She had to keep moving. She had to do this. This was how she would avenge her brother. If she didn’t move now, she might as well let Ferro run free for good.
Move, Eira!she mentally screamed at herself. Her feet inched forward.Move!
If she could carry her brother through the frost and snow, if she could somehow subdue Ferro, if she could make it all the way back to Solarin after…she could walk through a dark passage. She wanted to meet the Court of Shadows. What did she think? They met in sunlit rooms and well-kept patios? No, this was what she had signed up for and she needed to—
Eira let out a gasp as her foot plunged through where she expected the ground to be. It slipped off the edge of a stair and she pressed her hands into the walls, trying to keep her balance and utterly failing. Luckily, she fell backward. Eira landed hard and clenched her teeth to keep in a shout as her tailbone sang. Her other foot slipped and she pushed out her magic before she began tumbling down the stairs.
Ice spread all around her, rooting her to the stairwell. She took a moment to catch her breath and closed her eyes once more.Ice. She could feel the room around her through her magic. It was a strange and incomplete picture, hard to focus on any one thing. But if she kept the frost crackling just ahead of her, she could actually walk down the stairs, able to tell when she’d reached the bottom. At the very least, the ice anchoring her would keep her from slipping again.
The creature continued to lead her deeper and deeper down the passage, past another door that Eira fumbled her way through, and down a long hall. When a faint flicker of light cut through the darkness, she blinked several times, trying to convince herself she wasn’t hallucinating.
In the distance was a doorway lit by a single sconce. The magic flame illuminated the large hall she’d ended up in—a passageway that connected at least fifteen other smaller walkways like the one Eira had entered from.
The door at the end was unadorned, a blank, iron medallion on its surface above the knob at its center. In the knob was a keyhole. The mole came to a stop before the door, waiting expectantly.
Eira reached for the door with trembling fingers. They closed around the cool iron of the knob. It was too large for her hand. She couldn’t seem to quite grasp it in a way that felt comfortable.
Was she reaching for too much?She had just arrived on Meru and she was already seeking out a secret society. This wasn’t her. It hadn’t ever been her. These were the actions of someone bolder, stronger, braver, someone more like—the frozen ship disappearing among dark waters like a ghost drifted through her mind—someone more like Adela.
If she did this, was it a sign there really could be a kinship between her and the pirate queen?
Eira stared at the iron medallion. It was polished into a black mirror, reflecting the shadows that rode on the currents deep within her own darkness. Behind this door she’d ultimately find the truth. Behind this door was vengeance. This was her last chance to back away. Even Eira could tell that once she chose this path, there was no going back.
The mole began scratching impatiently.
“I’m having a moment here.” Eira glared at the creature. It stared up at her blindly, immune to her expression. “Just…give me a second, please.”
The creature stilled, waiting patiently by her feet. As if, somehow, it understood the choices she was weighing. As if it knew the mental war she was waging.
One more breath. Inhale. Exhale.
For Marcus.
Eira turned the knob and entered the Court of Shadows.
4
The door revealed a cavern deep below the streets of Risen. Fires glowed and bounced off the soaring buttresses that supported a rough-hewn ceiling. Large sailcloths were suspended by ropes overhead like trophies. Huts made of wood and earth were erected around several communal hearths. The court bustled like a small town, at least fifty people milling about.
There were men throwing knives into wooden dummies. Women sparred with rapiers. An older man taught a young girl card tricks on a low table. Their clothes were all different. Some had clean hair and scrubbed faces, others hadn’t bathed in weeks. They were mostly elfin, but Eira saw a few round-eared humans, the glowing dots of the morphi, and a few creatures in the back who had longer, snout-like noses and slitted eyes—as though they possessed some kind of reptilian heritage.
No one seemed to notice, or care, that she had just entered among them. Eira looked to the mole, about to ask where to next, when the air around the creature rippled. She saw the same pulsating magic that Ducot had used earlier, agitating the air, until the mole was gone in a blink, and the man himself stepped between the pulses.
Eira’s back slammed into the door behind her as she jumped, startled. It felt like a thousand tiny daggers pricked her skin and she immediately straightened. The other side of the door to the Court of Shadows had a massive lock on it, the pins and grips taking up the whole back of it.
“Now that you’re here, we’ll need to lock that.” Ducot stepped around her and produced a length of iron from his pocket. Magic charged around it, transforming the metal into a key that he inserted into the center of the ancient lock. As he turned it, levers were pulled by gears, magical script flared with power, bolts clicked into place, and the part of her mind that was linked to survival became keenly aware that there was no escaping now.
Struggling to find her words, Eira opened and shut her mouth several times, staring at Ducot. “You…were a mole?”
“Are a mole. Both, neither? Technically?” He grinned at her.
“Can you change at any time?” She rubbed her back and checked to make sure she wasn’t bleeding from slamming into the lock mechanism.
“Yes.” Ducot put the key away, a pulse of magic turning it back into an iron bar that fit once more into his pocket.
“So why did you have me fumbling through the dark?” She balked. “Why not just come to my room as…yourself?”
“I am myself as the mole.” He folded his arms.
