“Greater than the Empress’s?”
“Yes, I believe so,” I say, perhaps more confidently than I actually feel. “If we can fight her one on one, I believe we can defeat her.”
“But you said she’s bringing a whole army with her.”
“I did and we need to weaken and disperse that army. This is where all of you can help. I need the remaining shadow weavers to come forward and go with Dray Eros. We have a plan to lure the army away from the Empress and for this we will need your help. “
The shadow weavers glance around at each other, then stand and file forward. Dray beckons them toward him.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ve got some fun planned.”
The shifter skips off, the nervous shadow weavers following in his wake.
“Now,” I say, “are there any among you who have experience of fighting?”
I glance at the students from Iron Quarter. Several of them nod and I tell them to go with Thorne Cadieux.
That leaves just the kids with no fighting experience at all. But they still have their part to play.
“The rest of you will go with Beaufort Lincoln,” I say. “Members of staff with me.”
The students file out in two different groups, one behind Thorne, one behind Beaufort, leaving me, Briony, and the handful of teachers alone in the Great Hall.
There’s Professor Cornelius, the potions mistress, the botany professor, the astronomy teacher, and to my utter surprise, the Titan twins. Those two always seemed so loyal to Veronica, and even more loyal to the Empress herself. I’m surprised they haven’t fled already.
I step down from the stage and stalk toward them.
“Are you really here to help?” I say, my voice booming around the hall now that it’s almost empty. “Or are you here to sabotage?”
The twins look at each other with their usual vacant expressions, then back at me.
The taller one shrugs. “We’re here to help. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“You’re not Veronica’s little spies? Or maybe the Empress’s?”
The other twin snorts, and I scowl at them. They have good jobs here at the academy. They spend their days bullying students in a way I’ve always suspected they get some kind of sick kick from. Why would they want to give that up? Why would they risk their lives for it?
“We want to change things,” he says, “the realm hasn’t been fair to us either.”
“I find that hard to believe.” The two knuckleheads can’t have done well during their trials – they don’t possess enough brain cells. And yet here they are, teaching at the academy.
“We were students here once,” the taller twin says. “There was this girl…”
He trails off, and the other twin takes over the story.
“She was meant to be ours. Pretty little thing. Funny, she was too. But not that smart. Pretty tiny. We helped her where we could. But she never scored very many points in the trials. At the end of the year, she got sent back to Slate. And, well…”
The first twin pulls up his sleeve, and I stare, gob smacked, at the dark marks of fate painted across his wrist.
“She was your fated mate?” I ask.
I can’t imagine that, to know you have a mate gifted to you by fate out there in the world, and to be torn apart from them.
“Was,” the other twin says. “She died. Not long after returning to Slate. Nasty flu that year.”
“And so you want to tear the system down?”
He shrugs.
