He developed a particular fondness for the locked door and its keyhole. Venick worked that keyhole with a quill from the writing desk, face hovering close, inhaling the scent of brass as he listened for the telltale click of a lock come undone. It was only after an hour of this that he discovered the keyhole was mere ornamentation. The real bolt must be higher up and inside the door. Unreachable.
He broke the quill in two and threw it across the room.
Resigned, Venick went to the window. He rested his elbows against the sill, leaned out and closed his eyes and tried to be still, to be calm.
But he couldn’t be still or calm for long. Soon his eyes were open again and he was studying the terrain, imagining how an army might weave through the mountains, the way their metal bodies would gleam in the sunlight. He looked down and saw that the void below the palace was not, in fact, infinite, as he had believed on first sight. Water glinted far below, frothing white against the mountain base. The only way across that water was over the wide bridge that connected the palace to the rest of the city. That was good. The castle would be difficult to take by force.
But not impossible. Again, Venick contemplated the strength of the city’s magic. He wondered—reallywondered—how he had managed to enter Evov. Was it because the city had allowed him entrance, or because its magic was failing? Could enemy elves enter the city, too?
This made him think, oddly, of the sneering guard who had led him to his new prison. Venick felt a strange tug in his chest, a discomfort.
But of course that guard made him uncomfortable. Venick remembered the way the elf had warned him that the window was his only method of escape. The double meaning.
Venick drug a hand across his mouth, felt the rough stubble. He was tired of the lies, the coded hints in every word elves spoke. Elves were known for winning wars with words, but language had it limits. Sometimes you had toact.
Worked so well for you, has it?
When things got messy, Venick was happy to give over to impulse, let his hands and body make the decisions. He fought that way. He loved that way. Buthadit worked for him? He thought of Lorana. Of his mother and Ellina. All his failures.
He pushed away from the window, swept his gaze again around his prison. Venick wondered if this was always the nature of redemption, or if it was merely the price one paid for murdering their own father. He wondered if it was his destiny to die here like this: alone, a thousand leagues from home, split between two worlds. Fighting for them both. Yet belonging, really, to neither.
THIRTY-FOUR
Ellina roamed the palace halls. She saw the familiar arched ceilings, the patterned stone, the bare walls, unadorned. Usually, when Ellina returned to Evov after a campaign it felt as if she had never left. It was easy to come here, to breathe in the cool air, to visit her suite and see that things looked exactly as they always had.
It did not feel that way now.
Ellina felt Venick’s presence, the way it changed things. Even though he was not with her, she sensed him. She felt it in the way the servants whispered, the way the entire palace seemed too small. She saw it in the way Farah’s guards watched her, their mouths tight, golden eyes following her every movement.
And indeed, it seemed as if the guards werealwayswatching her. Ellina noticed how palace paths that were usually empty were now occupied, courtyards previously unguarded now patrolled, all by Farah’s guard. Was it Ellina’s imagination, or had Farah stationed more sentries here than before? They seemed to beeverywhere, dozens more than Ellina remembered, posted on every corner, in the mouth of every hallway, at the top of each tower. They were all dressed in the same hammered armor, all carrying the same standard longsword, all watching the corridors with too-keen eyes.
Ellina did her best to avoid them. She avoided Venick, too. Since the stateroom meeting, Ellina had not gone to the north tower. She had not walked those winding stairs or opened the uppermost door. She did not step into the room, or sweep her gaze across the glittering suite, or meet the eye of the human within.
But she imagined it. Her mind was in those chambers, roaming those rooms. She wondered what Venick made of his new prison even as she knew he hated it. He would not like the ruse, the way the suite’s elegance masked the reality. He might even prefer the dungeons because they were closer to the truth. No matter in chains or in comfort, Venick was a prisoner still.
“He asks about you,” Dourin told Ellina one afternoon three days after Venick’s arrival. They sat in her reading room at a pedestal table. Light streamed in through half-drawn curtains. “He wants to speak to you.”
“I know.”
Dourin reached for the hourglass sitting between them. He turned it over. Its wooden base clinked against the table. “What do you plan to do with him until the queen returns?” When Ellina did not reply, Dourin said, “You cannot ignore your little pet forever.”
“He is not my pet.”
“Call him what you like, but that is how everyone sees it.”
“That is not howIsee it.”
Dourin shrugged, and Ellina went quiet. She watched the hourglass. The sand piled onto itself, forming a little mound. She allowed it to mesmerize her.
In the three days since Venick’s arrival, word of his warning had spread. The citizens, it seemed, were divided. Those who did not share Farah’s misgivings could be heard whispering anxiously, discussing the possibility of a southern attack. The human had relayed his warning in elvish, they reasoned. And their hidden city had allowed him entrance. How else would he have found Evov if not because his purpose was pure? Hemustbe telling the truth.
The other half wanted to see Venick’s head on a spike.
“Farah is unhappy,” Dourin said.
“Of course Farah is unhappy. She thinks Venick is lying about the southern army. She wants him dead.”
“That is not what I meant. You humiliated her.” Dourin frowned. He hesitated, visibly, before saying, “I saw her speaking to Raffan. Last night in the archives.”
