Page 49

The conversation eventually wound its way to other matters. When Nicki started yawning, we called it a night and made our way to the inn’s upstairs lodgings, which were even more squalid and smelly than I would have guessed. Like the filthiest man imaginable had worn the rooms on his feet for several months.

Yudit and I, of course, were given a room to share. It was roughly the size of a double coffin. So not one of the inn’s titular suites, I presumed. My sister thumped down on the straw mattress without a word, turning her back to me. She pretended to fall asleep immediately. Her fake snores weren’t very convincing; I knew very, very well what her real ones sounded like.

I thought about saying something. It probably wasn’t great that my last words to her, before we stopped speaking, had been “Fuck your poetry, and fuck you.” But I stayed silent and let her feign sleep.

Yudit had always known how to hurt me the most. She was better at it than anyone else, even Gruoch. I knew how to do the same to her. We were in each other’s pockets too much and too often. Eventually, the wounds would scab over, but right then they were raw and weeping. I hadn’t stopped being angry with her, and I still didn’t want to be the one to apologize first.

I should have done it while I had the chance.

Chapter Nineteen

The Emperor’s Speech

Cinnabar Square was famous across the continent. It had been the site of many momentous events, from captured military leaders being paraded in chains during times of war to spectacular celebrations and circuses in times of peace. The square occupied a prime spot of land at the heart of the Crimson City, just outside the imperial citadel. A flat expanse of orange-red rock nearly a thousand feet long on each side.

On the day of the emperor’s speech, it was so crowded I could barely breathe.

Only Nicki and Lulach had joined Yudit, Sunbeam, and me in attending. The others argued that news of the speech would spread through the city quickly enough, so there was no need to fight through the crowds. But I wanted to see the emperor in person. I wanted to look at the face of the man who’d invaded my country before I was born.

We thought we’d be getting there on the early side, since we left the Frolicsome Mallard when the sun had barely risen, hours before the speech was supposed to commence. When we arrived, the square was already packed so full that it resembled a gently undulating sea of heads. The occasional flying monkey flapped through the air, shrieking loudly.

“Where’s he going to speak from?” I asked.

“Up thare, I think.” Lulach pointed to a balcony jutting from the fortress wall, all the way across the square.

Yudit grimaced and carefully turned so she was addressing everyone except me. “We won’t even hear him from all the way back here.”

“Right,” Sunbeam said. He was still trying to throw his voice, although it was unclear who was supposed to be speaking on his behalf. “Out of the way, people! Horse coming through!”

He began shouldering his way into the crowd. The rest of us hurried to follow before the gap behind him closed. We didn’t want to get separated. Especially me. I could just picture myself immobilized by the press of bodies until I slowly strangled to death on snapdragons. Even if Yudit and I weren’t on speaking terms, I needed her.

Our passage through the crowd generated some ill will, especially from anyone whose foot got trodden on by a hoof. A chilling stare from an angry horse usually made them back down, but once or twice it almost came to blows. One of the lionfolk defied her people’s timorous reputation by growling at us and showing her claws, but she was overtaken by a fit of sneezing until we were past. I gave Nicki’s shoulder a grateful squeeze.

Lionfolk sneezes are surprisingly adorable, by the way.

We stopped at a point near the front, so hemmed in by other people it was impossible to force our way any closer. Or to move much at all. So we waited. There was still plenty of time to go before the big speech. Time I spent feeling the warm embrace of the sun flay my skin off as it rose into a cloudless sky. Sweat pooled on my lower back. While I’m not especially claustrophobic, being surrounded so closely on all sides in the insufferable heat was making me nauseous. I was not built for this climate.

“I saw some bonnie holothurians on mah way over from Tailliz,” Lulach said after we’d been standing there a while.

“What’s a holothurian?” I asked, somewhat unadvisedly.

“A kind of echinoderm,” he said, which explained exactly nothing. “I saw a hundred or mair of them crawling along the seafloor. They looked a wee bit like pigs. Except they had tentacles oan thair backs and all around thair mouths. And they breathe through thair butts and eat through thair feet.” His eyes brightened as he described the horde of horrible monsters and I considered avoiding the sea for the rest of my life. “Six pairs of legs, so I guess nae much like a pig efter all, but the back legs—”

“Hush now,” Sunbeam muttered. “Someone’s coming out.” His breath did my nausea no favors.

The crowd quieted as a man stepped onto the balcony, but the noise soon resumed once it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything and wasn’t the emperor. He was far too young, for one thing, and he was obviously a wizard, judging by the traditional scarlet robe embroidered with mystical sigils. His caramel-colored mustache and goatee were neatly trimmed and oiled.

He looked very familiar.

“Is that…?” Yudit asked no one in particular.

It’s difficult to forget someone who tried to blow your head off with a lightning bolt. He’d acquired a new wand to replace the one that Alexandra had eaten. I imagined sticking it someplace he’d find very uncomfortable.

I tapped the shoulder of the steam automaton wedged against my right side. It rotated its head to look at me, a surprised cloud of exhaust belching out of its cranial pipe. “Excuse me,” I said. “Who’s that up there?”

“Eh? That’s Dr. Nikidik Pipt,” it replied. “Grand vizier to the emperor. For a few months now, anyway. He used to be the chancellor of the wizards’ college.”

“He’s on the young side, isn’t he?” I wouldn’t have guessed his age to be more than thirty.