"Whatever I could to make the pain stop. Stupid things: That she loves the Moon Festival. That she could watch kites fly for hours. That she likes her tea with enough honey in it to choke a bear."
The pit of my stomach drops away. Those words are familiar. Why are they familiar? I turn my attention to Darin in full, and he looks at me uncertainly.
"I didn't think it would help him," he says. "He never seemed satisfied, no matter what I told him. Anything I said, he'd demand more."
It's a coincidence, I tell myself. Then I remember something Grandfather Quin used to say: Only a jackass believes in coincidence. Darin's words swirl in my head, linking to things I don't want them to, drawing lines where there should not be any.
"Did you tell the Warden that Laia loves lentil stew in the winter?" I ask. "That it made her feel safe? Or--or that she didn't want to die without seeing the Great Library of Adisa?"
"I used to tell her about the library all the time," Darin says. "She loved hearing about it."
Words float through my head, snippets of conversation between Laia and Keenan overheard as we traveled. I've been flying kites since I was a boy, he'd once said. I could watch them for hours. . . . I would love to see the Great Library one day. And Laia, that night before I left, smiling as she drank the too-sweet tea that Keenan handed her. Good tea is sweet enough to choke a bear, he'd said.
No, bleeding hells, no. All that time, lurking among us. Pretending to care about her. Trying to get in good with Izzi. Acting like a friend when he was really a tool of the Warden.
And his face before I left. That hardness that he never showed to Laia but that I sensed was there from the beginning. I know what it is to do things for the people you love. Damn it all, he must have told the Warden of my arrival, though how he could have gotten a message to the old man without using the drums is beyond me.
"I tried not to tell him anything important," Darin says. "I thought--"
Darin falls silent at the sharp voices of approaching soldiers. I close the door, and we back up into Darin's cell until they pass.
Only they don't pass.
Instead they turn down the hallway leading to this cell. As I cast about for some way to defend myself, the door flies open and four Masks pour in, truncheons raised.
It's not a fight. They are too fast, and I am injured, poisoned, and starved. I drop--I know when I'm outnumbered, and I can't withstand any more serious injuries. The Masks desperately want to use those truncheons to pound my head in, but they don't, instead cuffing me roughly and yanking me to my feet.
The Warden strolls in, hands behind his back. When he sees Darin and me confined next to each other, he doesn't appear surprised.
"Excellent, Elias," he murmurs. "Finally, you and I have something worthwhile to discuss."
XLII: Helene
The redheaded Scholar reaches for his scim but halts at the simultaneous hiss of two blades leaving their scabbards. With a slight shift of weight, he eases himself in front of Laia.
She sidesteps him, her glare formidable. She is not the same, frightened child I healed in Blackcliff's slaves' quarters. That bizarre protectiveness grips me, the same emotion I felt for Elias in Nur. I reach out and touch her face. She starts, and Avitas and Faris exchange a glance. Immediately I pull away. But not before I discern from the touch that she is well. Relief sweeps through me--and anger.
Did my healing mean nothing to you?
She had a strange song, this girl, with a fey beauty that raised the hair on the back of my neck. So different from Elias's song. But not discordant. Livia and Hannah took singing lessons--what would they call it? Countermelody. Laia and Elias are each other's countermelodies. I am just a dissonant note.
"I know you're here for your brother," I say. "Darin of Serra, Resistance spy--"
"He's not a--"
I wave off her protestations. "I don't bleeding care. You'll probably end up dead."
"I assure you, I won't." The girl's gold eyes spark, and her jaw is set. "I made it here despite the fact that you were hunting us." She takes a step forward, but I give no ground. "I survived the Commandant's genocide--"
"A few patrols to round up rebels is not--"
"Patrols?" Her face twists in horror. "You're killing thousands. Women. Children. You bastards have an entire skies-forsaken army parked in the Argent Hills--"
"Enough," the redhead says sharply, but I ignore him, my mind is fixed on what Laia just said.
--an entire bleeding army--
--the Bitch of Blackcliff is planning something. . . . It's big this time, girl--
I need to get out of here. A hunch has taken root in my mind, and I need to consider it.
"I am here for Veturius. Any attempt to rescue him will result in your death."
"Rescue," Laia says flatly. "From--from the prison."
"Yes," I say impatiently. "I don't want to kill you, girl. So stay out of my way."
I stride from the cave into the heavy snowdrifts, mind churning.
"Shrike," Faris says when we've nearly reached our camp. "Don't take off my head, but we can't just leave them alive to carry out an illegal prison break."
"Every garrison we went to in the Tribal lands was short on soldiers," I say. "Even Antium didn't have a full complement of guards for the walls. Why do you think that is?"
Faris shrugs, bewildered. "The men were sent to the borderlands. Dex heard the same."
"But my father told me in his letters that the border garrisons needed reinforcements. He said the Commandant requested soldiers too. Everyone is short. Dozens of garrisons, thousands of soldiers. An army of soldiers."
"You mean what the girl said about the Argent Hills?" Faris scoffs. "She's a Scholar--she doesn't know what she's talking about."
"The Hills have a dozen valleys big enough to hide an army in," I say. "And only one pass in and one pass out. Both of those passes--"
Avitas swears. "Blocked," he says. "By the weather. But those passes are never blocked so early in winter."
"We were in such a hurry, we didn't think twice about it," Faris says. "If there is an army, what is it for?"
"Marcus might be planning to attack the Tribal lands," I say. "Or Marinn." Both options are disa
strous. The Empire has enough to deal with without a full-scale war. We reach our camp, and I hand Faris the reins to his horse. "Find out what's going on. Scout the Argent Hills. I ordered Dex back to Antium. Have him keep the Black Guard at the ready."
Faris's eyes shift to Avitas, and he tilts his head at me. You trust him?
"I'll be all right," I say. "Go."
Moments after he leaves, a shadow steps out from the woods. My scim is half-drawn when I realize it's a Fiver, trembling and half-frozen. He silently hands me a note.
The Commandant arrives this evening to oversee the cleansing of Kauf Prison's Scholar population. She and I will meet at midnight, in her pavilion.
Avitas grimaces at the look on my face. "What is it?"
"The Warden," I say. "Coming out to play."
*
By midnight, I ghost along the base of Kauf's high outer wall toward the Commandant's camp, eyeing the friezes and gargoyles that make Kauf almost ornate when compared to Blackcliff. Avitas follows, covering our tracks.
Keris Veturia has erected her tents in the shadow of Kauf's southeast wall. Her men walk the perimeter, and her pavilion sits at the center of the camp, with five yards of clear space on three sides. The tent backs to Kauf's ice-slick wall. No woodpiles, no wagons, not even a bleeding horse to use as cover.
I stop along the far edge of the camp and nod to Avitas. He takes out a grappling hook and heaves it at a pinnacle atop a buttress about forty feet up. The hook catches. He hands me the rope and silently backtracks through the snow.
When I'm ten feet up, I hear the crunch of boots on snow. I turn, expecting to whisper-shout at Avitas for being so damned loud. Instead, a soldier lumbers out from between the tents, unbuttoning his pants to relieve himself.
I scramble for a knife, but my boots, slick with snow, slip on the rope, and I drop the blade. The soldier whirls at the sound. His eyes widen, and he gathers his breath to shout. Damn it! I prepare to drop, but an arm wraps around the soldier's throat, choking off his air. Avitas glares up at me as he grapples with the man. Go! he mouths.
Swiftly, I snake the rope between my boots and pull myself up hand over hand. Once at the top, I take aim at a second pinnacle thirty feet away, directly over the Commandant's tent. I let the grappling hook fly. When I'm certain it's secure, I tie the rope around my waist and take a deep breath, preparing to drop.