Using the twin swords and their attachments, I’m able to skewer a number of the dead razorwings. I carry their corpses through the passage like the banners of an invading army, and even though my skin crawls and I can’t help squealing in sheer disgust several times, I make it through. When I reach the hole leading up to the first floor, I pry the tiny corpses off each blade with the other sword, never letting the razorwings touch my skin. I’m so fucking glad to leave the crawly creatures behind.
The swords come in handy for getting up through the hole, as well. I use them like climbing spikes and emerge from the opening just in time to hear Ravager yelling, a note of true terror in his voice. There’s a concussive sound that I recognize as the hand-cannon firing, but no explosion follows the blast. For some reason, his shot didn’t work.
I run toward the last screamed “Fuck” that I heard, and I reach Ravager just in time to plunge my swords into the beast with all the voices.
I’m not sure what I’m yelling at him—I think I call him my partner, and an idiot—both true. He’s a mess, broken and nearly bled out, scarcely able to function. For a moment, I’m truly afraid he will die right in front of me. But once he eats the gumdrop Nocturis gave me, his body heals rapidly, flawlessly.
Again I feel a twist of resentment toward the Fae for their selfishness. Their magic would make such a difference in our world. But if the routes between the realms were open wide, dark things would come with the good magic—terrible curses and monsters like the ones we’ve encountered here. Humanity isn’t prepared to deal with the awful parts of this world and the extremes of its power.
“Did you find that candy in the room with Drosselmeyer’s things?” Ravager asks me.
“Sort of.” I avoid his eyes, trying to keep my expression nonchalant, but of course he notices my discomfort.
“Talk to me,” he says.
Discussion is usually something I’m good at. For the past few years, I’ve been a leader, and I’ve given many orders—but they were always based on feedback and ideas from a group, not solely on my own judgement or experience. I’m used to analyzing information with the help of others, and I want nothing more than to talk to Ravager about what we’re facing. Buttalkingis the one thing I’m not allowed to do.
“Ravager, I need you to do something for me, without asking questions,” I say.
“Anything.”
A weary laugh escapes me. “I really hope you mean that. Because I need you to help me destroy Annordun and everything in it.”
His expression shifts. There’s surprise, confusion, and yes, suspicion, overlaid with caution. “Everything?”
“Everything. We’re not taking anything with us.”Except the one thing I can carry, as a reward.
“And I can’t ask you why?”
“No.”
He’s a thief to the core, like I am. We are children of pain, raised with almost nothing of our own. From a young age, theharsh world trained us to take what we can, when we can get it. Leaving loot behind, abandoning a job when the treasure is literally at our fingertips—it runs counter to our very nature. It’s the antithesis of everything that we are. And the fact that I’m asking him to do it without questioning why—it’s absurd. There’s no way he would ever agree. He couldn’t possibly trust me that much.
And yet, if he doesn’t agree, if he refuses to trust me, the Doras Àlainn will disintegrate or vanish, and we’ll both die here when the Stewards arrive.
If only I could tell him that. If only I could explain. But when I try to form those words, I physically can’t. My tongue has been locked down with magic, and my conversation with Nocturis is off limits.
I struggle against the magic for a minute, trying to find a way around it, trying to form phrases that will enlighten him. But there’s no trick that can circumvent this curse.
Anxiously, I look at Ravager again. He’s watching me, eyes narrowed, like he noticed my struggle.
“You reallycan’ttell me,” he says. “So I have to assume something happened to you while we were apart. Something magical, something so important and frightening, it put that desperate look in your eyes. You need me to do this. You’re asking me to trust you implicitly, with my fortune and probably my life.”
Biting my lip, eyes downcast, I nod.
He chuckles softly. “Done.”
My eyes flash up to his. “What?”
He smiles. “I’ll do it. I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t,” I whisper.
“But I do trust you completely. And you can trust me. I know it might take you years to believe that, but it’s true.”
I want to tell him that we don’t have years—we have a few hours, a scant space of time in which we need to figure out how to create an explosion so large that it immolates an entire magical fortress.
But I can’t talk about the deadline, nor do I want to think about it right now. There’s something I need, and something I want to give, in case it’s the last time. But I won’t do it with the magical eyes of the fortress watching me.
