Kelsea turned and found the silhouette of the Palais, jutting upward from the distant Demesne skyline. The upper windows belched fire, and the entire apex of the castle, including the balcony on which she and the Red Queen had stood on that long-ago day, was obscured by a dark nimbus of smoke.
“The immortal do not flee,” the Red Queen murmured, words that sounded almost rote to Kelsea, as though the older woman had practiced them many times in her mind.
They had escaped Demesne by means of an underground stable that, according to the Red Queen, had been prepared for her long ago by Ducarte. The stable was well stocked with clothing, water, cured food, and coin, but the Red Queen’s lost expression told Kelsea that she had never expected to need such a place and was astonished to find herself there. Kelsea was scarcely less astonished; the Red Queen, with an escape hatch? She wondered what would have happened if that knowledge had become public.
The Red Queen had torn their clothing and ratted Kelsea’s hair into a nest. They hid the coins against their skin, and then the Red Queen dappled Kelsea’s face with blood from the gash at her wrist. Kelsea didn’t entirely understand the reason for these preparations until they emerged from the dim basement of an abandoned building, some distance from the Palais. They had been able to hear the roar of conflict from underground, but Kelsea was completely unprepared for what met her on the streets.
Demesne was in chaos. Uncontrolled fires raged at several points on the city’s horizon. Mobs roamed free, shouting Levieux’s name. The district around the Palais, clearly one of the city’s wealthiest, was a battle zone of barricaded houses under assault by both citizens and Mort soldiers. They didn’t want to be discovered as wealthy on these streets, but Kelsea couldn’t seem to work up any fear, for it felt too extraordinary to be outside again. She had almost forgotten that there was anything but the fetid air of the dungeon, the dim light of torches. Even this wrecked city was a welcome landscape.
At several points on their journey through the city, Kelsea briefly considered simply breaking cover and turning the Red Queen in, then presenting herself as a Tear slave. The streets were full of Tear voices, escaped slaves now turned rebels, and surely the Mort would not be interested in a lone Tear when they got hold of the noble to end all nobles. Surely Kelsea was justified in leaving the Red Queen behind. She had spared the Red Queen’s life, and the Red Queen had spared hers. There was no debt here. And the Tearling beckoned, distant but suddenly close. Once she got out of the city, she could ride straight west and cross the border in little more than a day.
Home.
Of course the idea was foolish. Demesne was a vast city, and Kelsea had no idea where she was. She was forced to trust the Red Queen’s navigation, and they had finally escaped Demesne by bribing five soldiers on the city’s south gate. Once out, they had ignored the Mort Road and begun a steady journey southwest. Kelsea had no idea where the Red Queen meant to go, but as long as they were heading toward the Tearling, she felt no need to deviate. She was surprised to feel an odd sense of responsibility for the Red Queen. The woman was all alone now, cast adrift in a country that screamed for her blood. If the Red Queen were caught, what the Mort would do to her would be bad, very bad, but what the Tear would do would be even worse. She could not go unpunished, Kelsea’s mind insisted, not forever. But Kelsea didn’t want to see her brutalized either.
“The girl by my side,” the Red Queen continued now, her voice distant as she stared at the flaming ruin far behind them. “The girl by my side, and the man in grey behind.”
“Are you casting a spell?” Kelsea asked. “Or talking nonsense?”
The Red Queen turned to her, and Kelsea felt an involuntary shudder work its way up her spine. Whatever her relationship with Tear’s sapphire—and Kelsea had no idea precisely what that was—it still allowed her to see, to catalog and analyze the small tics that other people tried to keep hidden. Over the course of this day, she had become more and more certain that the Red Queen was only holding herself together by the barest margin. Un maniaque, Thorne had named her . . . and how would such a person really do under the pressures of blind flight? Beneath the Red Queen’s businesslike exterior, the exigencies of getting themselves out of Demesne, Kelsea sensed the first threads of madness.
“I am not immortal,” said the Red Queen. The look she bent on Kelsea was a mixture of hatred and obsequiousness, and Kelsea was not sure which one made her more uncomfortable. “Are you happy, Glynn? You have brought me down.”
“You brought yourself down!” Kelsea snapped. “All that power! You could have done anything with it, and look what you did.”
“I did what I had to do to hold my throne.”
“You’re a liar. I know about your court, Lady Crimson. I know how you conducted yourself. Slaves tortured and raped—and the men too; don’t think I haven’t heard about your predilections. People enter your laboratories and never come out. That’s not necessity. That’s carte blanche.”