“Unless they couldn’t.” I shrug, hazarding another guess. “A portal is just a permanent spell, right? It’s magic. Adriel could have disrupted it along with everything else, made sure no one couldinterrupt him. Just think about it for a second—” I hurry to add before Saleen can object. “First, he very publicly abducts the most high-profile children he can get—he’s never done that before, he’s always taken street kids—and even if he wanted a better caliber of tribute, there are so many safer options thanChurch initiates. Then he sets a seminary on fire and has his followers start a riot? Why? That’s not going to help him do the poisoning—unless you were right and it’s just to distract from his actual destination: a castle everyone thinks is impenetrable because no one believes he can phase. In the middle of the night, too, when the portals are basically closed anyway—so even if Shades do stop crossing back and forth, it’ll be hours before anyone finds that strange.”
The silence that greets my declaration is thick.
“Okay, so then let’s check the portals,” Chase finally suggests. “Wouldn’t that be the easiest way to figure out if Raya’s right about Adriel?” Though it sounds less like he believes me than he simply wants to put this idea to bed.
“Easy isn’t the word I’d use, no.” Saleen withers me a glare. “The Academy interchange is always guarded—and with the faithful on a rampage, it’ll be damn near impossible to lure those Shades away. We’re not going to get anywhere near a portal.”
“Then isn’t talking ourselves in circles about this pointless?” Cemmy asks. “Even if Adriel is in the Academy, if we can’t reach the portals—or if he’s disabled them—then there’s nothing we can do to help.”
“Unless he didn’t know to disable the private ones,” I say. And there’s a good chance he didn’t, since most people don’t even realize they’re there.
“Erm . . . what do you mean by private ones?” Saleen’s surprise illustrates that fact well. “There are private portals? Since when?”
“Since the Council started conducting all of its sensitive business in the castle,” I say. “They’re only for elders and the heads of guild.”
“Which could have come in handy except—no offence, Ray—but your parents are the last two Shades in Sarotuza who’d ever willingly let three Hues into their house, let alone allow them to use theirsecret portals.” Akari points out the glaring flaw in my plan. “They don’t even letyouuse their secret portals.”
Nor am I ever likely to earn that privilege now that they’ve watched me leave the court chamber in chains.
“I still have to try, Kiri,” I tell her. And, more than anything else, that’s what convinces her to relent. Because she knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would never involve them in this unless I truly believed that it was life or death.
Persuading the others is easier once she’s on board, since the Hues don’t have any better ideas and Saleen has no intention of letting Akari accompany me alone. It’s kind of sweet, actually, even if I’ve not quite forgiven her for all the needless pain her secrets caused. Though I guess I’m not really one to talk, in that regard, nor can I claim the moral high ground. I kept my own share of secrets these past few days. Hells, I’ve still not told Akari the most damning of the gory details.
If she can forgive Saleen, then she’ll forgive you.I’m fully aware that it won’t be that simple, that nothing will be simple if the future gets its way. Right now, we’re all being held together by necessity, but come morning—if we’re still alive—the true consequences of this alliance will emerge, and none of us can predict what they’ll be.
You’ve got to survive this first. The moment my parents’ house slips into view, my organs fist into a tight ball. The lights are on in their towers, which means they’re home from the guild but still at work, sifting through the fickle threads of fate.
Maybe they’llbe happy to see you . . .the hopeful side of me wants to see them, too, to show them I’m okay, that I’ve escaped the Council’s corrupt brand of justice. But the other side—the cynical side that watched my father rail against my shame instead of for my freedom—would rather jump off a cliff than see them both again. When forced to make the choice, I turn towards my mother’s study.
“Just give me a minute with her first, okay?” I tell the others, then with a steel of my shoulders, I wisp through the door.
“Mother?”
It takes her a long second to clear the future from her eyes, to double take and realize that I’m really here.
“Raya!” She lurches up from the sea of cushions lining the tower floor. “By my colors, did the tribunal let you go?” She pulls me into a brief and rigid hug. “The fates wouldn’t give me a clear vision of your trial, but I knew the elders would see sense eventually. Your father and I were justlividat the councilman—though you didn’t exactly do yourself any favors. What were you thinking with all that nonsense about a son? That was cruel and disrespectful, Raya. Why would you risk your standing with the guild in such a way?”
“I—”
“No matter—”
. . . Guess that was more of a rhetorical question.
“—what’s important is that they’ve released you, quickly and quietly, without making too big of a fuss. That’s good. That means we can still salvage your reputation.”
Her priorities cut me deeper than I expect, sending a blunt ache shooting through my ribcage. Just a few bells ago, she watched her daughter get hauled off for interrogation, accused of working with a Hue and murdering a Shade. But instead of haunting that court chamber like a vengeful ghost—instead of protesting the councilman’s decision with every fiber of her being—here she is, worrying about the scandal.
“They didn’t release me.” I break the news with a sigh. “I escaped.”
“Escaped?” Her face puckers in horror. “Why would you go and do a foolish thing like that? This will only make the matter harder to resolve!”
“It wasn’t going to get resolved, Mother.” My throat begins to tighten, the cruel sting of salt pulsing beneath my lids. “The councilman was never going to set me free after I learned about his son, don’t you get that?”
“Get what, Raya? That you’re convinced Lars has a son that doesn’t exist? That if you continue down this path you’ll destroy your future for good?”
“I am trying to save the future!” The words explode out of me like a storm. “I asked an open question and it showed me my death, and your death, and the death of the Gray, and I’ve been trying to stopthat from happening ever since, and if you would just listen to me for one minute so that I could explai—”
“You asked anopen question?” Her incredulity fast hardens to rage, her voice sharpening to a deadly spear. “How could you be so stupid, Raya? How could you throw away everything your father and I have—”
