience as I fumble through the uneasy act of being dressed by someone else. After bandaging the worst of my wounds, she clicks her tongue against her teeth and smiles like nothing’s wrong. “I’ll bring you your dinner,” she says, and bows her way out the door.
She locks it behind her.
I force myself to eat the heavy stew she returns with, but it sits like lead in my stomach. As she clears away the tray, I finally ask, “Where’s North?”
“Prince Corbin retired an hour ago,” she says, and I don’t miss the light tone she uses to correct my address. “Did you need anything else?”
I shake my head and ignore the ache in my chest, reminding me that this was the choice I made. Even so, I didn’t realize how much I craved an acknowledgment from him until I didn’t get one.
Gretik returns in the morning, after the bell tower calls the monks to prayer. She escorts me downstairs and I follow like a leashed dog, uncomfortable with so much ceremony. She curtsies and nods me into the dining hall where a single meal has been laid out in a room full of heavy tables and polished bench seats that smell like wax.
I wait for her to disappear down the hall before I enter the room. A figure glances up immediately and I flush, mumbling apologies as I turn to go.
“Faris,” a voice says, full of relief.
My heart stops as Alistair Pembrough crushes a cigarette out on the floor. He exhales a cloud of smoke and moves toward me.
The shock of seeing him gives way to rage. I meet him halfway, grabbing him by the front of his coat and slamming him back against a table. It screeches out of alignment beneath our weight. “You were supposed to be watching her! Protecting her!”
“I said I would keep her safe and I did,” he says hotly, grabbing my wrists. “She’s alive and she’s here, and that’s what matters for now.”
“But?” My voice wavers in challenge.
“But you’re on dangerous ground,” he says. “Brindaigel is in a panic. Perrote opened a bridge across the gorge eight days ago and it’s remained there ever since. More than that, he and his men haven’t flown to the skies in search of the missing princess. They walked into Avinea. And when they return, not one of them will bear any sign of the infection they said could not be avoided. You made them human and you made them liars, and if you think Perrote will forgive you for that, you had better open your eyes and watch your back.”