ARWEN
“IKNOW IT’S IN HERE somewhere,” Mari said, blowing a red curl from her face like a horse. “I purposely didn’t leave it in the library
because I knew how valuable it was.”
Mari’s bedroom rivaled the aftermath of a tornado. Not just books—of course the shabby, cozy, colorful space was hemorrhaging books—but also quills and partnerless shoes and half-melted rouges and various brainiac hobbies she’d started and then promptly given up on.
After our morning training session, Kane, Griffin, Dagan, and I had met with the nobles to discuss our position with Queen Ethera. The tricky monarch wouldn’t be swayed by gold or land. All she really wanted was to keep the south from rising up against her. We’d discussed offering her battalions and convoys, but we couldn’t spare the men ourselves.
We’d left the forum with clear orders: find something of value to offer Ethera in return for her army. When I’d filled Mari in, she’d dragged us to her cottage on the spot.
“I still don’t see why the ledger is our way in with Ethera,” Kane said coolly, stepping over a half-knit quilt to lean on Mari’s childhood vanity. She’d never replaced the old wooden thing, and when she sat down to paint her lips and cheeks she looked like a glamorous giant. “If we give it to the queen, she’ll track down every living name in that book and torture them. Doesn’t seem like a plan anyone but Griffin would go for.”
Griffin grumbled, eyes glued to a smear of lip stain on one of the four half-drained mugs on Mari’s bedside. “Don’t waste your breath.”
I frowned at them both.
“I told you all,” Mari said to us, fishing through her unmade bed. “I’ll explain when we find the ledger. It’ll make more sense then.”
I’d forgotten Mari had even taken the book with her from Reaper’s Cavern. The one that contained all the names of the men and women from the south of Rose who’d fought against Queen Ethera’s northern army and lost.
“Are you going to help or…?”
Chastened, I opened drawer after drawer and felt around for the tome, fishing unashamedly through Mari’s unmentionables. The two texts I found sandwiched between all the dainty lace were both recipe books. One was entirely about pies.
I was honored to be this woman’s friend.
I waggled the books at her. “I need to understand the organizational choices that were made here.”
Griffin, far too tall and broad for Mari’s cluttered room, paled beside me at the sight of all her lacy underthings. He turned, busying himself with a half-threaded embroidery hoop on her shelf. He’d mindlessly begun to sort the various spools when Mari shrieked at him, “Don’t touch those!”
The commander’s jaw went rigid. “This room is a cemetery of hobbies, witch. It’s making me ill.”
Mari’s eyes devoured his as if prepared for combat.
Kane snorted, tinkering with a tiny music box. “Tread carefully, Commander.”
Griffin shifted on his feet. He appraised the vibrant, tangled threads in his hands. “I could just—”
“I dare you,” Mari sniped.
Any laugh that had threatened to bubble up my throat was swallowed hastily.
The commander sighed. “Someone let me know when she’s found the damned thing.”
Maybe it was because I’d spent so many weeks away from them all, or maybe I was still raw and a bit overly sensitive, but something in my heart cracked at his resigned expression. That he couldn’t bear to be around her, nor without her. That he couldn’t welcome an ounce of vulnerability into his generous yet walled-off heart.
It wasn’t his fault. Nobody had ever taught him how.
Mari said nothing as Griffin maneuvered his too-big frame through her small doorway and out of the cottage. Through the window I watched Mari’s father nod sternly at the commander. He’d been sitting on the front porch for the last twenty minutes. The sweet lumberman claimed no interest in getting in our way, but I knew he feared being in such close proximity to Kane. I’d seen sheer terror drip through his expression as soon as we’d arrived.
“So,” I tried casually. “You revile Griffin again?”
Mari frowned. “Of course not. I just don’t like people touching my things.”
I raised my fistfuls of her underwear and heard Kane’s elegant chuckle. “Well, not you. You can dig your grubby hands through anything you
want,” she said with a smile. Then her eyes lit with some new thought. “Speaking of.” She spun, searching. “Do you want to borrow my basil pots? In the spring you could—”
“Mari.” I laughed. “Thank you, but—”
“Oh!” She pulled a dusty book from behind one of her pillows. “Or this book on the history of herbalism—”
“Let’s find the ledger first? Then I will gladly scavenge this pigsty of yours for gifts.”
Mari nodded brightly in agreement and moved to toss the dry leather- bound text back into one of the many mountains of cloaks and boots.
“Actually,” Kane said, halting her with an arched brow. “I’ll take it.”
She grinned and handed the hefty book to him. Kane considered the tome in his hands, flipping through it casually, his hair skating dreamily over his forehead.
My chest expanded. My two bookworms—I loved them so.
Dropping to the floor, Mari slid underneath her bed.
I raised a brow at Kane, who only shrugged, one large hand still holding open his new book as he craned his head down to study Mari’s sub–bed frame fumbling. “What are you—”
“Aha!” Mari scrambled out from the depths, her hair like a tumbleweed. “I knew I put it somewhere safe.”
“Indeed,” Kane drawled.
But Mari ignored him, plopping onto her unmade bed, and I did the same beside her. I’d missed her so much, I could have rested my chin on her shoulder like a faithful dog. But I settled for watching her leaf through the yellowed pages.
“This ledger was made by Oleander Cross!”
I peered up at Kane, expecting to share another confused glance. But his brows had met in interest. “It was?”
Mari nodded eagerly. “That means—”
Kane was apparently way ahead of her. “If he’d even do it.”
“Sure he would. That’s how he makes most of his coin now. He wouldn’t even have to know what it was for.”
“Somebody,” I interrupted, “please clue me in.”
“Oleander Cross is the finest historian and bookmaker in Evendell. He’s old now, but still crafts historical texts and ledgers. He’s most famous for recounting battles throughout Evendell’s history. The kind of books that will be passed down from generation to generation or kept in the most exclusive museums.”
“He crafts more duplicates than originals these days,” Kane added, wrapping his hands around Mari’s iron bed frame. “Because they go for so much coin.”
I fit the pieces together slowly in my mind. “You want him to craft a decoy to bribe Ethera with?”
“She’d give anything for the names of those who waged war against her all those years ago. She’s never been able to track down any of the generals or commanders. Not without this ledger.”
“So,” Mari added, “she won’t even realize when all the names are fake.
She’ll hunt them down and never find a soul.”
“We’d have Kleio use a low-level noble to contact him, say it’s for a museum. He’d never know it’d be going to the Scarlet Queen.”
“And by the time she learns the names were false…”
Kane finished my thought. “We’d have already used her army to beat Lazarus. We could handle her wrath then.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. Not at all. “Mari, you’re—” “Thank you!” She beamed. “I know.”
“THIS IS PRETTY NICE,” I said to Ryder, and I meant it. I hadn’t been inside the soldiers’ barracks, other than the tented pavilion that served as Kane’s war room and occasional forum. But Ryder’s quarters were clean and relatively spacious, even as they smelled a bit of horse and woodfire and boy. I’d wanted to come see him before we left for Rose. Only a day after we’d found the ledger in Mari’s room, Kane’s messengers had contacted the historian and paid him generously. We were leaving tonight.
Ryder’s hastily made bed could only fit one, and there was another across from his with simply folded sheets and a few errant crumbs.
“Who do you share the cabin with?”
Ryder walked to a barrel filled with fresh water and poured me a mug and then one for himself. “At first it was this utter lug head who would not shut up. I persuaded him to trade with Barney.”
“How’d you do that?”
Ryder shrugged, though a bit of pride peeked through his eyes. “Used some carefully carved cherrywood to convince him we had termites.”
I laughed. “You must use your powers for good, not evil.” He chuckled, too. And then, sighing, said, “Arwen—”
“I know—”
“You might, but you still have to let me say it.” I sat down on his bed. “All right.”
“I think in Citrine…I fell for Princess Amelia.” That had not at all been what I was expecting.
“She was the most impressive, mean, knock-down-drag-out-gorgeous, cold-as-ice living thing I’d ever seen. Every time she spoke, I felt it in my
—”
My eyes cut to him as if to say, Don’t you dare. “Chest. I felt it in my chest.”
I stifled a laugh, kicking off my shoes and folding my legs more comfortably atop his bed.
“She didn’t give me the time of day unless we were speaking strategy. All she cared about was Peridot. Freeing the kingdom, rebuilding, saving her people from warfare and conquest. All pretty noble stuff.”
I nodded because I agreed. It was noble. She was cold and calculating, manipulative and harsh, but in the eyes of her people…She’d always been clear that she would do anything for them.
“While you lot were off finding the blade, we started…spending time together. She told me she’d have me assassinated if I told anyone, and I sure as Stones believed her.” He laughed a little to himself at the memory and I suddenly felt that I was witnessing something too personal. I cast my eyes to the floor.
“She was so different when we came back to Onyx. I still don’t know why. Maybe she had already made up her mind about…what she was going to do. But I missed her. Like nothing I’d ever felt, I missed her. And when you told me you were going to Hemlock—” He shook his head. “I thought it was the only way she’d talk to me like she used to, if I alleged to know more about the plan than she did. She probably played me. Knew how eager I’d be, how I’d tell her anything just to be in the same room again.”
Oh, Stones. My brother was a lovesick fool.
I wondered if Amelia had ever even liked him. She had asked me to share her apologies, but I couldn’t tell if that had been from honest remorse or something a bit more personal. My heart hurt at the thought of either.
“She behaved so strangely the rest of that day. I told myself it was out of guilt, I think, because it made me feel better. About myself and her. But I
went straight to Griffin. Told him that I had a terrible feeling. We flew for Hemlock not five minutes later.”
My brother sank down on the bed next to me and braced his forearms on his knees.
“Arwen, I’m sorry. Truly, I am. Had I known what she was capable of…” He scratched at his neck, finally bringing his eyes to meet mine. He had never looked more like a little boy to me. Like the kid I’d grown up alongside.
“You can’t blame yourself. The only person responsible for what Lazarus did is Lazarus.”
“That’s not the point. I was only thinking about me. About what I wanted. Who I wanted, I guess.” His eyes found his hands again. “It’s all I ever do. Think about myself.”
I struggled for the right words—he was right. He had been selfish, and I didn’t want to fuss and lie and tell him otherwise like I might have in the past. But I also knew the unabashed hurt that was nagging at him wasn’t doing anyone any good.
“I saw her in Lumera. She asked me to tell you that she was sorry. And that she hadn’t meant to use you.”
Ryder blew out a breath and cradled his head in his hands. “Will you kill me if I ask how she seemed?”
I mulled his question over in my head. Aside from her apology, I tried to remember if there was anything noteworthy about my conversation with Amelia the night of the masquerade ball. “She seemed resigned. Glad for her people but…remorseful. I don’t think she’s being hurt or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. Lazarus sees her as an ally.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad.” Ryder pressed his face into his palms.
“For now, it’s good.”
“And when Kane tracks her down eventually?”
I tried to imagine Kane greeting his old friend in a warm embrace. All that came to mind was a vision of a pitch-black dragon, satiated and stuffed
full, with wisps of long white hair hanging from his maw. “We’ll handle that when the time comes.”
“I won’t say good luck,” he joked with an exhale. “Didn’t count for much the last time. But…be safe, Arwen. With the faux ledger and the Scarlet Queen. I’ll be here, with the tykes. And Barney. My husband.”
“Ryder.” I frowned. “Do you want to come with us?”
I wasn’t really sure why I’d offered. I knew he didn’t, and that none of us—Kane and Griffin tied for least of all—wanted him to join, either.
“I don’t,” he answered, a little morose. “I’m so grateful not to be going.
How’s that for a burgeoning soldier? Brave as ever, I am.”
I stood to leave, but an errant thought pulled me back. “Can I offer you some unsolicited advice?”
Ryder cocked one brow at me but I took his silence for approval and plowed onward. “Try not to think so much about who you were supposed to be back then, or who you want to be one day, or what will impress which princess or librarian, and maybe just try to be…you. Today.”
“That’s very corny,” he said after some time, though his eyes were elsewhere.
I shrugged. “I’m not as good at this as Dagan.”
THE QUARTZ OF ROSE WAS more industrial than any other kingdom I’d been to, but the steel and scaffolding didn’t hinder its beauty one bit. I’d been surprised, during our flight over, to find myself comparing the kingdom’s elegant homes to Willowridge’s, or the capital city of Revue’s busy streets to Azurine’s. Surprised by my own knowledge of Evendell—my understanding of the nuances of different cities, different ecosystems, different social and political strata.
I’d been right, when I returned to Shadowhold, to fear that I’d changed.
I had.
But the woman I was now—walking past wrought-iron fences wreathed in greenery and corner taverns adorned with flowerpots—this woman was
all the things I’d hoped one day I would be: a little more worldly, a little less afraid to ask for what I wanted, sympathetic to the ambiguities of life and the complicated choices we all faced. Not necessarily brave, but aware of the fact that it was courageous just to get up each day when there was so much to fear…Maybe most importantly—this woman liked herself.
An issue I hadn’t even realized might have been the worst offense of all and the most deep-seated.
The streets in Revue were replete with both monolithic factories pumping hot black smoke and vivid open-air markets. Warehouses with men slathered in dark oil and coal right beside antique-looking bookstores
—The Rosecomb, Under the Cover. Beside bespectacled women pushing carts piled high with tools were poets reading to one another on storm-gray building stoops.
While Willowridge had a gothic, almost dreamy darkness to it, Revue was vibrant. Bustling, and more sensual. More aggressive, too, and dirtier. People walked faster and with more purpose. The handrails and curbs were not polished clean like in Kane’s capital. The air smelled of tobacco— though the pipes here were long and skinny rather than fat and curved like Ryder’s.
Despite the chilly winter night and all the snow crunching underfoot, the women around us wore clothing I’d never dare to. Shimmery, shining dresses with long fur coats. Plunging necklines. Shorter hems than some of my nightdresses. My cheeks flushed at the sight of a sheer bodice with exposed boning worn as a top of its own, with nothing but a feathered scarf to keep its wearer warm.
I was so overwhelmed by the sights and wild display of skin I almost missed Mari as she ducked after Kane and Griffin into the inn. The sign out front read “The Empty Inkwell” in industrial block lettering, and I followed after them.
For better or worse, the reclusive bookmaker lived in a small neighborhood in the eastern hills of Revue. Better: once we had our fake, we were only minutes from Ethera’s doorstep—after we’d devised our plot, we’d sent a raven and scheduled an audience with the queen for tomorrow
afternoon. Worse: we’d have to keep a very low profile. If Ethera found out we’d met with the historian, our only bargaining chip would be wasted, and she’d never align her army with ours.
Which meant staying the night in this musty, unremarkable inn in the city center with a shoddy chandelier that hung so low Griffin had to hunch the entire time we stood, clustered inside. Twangy music that sounded a little metallic and filtered emanated from somewhere deeper inside. I wondered what kind of musicians wandered the halls of lodgings like this one.
“We only have the one room available, I’m afraid.”
Mari shook her head. “There are four of us. I’m sure you can see why that won’t do.”
“And there are two beds,” the innkeeper rebutted, pressing pointed spectacles that had slid down her nose back up the elongated ridge.
“And we are paying customers with quite a lot of coin.” Mari was turning a bit red. “Can you please look once more?”
The woman’s unmoving stare rivaled a brick wall. “I don’t think so.”
Mari placed an elbow on the wood counter and leaned close. “I’m not sure I like your tone. For your information, we are—”
“Very sorry to have bothered you,” I jumped in. “The double will be fine.”
Mari sighed like a horse and I swore a low chuckle rumbled from Griffin beside me. But when I turned my face up to his, the expression I found there was as stoic as usual.
The darkened stairs were carpeted in a red rug that hadn’t been cleaned in some time, and cobwebs decorated each low, jutting overhang Griffin and Kane were forced to duck beneath. But the halls were adorned with oil lamps and well-worn yet cozy furnishings, like antique trays and portraits of somber rainy days and pale, contemplative women.
Our shared room was on the top floor, and had a peculiar handle in the ceiling that, when pulled, brought down yet another set of stairs that led to a private rooftop. The hardwood floors were dark and scuffed, and the two beds—one a rich artichoke color and the other a buff straw tone—looked
plush and welcoming. Even the antique floral wallpaper was charming, and I decided I liked this strange, romantic inn.
“Arwen and I will take this one,” Mari said, dumping her snow-soaked coat and bulging bags atop the green bed.
Kane and I shot each other twin glances.
I wasn’t a child, and wouldn’t make a fuss over something so trivial, but…Kane and I had been separated for months. And without being melodramatic—who knew how many nights we had left to share a bed together?
Not even for sex—we’d never attempt something in the same room as our friends. But that intimacy. That warmth…
“You two can take the other one,” Griffin said bluntly, jutting his chin toward Kane and me. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Don’t be such a martyr.” Mari huffed. “Why? Because you and Kane can’t share a bed? That is the most antiquated, fragile, small-minded—”
“Because they want to fuck, witch,” Griffin said, nodding at Kane and me.
I wasn’t sure who flushed redder, me or Mari. I opened my mouth but she saved me an unintelligible response.
“Oh. Of course. We can give you some privacy, not a problem.”
Kane only chuckled, the sound sliding along my bones, before he ran a cool thumb down my arm to my wrist. I shivered.
I could hear the roguish grin in his voice when he purred, “Shall we go see about a bookmaker?”
But Griffin cut through whatever playful energy had been thickening the air between us. “The replica we sent for won’t be ready until tomorrow, a few hours before our tea with Ethera.”
Mari plunked down on the hay-colored bed. “What should we do tonight, then?” Her eyes brightened as ideas began to crystalize. “The last time I was here with my papa, we visited this dark, quiet tavern where they played strange, sultry music and all the women wore short sparkly dresses, and they read these long poems that were more like stories that had no beginning or middle or end really but I loved them anyway.”
Griffin appraised Mari once before turning to Kane. “I think we should train.”
“Yeah.” Kane nodded, releasing my hand and moving for his discarded swords. “We should probably train.”
