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He doesn’t make me wait long. “I wasn’t there. I traveled to a settlement north of us to do some trading, and when I came back there was…” His voice breaks, just a little. “My family was gone. My sisters, my parents, my aunts and uncles. Everyone I love was slaughtered.” His hand tightens painfully around mine before he seems to remember himself enough to loosen his grip. “If I had been there, I could have stopped it.”

I don’t tell him that, if he’d been there, he likely would have died alongside them. Every few years, the sailors coming in from the north or east will talk about a settlement that was wiped out without warning. It’s one of the risks that comes with living so close to the wilds. Whatever protections they had in place, they failed, and nothing Nero did would have stopped it. But I can’t meet his pain and guilt so coldly. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He takes a breath, and then another. “Me, too.” When he looks at me again, he seems to have traveled back from the pain of the past. “It’s part of why I want to be Cinque. To give the settlements better trading power, yes, but there must be a reason the walls have stood as long as they have, for how infallible they are. The settlements don’t want walls, but surely there’s some kind of magic there they could use to protect themselves.”

This is what makes him different from the other champions. Not simply because he’s an outsider—like me and not like me—but because he wants overarching change that will benefit many, not just those closest to him. Because there’s no one left close to him. I shiver. “We’ll do it.”

“What?”

“We’ll make it happen. We’ll fight for the river settlements and the Dregs. We’ll protect people.” For a moment, true hope plants a seed in my chest. It won’t be easy, but together surely we can find a way. Surely this will all be worth it. Gods, I need it to all be worth it. I never imagined the cost would be so high. “I promise.”

He reaches out almost hesitantly and twists one strand of my hair around two fingers. We both stare at the additional point of contact between us. His gaze travels up, landing on my mouth and staying there. “Kestrel—”

It’s too much. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to feel. I still have the Chariot’s blood on my face, my body, in the very hair Nero is touching right now. Every conversation I have with this man deepens a connection I don’t know how to deal with. I didn’t expect to find someone like him in the Trials, someone who makes me dream of something more. Someone who makes me believe those dreams could actually become reality. It scares me.

I pull back, and he doesn’t hesitate to release me. Even so, it almost hurts to take that first step to put more distance between us. “I need to sleep. Or to bathe and to sleep.”

“I’ll see you this afternoon, Kestrel.” The way he says my name, as if savoring it, makes me shiver. “Sleep well.”

One more night. Two more deaths. Then this is finally over.

The uneducated may compare Death’s supposed honesty with that of the Swords’, but the two things cannot be more different. The Swords’ inability to lie comes from their link to primordial air. What the air touches cannot be hidden.

—EXCERPT FROM THE MAJOR ARCANA: A TREATISE ON THE HISTORY OF THE OLD GODS

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I WASH MYSELF UNTIL my skin is wrinkly and raw. Once I finally make it to my bed, sleep takes a long time coming. I keep thinking about everything that’s happened. An entire lifetime in four days. I didn’t expect I’d care about any of the champions, but I can’t deny that I care about Vesper and Cato. I didn’t expect for desire to make an appearance, let alone for some of the most dangerous champions. I sure as fuck didn’t anticipate Death holding my mother’s secrets the same way he held her life. Apparently he’s been more careful with them than he ever was with her.

I roll over and pull the covers up around my shoulders. The Hermit’s shocked expression flashes in my mind, her brown eyes going blank with death. There’s nothing to picture with the Chariot, but plenty of sounds for my brain to offer up. His screams of terror. The wet plopping sound his innards made when they hit the ground. I shudder.

And Mara. My throat goes hot and tight, an angry fist preventing breath from passing by. She was never supposed to be part of this. She didn’t even want me to enter the Trials. If I’d listened to her instead of Mouse and my own ambition, she would still be alive. I dig out the pair of coins she gifted me and stare at the Wheel of Fortune. If she’d kept it, would the luck of her patron god have saved her?

I want to blame the Wands. They’re the ones who hunted her down, who dragged her to the arena and shoved her into that bloodshed because of who she was to me. The fact remains that they wouldn’t have been searching for someone close to me if I hadn’t become a champion. If not Mara, they could have grabbed Mouse or Pika or Quoll. Gods, they could have grabbed one of the littles. I press my fist to my mouth. I care for so few people in this city, and I put them all in danger.

Mouse knew.

That’s the part I can’t get past. The members of the Cinque weren’t surprised by the Wands’ plotting because they’d done it before, during the last Trials. Or something similar enough for Death and the others to expect this display of cruelty. My mother told Mouse every other detail of her Trials; there’s no logical reason she would have left this part out. Especially because it endangered him.

Who died to hurt my mother?

I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. Was it my father? Mouse never talks about him, and once I grew up enough to realize that asking about the man who contributed to my existence hurt Mouse, I stopped asking entirely. What did I care? He either chose to abandon my mother and me, or he was dead. Mouse was the only father figure I needed. But what if my father was killed by the Wands during the last Trials? I thought I was prepared for every eventuality when I entered the Trials, but with each passing hour, it becomes clearer that I could fill the Coeruleus Sea with the things I don’t know.

Sleep, when it finally takes me, does so stealthily, seeping into the cracks in my mind and blanketing me in welcome darkness. I dream of running, my arms pumping and legs churning, through endless darkness.

I wake all at once, jolting upright. There’s no way to tell how long I’ve been out, but it feels like it could have been minutes … or days. I blink and rub my knuckles against my eyes. A quick internal scan tells me the Sun is still plenty high in the sky. I have time before I’ll be expected to gather with the few remaining champions and finally see the Swords District.

I climb out of bed and cross the hallway to the bathroom. By the time I finish, my brain is finally beginning to wake up properly. Back in my bedroom, I find another flawless outfit laid out.

It’s not a dress, which is a small miracle. Running in long skirts is something I’ve quickly learned to hate. The trousers are more normal than anything I’ve worn since becoming the Moon’s champion, tailored as if they were made for me and a deep black that reminds me uncomfortably of the shadows that spilled from my palms last night.

I shudder and pull on the top. If the trousers are practical, this piece is not. Its sleeves are absurdly billowed, only kept from swallowing my hands by cuffs around my wrists. The neckline dips so low, if not for the structure of the bodice, my breasts would be in danger of freeing themselves with every move. It’s a shimmering gray, which I can admit is beautiful—if impractical.

Priestess arrives before I can decide if I’m supposed to do my own hair. She sweeps into the room, taking me in with a smile. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you. I feel absolutely foolish, but I’m getting used to the sensation.” I sit on the stool, just like I have every other day of the Trials. Where before, I peppered her with questions about her history as a priestess of the Moon, I have a different angle this time. “What can you tell me about the Tower?”

Her hands pause their work. “The Tower is deeply dangerous.”