“Let’s go!” Rosalia echoed herself. Nayeli’s explosions were catching, a crate here, a crate there. Rupturing waves of splinters and magic, supplies, weapons.
Nate swore. “Goddamn it, we losteverything!”
Lu had expected to leave this mission with resolve. But the gathering in her soul was deeper anger that Tom had managed to pile on more betrayal.
Menesia. What had he figured out about Menesia? What had he made her forget?
And what other piece did he have in play?
Nayeli grabbed Lu’s hand, yanking her up the stairwell, back toward the ramifications of where Lu’s revenge had driven her.
Ben faltered. “The Tuncian syndicate Head?”
Zey whispered into the Budwig Bean again, his throat pinched. Mani, red-faced, had a knife in one hand, a pistol cocked in the other.
On the platform, Elazar lifted his arms, reciting a prayer from a hymn on cleansing. The defensors held Cansu behind him, her hands manacled. Her dark, livid eyes never left Elazar, as though she could incinerate him with the heat of her fury.
Mani surged forward a step. Zey ripped a plant out of a pouch on his waist: Rhodofume, used for smoke screens.
Gunnar gaped at Ben. “They can do nothing. Not here. Benat—”
Ben spun on Mani, pressing close. He spotted the nearest defensors at the edge of the room, hidden in shadows along the wall, but armed and watchful.
“Stand down,” Ben begged Mani, Zey. He turned to Vex. “Tell them. They can’t do anything here.”
Vex, at least, didn’t make a move to draw a weapon. But his face was a mess of pain.
“It’sCansu,” he pleaded, and though Ben didn’t know her, didn’t feel the connection, he felt the weight. Responsibility and family.
“Teo,” Ben whispered, his eyes dipping to the boy.
“Vex, get him back to the boat,” Edda ordered. “We’ll meet you there. Mani, Zey—”
But they were already off, cutting two separate, careful paths through the crowd. Edda growled a curse and slipped away, taking a step, pausing, then another, then shifting left. No one else in the crowd was moving; if they walked too quickly, defensors would swoop in.
Defensors would swoop in either way, once they got to the stage. How would they free Cansu? What would they do to get her out of Elazar’s grasp?
Elazar finished his prayer. “This woman has been a menace to your city for years.” He motioned to Cansu, who spat at him. He didn’t flinch. “She has demanded your tithes, your loyalty, your resources—for what? Feigned protection, weak support? No, good people—this raider has let the Devil claim her soul, and by extension, she has locked your city into a state of destitution. But tonight, the Pious God will cleanse the evil from her soul—instantly.”
The defensors forced Cansu to her knees. She dropped, chains rattling, and for the first time, her eyes left Elazar to hit the crowd.
Mani and Zey were halfway across the room. Edda was even farther back.
“They won’t reach her in time,” Vex wheezed.
Ben snatched Gunnar’s arm, clinging to his biceps, but what could they do? A distraction, maybe. Whatever attention they drew to themselves, they would draw to Teo.
Elazar began to sing. Not a prayer this time; a deep, guttural hymn. Ben knew it—“The Feast of Grace Biel.” A song about the celebration that the Pious God held once Grace Biel died and entered heaven, to reward him for living the most chaste life of all his children.
Cansu, her eyes still on the crowd, stopped fighting. Her shoulders drooped, her face softened, a storm of rage giving way to a vacant stare.
“What is he doing?” The question left Ben’s mouth in a quiet rush.
Gunnar moved closer, his arm around Ben’s waist, holding him up as Elazar’s voice filled the hall and rose beyond the open ceiling, swelling into the starry night sky.
Cansu seemed to go with it. Every bit of tension in her body unwound, her arms in her lap, her face serene.
The hymn ended. His face red from exertion, Elazar turned to Cansu. “The Pious God bids you banish the evil from your soul. Unlock her chains, defensors, so she may rise, made anew by the Pious God.”
