“No mercy?” Jade gaped at her.
Fie pushed her way to her feet, staggering under Tavin’s weight. He let out a startled cough.
“Aye,” she gritted, “no mercy, not until I find you. We can’t keep feeding Rhusana ghast-fodder. And if I’m wrong, they wait a few minutes to face the Covenant. If I’m right…” She shook her head. “It’ll be a new day, cousin.”
She tried to take a step forward. Her knees wobbled dangerously.
Then the weight eased. Madcap had slipped Tavin’s other arm over their shoulders.
“Where to, chief?” they asked.
“The Hall.” Fie pointed. They didn’t have time to run around it; better to break through the windows behind the thrones and charge right through.
Varlet tapped Fie’s elbow. “Let us do the heavy lifting, aye? You just lead on.”
Fie let Varlet take Tavin’s other side, but couldn’t make herself let go of his hand. The Sinner’s Brand had near turned his fingers a deep, angry purple, too much like Surimir’s for her not to look at them and cry.
Jasimir clasped her free hand, tears welling in his eyes. “I don’t know what… what ridiculous thing you’re about to try, but gods, I hope I see both of you again.”
“I hope we do, too,” she returned, throat burning. “Can you… make sure Barf’s not in a bad way?”
He squeezed her hand. “What else is a cat-master for?”
They had spent enough time with each other; they knew when they were out of words. So they let go, and Fie tried not to fear for him as he headed to the guest quarters, not looking back.
It was slower going than she could stomach, the sky fading too swift as Fie and her band crossed the courtyard, even though they walked due west as fast as they could.
When they crossed the threshold of the Hall of the Dawn, the stench of rotting flowers near made her retch. Wilted, gooey oleanders oozed down the cut-iron faces of dead Phoenixes in their cold lantern-columns, and great swaths of the carpet of white petals had soured to gray. Others had turned crimson. Fie saw bodies, their skins not yet claimed by the queen: a few Sparrow servants in their cloth-of-gold sashes, heaps of red-stained brocade or shining armor marking fallen Peacocks and Hawks. Lord Urasa had collapsed against the thrones, a spear in his gut pinning him like an insect.
“Keep clear of the oleanders,” Fie warned.
“We know,” Wretch said wryly. A tense, broken laugh ruffled through them all.
The sun had nearly fallen by the time they reached the head of the hall. The garlands Rhusana had strung over the warped sun had wilted, the gold tarnished so bad Fie could barely tell it had ever been more than tin. The Mother of the Dawn cast a long shadow nigh all the way to the hall’s entrance, dwindling light dancing across the wall of luminous glassblack between the statue and the thrones.
Fie looked about for something to break the panes—then stopped as a horrid wet slap squalled against the windows.
A skin-ghast had flattened itself to the glassblack. Horribly, the sunlight still shone through it, glowing a sick, deep red. Another ghast plastered itself to the window, staring at them, its empty mouth smeared in a silent scream. Then another, and another, fresh enough to still leave trails of blood striping the panes, until the gardens were gone and the last of the dying light sluggishly pushed through wriggling skin.
Fie breathed hard, trying to shake anything out of her thoughts, any last bit of cleverness, any last bit of desperation-soaked grit. If she broke the glass, they’d get in, and she’d have to fight them all off before they could pass. If she went round, through a Divine Gallery to the north or south, they’d lose time, and Tavin—
“Fie,” he choked out, and they both knew he didn’t have the time.
She looked at him, tears boiling over, and couldn’t find the words. He gave a tug to the hand still anchored in hers. “Down… please,” he gasped.
The Crows lowered him to the ground, where the petals had not yet been touched by rot. Fie sank to her knees beside him.
“I can’t,” she sobbed. “Tavin, Ican’t.”
“It’s enough,” he rasped.
“No—”
He unwound his hand from hers, buried his fingers in her hair. A smile tried to chisel its way out only for a trickle of blood to spill from his lips. “It’s enough, Fie,” he repeated. “You have to let me go.”
Fury roared in her heart. It was wrong, it was all wrong, she was sotiredof it, burning for a Phoenix’s mistakes, burning so they could rise.
She kissed his bloody mouth and hissed, “Never.”
