It is the death at the center of the Pith, not a life,I remind myself. Not the screams of the unheard and unknown. Or it’s another chestnut tree, another door. It could be a thousand petrified things, screaming for aid, and only now do I hear them. Vomit slides up my throat.
“Food,” I breathe. “I need food.”
I took a hot bath on an empty stomach—never a good idea.
In the Mouth, I gulp down coffee and toast before fixing aplate for my friend. Placing it outside her door, I knock again. Still, nothing. A sick feeling settles in me, my breakfast threatening to make a revisit.
Maybe Lila returned to the tapestry and we just missed each other. Maybe I need to meet her there. I don’t have the keys, but with my revitalized genius and ability to free the doors in the Salon of Stars, I don’t need them. I just make sure to stuff some hairpins in my pockets.
Reaching the door to the salon, I recall the word Lila learned from her father, the keeper of the chambers.Etoles.I will not be using it tonight. No one will ever use it again.
A palm to the door, I call up my fluttering genius, picture it flapping out of the confines of my mind, along the length of my arms, through my fingertips and into the grain of wood.
An oak tree. An oak tree surrounded by others, cut down and stuffed with an oily, parasitic force.
The oak does not scream, only sighs to be let go, so I let it go.
Reign magic sizzles into the air once more.
Still, the door is locked, and Lila would leave it that way if she were inside. Crouching down, I wedge a hairpin into the lock, then repeat the process with another. My father did not bestow on me a set of keys like Lila’s did, but he did teach me what to do if you don’t have any.
The lock clicks free.
The door to the Salon of Stars creaks open, and for a moment, I’m curious to see it in the sun for the first time. I step inside.
Blood drains from my head, my hand reaching out for the jamb to steady myself.
The entire space has been ripped apart. I rush inside.
“Lila?” I call, not caring how loud I am. “Lila!”
Furniture shattered, clothes shredded and strewn about, large crumbling gashes on the walls as if a giant beast raked its claws against them. Whatever—or whoever—did this is full of unspeakable power and violence.
And it was not my friend.So where the fuck is she?
I sprint out of the apartments.
I sprint back toward the light.
I slam into Fern outside the Mouth, carrying a tray. “Whoa, there—”
“Lila,” I gasp, tears streaming down my cheeks, lungs burning. She tries to steady me with one hand. “Where is Lila?”
“In the library, of course. With the king,” Fern answers. “They’ve been in there all day.”
No no no—
The secret has risen, finally, to the light of day. What will the king do to bury it again?
This is the end. This is the end. Terror claws at me like at the coronation, but this time I can move, I can fight, I could save a friend.
Pivoting, I race down the hall.
“The king asked for privacy!” Fern calls after me. “It’s been locked for hours!”
As if I don’t know what to do with a locked door.
Chapter Thirty-five
