I’d been in the dungeons exactly once—two days ago, when I spoke to Pierre. “What Nocturne?”
“It’s a tradition in Dexter, a kind of rite of initiation.” Lullaby hid her face behind a sweep of midnight hair. “The girls all take the newest legacy down to the dungeons—usually empty in Severine’s rule because, well, why waste space on a criminal you can just disappear?—blindfold them, sing a creepy song, snuff out the torches, run away giggling, and leave them in the dark for a while.”
“That sounds like hazing.” Bewilderment and alarm beat wings of shadow against my heart. “But it never happened to me.”
“It did.” Lullaby’s face was unreadable. She sat heavily in the chair beside the bed. “Shortly after you got to Coeur d’Or. It wasn’t my idea, but I agreed to it. They did it to me, when I first got to court. It was unpleasant, but afterward we all laughed and got wine-drunk. It might sound strange, but I thought you’d feel more at home if you had a common experience with the rest of the Dexter girls—a way to relate to us. You might feel like you belonged.”
I sank onto the very edge of the bed, trepidation scratching at the scars along my arms. “But I have no memory of that.”
She gave me a bald look. “We got you to the dungeon, and everyone—including you—was laughing and shoving and reveling in the pageantry of the thing. But when we snuffed out the lights and sang the song … Mirage, you just about lost your mind. Colors spilled out of you, like they did a moment ago, except none of us had seen anything like it before. It was terrifying. Like a nightmare come to life. And you were screaming, with your hands over your head. We dragged you upstairs, but afterward you were in a daze.”
“And then?”
“Dexter closed ranks. You were an outsider—a Dusklander—and I was barely better. Nobody wanted to face consequences for a hazing gone sideways. And I didn’t know what to do, so … so I asked Thibo to take the memory away. And the next day, you were fine.”
A cinder of resentment caught fire and scorched me. “You took my memory away? Without my permission?”
“I did what I thought best. To guard your mind, I betrayed your trust. And I’m not sorry for it. You’ve been perfectly happy without the memory of a Nocturne that traumatized you.”
“But—” Angry words spilled up my throat, but I forced myself to swallow them. That Nocturne was in the past, and it was easier to forgive what I couldn’t remember. Lullaby was actually talking to me—that was more important than stirring up old grievances. “You mentioned a song. What song?”
Lullaby opened her primrose lips. It was a haunting melody—an elegy to sunlight, a paean to dusk, a madrigal for the wind at the edge of tomorrow.
Oubliette, oubliette,
Let me down so I may forget,
My hopes, my dreams; the things I regret,
I offer them up to the deathless quartet.
Oubliette, oubliette.
Colors burst out of me with a midnight slap of panic. Darkness pricked with moonlit crystals—dristic swords sheared sharp on diamond helms—crowns of kembric yawning wide as cities—thrones of ambric crumbling away into dust.
Lullaby’s hand was a cool comfort against the back of my neck, rubbing soothing circles on my spine and humming her namesake. I shuddered, then clenched my fists and regained my self-control.
“That’s exactly what happened last time,” Lullaby muttered.
But her song had jangled something loose in my memory. I grabbed Severine’s diary out of my pocket, thumbing through the slim volume until I found the line I was looking for:
…and so I wandered the Oubliettes, haunted like the halls of my memory.
“The Oubliettes,” I whispered, half to myself. “That has to be where she hid the Relics. But where—what—are they?”
“What is that?” Lullaby was staring at the book.
“It’s … Severine’s personal journal.”
Though I tried to read the emotion in Lullaby’s turquoise eyes, it was like looking into a pool of still water—all I saw was my own face staring back at me.
“You’re reading the personal diary of a tyrannical and murdering empresswhy? To understand her better? To learn about your family? To ease your guilt for assassinating her?” Her eyes slashed over to my sister. “Almostassassinating.”
I swallowed the uncomfortable sensation of being too clearly seen.
“To find the Relics of the Scion,” I said. “The people don’t yet see me as Sun Heir. But maybe—maybe if I can find my family’s mythical Relics, then I’ll be one step closer to earning the throne. One step closer to proving I’m the right person to succeed Severine, even if I am the Duskland Dauphine.”
Lullaby narrowed her eyes. “What makes you think the things in Severine’s diary are true?”
