Page 16

I had only been in the room a few times before for rebel meetings. It was lit with Earthworld runes carved into the bare wooden walls, but the light had dimmed to a soft haze because the magic was waning. The only furniture in the room was a table in the middle with eight stools. As my eyes adjusted, my heart shuddered.

The seamstress, Gisel, stood before me, her shoulders tight, with blood smeared on her chin and a split lip. But even as I reached out for her, my gaze fixed on the table and the woman slumped over it. I scanned the room again as my chest contracted.

“Where’s Ember?” I whispered.

Gisel shook her head. “She never came. A Rider was looking for you. Well, one of you. He had bright blue eyes and coal-black hair. Had a bright blue Air Phoenix symbol on his shoulder. Kept asking where the Annatalian was.”

“Prince Zephyr of the Wilds? He’s bonded to an Air Phoenix?”

Thorn stood. “Would he take her? Why?” What she really meant was: had he found out who she truly was?

“Clea got arrested by the Betrayer. Ember went to warn you… You didn’t see her?” Gisel asked. “I told her not to…” Her tall, thin frame hunched over the table as she sat down, and a long sigh escaped her lips. She feared the worst. Then her wrist lit up with a round green circle of a blood oath being called in, and her eyelids closed for a second. When they opened, she was glaring at me. “You sent a sign?”

Why was she glaring at me? “It’s no longer safe. I was seen with Frickel.”

“So, now we’ll risk our lives to get you out? When you were leaving anyway!” She clicked her tongue at me in annoyance.

“I’ve… But I had no idea…” Aster had told me about the symbol and to use it if our lives were in danger a few months before he disappeared. I had thought that it meant the rebels would send more help, not that it ignited a Blood Oath Chain to get us out of the city. My shoulders slumped. “Gods, I…” I had risked my life many times over for the rebels in the city, so why did guilt pierce me when they might have to do the same? “Once we’re out of the city, your link will be deactivated.” I hoped.

Turning from her, I placed my hand on Thorn’s shoulder and squeezed. She was an inch taller than me, with brown hair, which was normally tied in a plait down her back, but was now messy and straggly. We had the same violet eyes, but no one could see those. To everyone else, we had mousy brown hair and hazel eyes.

“What happened?” she whispered. I loved Thorn, but we weren’t close. She’d always acted as if I was the one getting Ember into trouble when Em could do that all by herself. Thorn’s apprenticeship at the jeweller’s on the other side of the city came with room and board, so I had rarely seen her over the last three years. But she was the Annatalian heir, and her regal posture told the truth even if her features were glamoured to hide them.

As fast as I could, I told them what had happened with Frickel and the Elite Tracker Riders in the library. The story I told was one of evasion and escape… I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I had handed over the book the Nomad wanted. I had a replacement which would do just as well as a trade for our passage.

“The princes didn’t leave after the ceremony this morning. They were in the library, and I think they were after the codex as well. Somehow they knew that I was going to steal it that night and tried to get there first.”

“Which ones?” asked Thorn. She hated the Elite as much as I did.

“Zephyr of the Wilds and Prince Kitthathen of the Nomad Lands and another Rider who was hiding his face. Kitthathen was looking for the codex too. Then I set the mark on the arch,” I told Gisel, my voice hoarse. “I didn’t know…”

“So first Zephyr came here, then went to the library?” Gisel’s question hung in the air between us. “Very well. Get changed and go to the fairground. I’ll alert the others, but it’s safer for everyone if you’re out of here.”

Thorn stood with her eyes closed, which told me she was running through every eventuality. “Here are the cuffs.” Thorn reached into her pocket and pulled out three gold cuffs that would slip seamlessly over the original ones on our ears and would stem the magic which had kept us prisoners in Craven City. Or so we hoped. “The plan still stands. We leave the city.”

“Without Em? Have you gone YuleMad? She can’t leave the city without this…”

Resting on my palm was the magical cuff Thorn had forged and then bribed a travelling witch to infuse with a rune of protection. I had never asked her what it cost to get the rune placed, but I was quite sure it was a huge amount.

“But she’s been in and out of the city over the last few months. She was dressed as a farm worker last week, sitting on a wagon entering the city. She wasn’t in pain.” Gisel raised her hands to tell us more, but her index finger curled in on itself, and she gasped. She couldn’t form the words. The rebellion rune placed an invisible barrier between us. Like so many times before, we were silenced by duty.

What had Ember been doing?

Instead, Gisel whispered, “‘When our kingdom burned, trust became treason.’” It was the Annatalian rebel mantra. A reminder to trust no one. Keep our secrets to ourselves. I hadn’t heard it spoken aloud since I was first taken to the boarding house. It taught us not to form attachments with the kingdom that had taken us from our homes at such an impressionable age, and it told us to keep our missions to ourselves. “‘We know only what we need to. We trust in the oath.’”

Thorn tutted, but didn’t disagree.

Gisel’s gaze shifted between us as if she suspected we were cousins, a secret we had never told anyone. “You have the book?”

I nodded. “Thorn can take it…” While I search for Ember.

“She can’t. You need to go now—both of you—or we’ll all pay the price.” With her wrist still glowing, she scanned me from head to toe. “Where’s the book?”

“Safe.” I wouldn’t show it to her unless she demanded it, and even then, I wouldn’t show her the little humming book. She was the one harping on about trust, and it was clearer now, more than ever, that I had never trusted her. There was no one thing I could point to, but it was in the narrowing of her eyes and the way she paused too long before she answered a question. It was the calculation that itched over my senses.

“Get to the fairground. If she saw the Riders pulling this place apart, she would’ve fled.”

I hung my head and tried to still my racing mind. “Could a Rider have arrested her? You’ve got prison guards loyal to the cause; can we reach out?”