Wilbur never forget Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
They are making Progres
“It’s okay, Luther,” Mr. Carver says. “You can let them see.”
The boy tries again, his brow furrowing in concentration. This time, he takes the fern by the stem, holding it in his small fist. And slowly, the fern curls beneath his touch, turning black, folding into itself—dying. As we watch, transfixed, Mr. Carver grabs something else from the back shelf and sets it in his son’s lap. Leather gloves.
“You take good care of him,” he says. His teeth clench, shutting tight against the storm inside his heart. “You promise me that.”
Like all true men, he doesn’t flinch when I shake his hand.
“I give you my word, Mr. Carver.”
Only when we’re back at the safe house, which we’re starting to call the Notch, do I allow myself a moment alone. To think, to tell myself the lie was well made. I cannot truly promise this boy, or the others like him, will survive what is to come. But I certainly hope he does, and I will do everything I can to make it so.
Even if this boy’s terrifying ability is death itself.
The newbloods’ families aren’t the only ones to flee. The Measures have made life worse than ever before, driving many Reds into the forests and frontiers, seeking a place where they won’t be worked to death or hanged for stepping out of line. Some come within a few miles of our camp, winding north toward a border already painted with autumn snow. Kilorn and Farley want to help them, to give them food or medicine, but Cal and I overrule their pleas. No one can know about us, and the Reds marching on are no different, despite their fate. They will keep heading north, until they meet the Lakelander border. Some will be pressed into the legions holding the line. Others might be lucky enough to slip through, to succumb to cold and starvation in the tundra rather than a bullet in
Sayfa 240
A Magnetron
The smallest girl I’ve ever seen rises out of darkness.
Cheers rise as a house in brown silk and red gemstones applauds their daughter.
“Rohr, of House Rhambos,” the family shouts, announcing her to the world.
The girl, no more than fourteen, smiles up at her family. She’s tiny in comparison to the statues, but her hands are strangely large. The rest of her looks liable to blow away in a strong breeze. She takes a turn about the ring of statues, always smiling upward. Her gaze lands on Cal—I mean the prince—trying to entice him with her doe eyes or the occasional flip of honey-blond hair. In short, she looks foolish. Until she approaches a solid stone statue and sloughs its head off with a single, simple slap.
House Rhambos speaks again. “Strongarm.”
Below us, little Rohr destroys the floor in a whirlwind, turning statues into pulverized piles of dust while she cracks the ground beneath her feet. She’s like an earthquake in tiny human form, breaking apart anything and everything in her way.
So this is a pageant.
A violent one, meant to showcase a girl’s beauty, splendor—and strength. The most talented daughter. This is a display of power, to pair the prince with the most powerful girl, so that their children might be the strongest of all. And this has been going on for hundreds of years.
I shudder to think of the strength in Cal’s pinkie finger.
He claps politely as the Rhambos girl finishes her display of organized destruction and steps back onto the descending platform. House Rhambos cheers for her as she disappears.
Next comes Heron of House Welle, the daughter of my own governor. She’s tall, with a face like her bird namesake. The destroyed earth shifts around her as she puts the floor back together. “Greenwarden,” her family chants. A greeny. At her command, trees
Sayfa 70
Her cage
He ignores both my indebted gratitude and the shake in my words.
Instead, he surprises me by saying, “Show me her cage.”
I freeze.
Cold dread gathers in my stomach, and a pulse-pounding silence
stretches between us. “Her cage?”
Another snub at my words. Instead of replying, he turns on his heel
and strides into the castle, and it’s all too clear that he expects me to go with
him.
Across the courtyard, I glance over at Dommik, because something
has been made abundantly clear. King Ravinger has hate in his eyes when
he looks at me, and it stems from a source I didn’t expect.
The gilded pet.
“I should kill you for the way you treated Auren. For the way you
fucking allowed your husband to treat her. For doing nothing.”
And now, he wants me to show him her cage.
I owe a debt to Ravinger for saving my people, and he’s come to
collect. He’s come to make me pay.
Turning, I head inside to lead the rotten king.
Surely, this is what it feels like to be stalked.
King Ravinger’s presence behind me stifles and goads, making my
entire back prickle with threat. My body is teetering on a precipice of
adrenaline, not knowing whether to try to fight or flee. Though my mind
knows neither of those options would work if he chooses to kill me.
The only thing I could do is fall to the floor in another bow of
supplication. One doesn’t run from the apex predator. One doesn’t try to
fight a god with mere sticks.
You bend the knee and beg for mercy.
My thighs burn as I lead the way up the many flights of stairs, my
weakened body protesting the ascent just as much as my burdened mind.
Highbell is in tatters, with stolen furnishings and chipped-away gold.
“True kings don’t give out their armies for cunts.”
“We—we didn’t take Cliffhelm. Ravinger’s training outpost there was
full of soldiers. We never even breached the walls before they were on us.”
One of Fulke’s guards curses, Fulke’s fists tightening at his sides.
“You’re saying my entire division was taken out?”
The messenger hesitates. “Yes, Your Majesty, and…”
King Fulke picks up one of the ink bottles and sends it hurtling against
the wall, the glass shattering, ink splattered and dripping. “And what?”
Fulke fumes. “Spit it out!”
Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong. They were celebrating.
Their plan was victorious. My brows pull together in a frown as my mind
whirls. What happened between then and now? How could such
misinformation be passed to the kings earlier? Or is this soldier lying? But
if so...for what purpose?
The messenger grips the hilt of his sword tighter under the scowl of his
king, and I’m not the only one who notices. “What are you doing, soldier?”
King Fulke’s guard asks, tone heavy with suspicion as he reaches for his
own blade.
But the messenger isn’t looking at him. He’s not even looking at Fulke.
He’s looking at Midas.
My body coils with tension, my instincts blaring at me that something
terrible is about to happen, but I have no idea what.
“Explain to me how we were told that we took Cliffhelm this morning,
only for you to now inform me that my men were all slaughtered!” Fulke
snarls. “Tell me how Ravinger’s men were able to overtake both my
soldiers and Midas’s without us knowing!”
Fulke’s guards close in on the messenger, like a pack of wolves sniffing
out a traitor. A liar.
But they’re closing in on the wrong man.
The messenger tilts his chin up, a proud stance widening his feet even
as resignation flashes in his eyes. “They didn’t overtake King Midas’s men.
Because Midas’s army never
Here are the rules we are starting
Nothing in the Temple District was this unattractive. Every entry here
was carved panels, decorative architraves, glass awnings, and gilded
keyholes. Her father had been a man of faith, but he used to say that the
churches here were like vampires—they weren’t meant for worship, they
were designed to entice and entrap. But this door was different. This door
was just a rough block of wood with a missing handle and chipped white
paint.
This door did not want to be found.
Yet it couldn’t hide what it truly was from Evangeline.
The jagged shape of it was unmistakable. One side was a sloping curve,
the other a serrated slash, forming one half of a broken heart—a symbol of
the Fated Prince of Hearts.
Finally.
When the gossip sheet in her pocket had first announced that the door
from the Prince of Hearts’ church had gone missing, few imagined it was
magic. It was the scandal sheet’s first article, and people said it was part of
a hoax to sell subscriptions. Doors didn’t simply disappear.
But Evangeline believed that they could. The story hadn’t felt like a
gimmick to her; it had felt like a sign, telling her where to search if she was
going to save her heart and the boy that it belonged to.
All stories are made of both truths and lies,
she used to say. What matters is the way that we believe in them.
The door pinched her fingers, drawing a drop of blood, and she swore
she heard its splintered voice say, Do you know what you’re about to step
into? Nothing but heartbreak will come from this.
But Evangeline’s heart was already broken. And she understood the
risks she was taking. She knew the rules for visiting Fated churches:
