“I’m going to kill him,” she breathed into the silence of the perfumed air. The amber-pod blossoms only shivered on their branches in reply. Fie didn’t care. She’d sworn as much when she was dragged screaming from Draga’s tent. And she had come to the royal palace to keep her oaths.
Something fluttered as she sat up. Fie’s head whipped about just in time to see a crow take off from its perch on the shoulder of one more Phoenix statue, and rise into the sky.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A PRISON FIT FOR A KING
Fie had just enough time to dry her face and contemplate burning the palace down before the hour-bell rang. When it did, she closed her eyes and made herself call on a Vulture witch-tooth, focusing on the clay charm-bead Viimo had given her.
The Vulture Birthright sparked and flared, lighting up Viimo’s trail in Fie’s senses. The end of it shifted, moving north, south, north, south. Then it stopped in the north for a long moment, only to resume moving north, south, north, south. After a minute or so it stopped in the north once more.
This was the message system they’d set up: Viimo had a tooth from Fie, a trinket from Khoda, and the Birthright to find where they stood at every hour-bell. If either Fie or Khoda sought out a particular place in the gardens at the chime of the hour-bell, it was to send a message. Waiting east, in the amber-pod grove, meant Fie had news.
Viimo could pass that message along to Khoda through his own spies in the prison, but Fie had no such network. Instead, Viimo paced north to south in her jail cell, a signal Fie would sense through a Vulture tooth. That pacing meant Viimo had a message from Khoda. Pausing a while in the north was a signal to meet at the next bell.
Their meeting spot was the statue behind the Hall of the Dawn, and the hall itself sat between the wings of the Divine Galleries. Now that she’d memorized the way from the gallery, Fie knew she could make it there several times over before the hour-bell chimed again. If she hurried, she could look over Jas’s prison before she and Khoda met up; if luck was still with her, Tavin wouldn’t have gone back.
She blotted her burning cheeks one more time, then took a deep breath and ducked through the pavilion’s archway. Thanks to the Owl tooth, she picked out landmark after landmark to guide her way.
No one looked twice at a Sparrow servant hurrying through the palace gardens, especially with more Sparrows up and hurrying about the walkways with armfuls of garlands, silk, perfume oils, fineries, and decorations of every kind. Fie didn’t have a repair order for the Divine Galleries, but the vestiges of the Pigeon witch-tooth’s luck seemed to have kept the guards at bay. She darted in before that luck could fade, Barf at her heels.
She couldn’t quite remember which of the towering statues had concealed the passage, but the cat had no such issue, scuttling behind a golden figure pouring out a pitcher of flame. Fie followed and found her licking a patch of marble where the spilled fish stew must have been hastily mopped up. Even better, Fie’s slipper had tumbled behind a column. The calluses on Fie’s feet were thick enough that it hadn’t made much of a difference to her, but she yanked it back on for symmetry’s sake, at least.
She wrenched the dog statue’s head around, and the panel in the statue base lowered once more. Fie eased halfway down the steps,holding her breath and waiting for any telltale noise. The walls themselves seemed to rattle and thrum around her, making it all the harder to focus. God-graves always sang in her bones, and it was tolerable enough when she tread on only the one. If the legends were right, the Phoenixes had dumped all twenty-four of their dead gods under the two galleries, and the drone of their song ground into her very teeth.
There was no time to dawdle, not when she’d no notion if guards would pass by the statue or if Tavin would return. Fie rushed to the bottom of the steps. They opened to a short, narrow stone passage lit with more oil lamps. A line of bars walled off the end of the hall, making a small, enclosed chamber furnished with cushions, a bed, and a low table. A stack of dirty dishes sat near a narrow metal flap.
There were no Hawks on guard that she could see. Fie didn’t know if that meant Rhusana couldn’t spare any, or if the fact that it had taken a Pigeon witch’s Birthright to find this prison meant secrecy was its main defense.
Jasimir lay on the bed, reading a scroll, but he sat up at the sound of her footsteps. His eyes widened. “Fie?What are you doing here?”
She planted her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “I’ll give you two guesses.”
Jasimir let out a laugh almost like a sob, hurrying to the bars. “F-fair point. I just didn’t think Rhusana would leave you alive, no matter what she promised…” His face buckled briefly. Tavin’s unspoken name hung over both of them like an executioner’s sword.
“As far as she knows, she had me drowned. Lakima saved me. I’m sorry, Jas. I ran—my band, I had to—”
He shook his head. “You’ve been through enough for me. Of course you needed to get your family to safety. I can’t believe you didn’t… you didn’t give up.”
She winced and stared at the stone floor. “I did. I figured it was allrutted, all I could do was wait to starve with the rest of my kin. But some miserable wretches reminded me I owe the queen a whipping.”
“You have help?” He straightened up, a light sparking in his face. “Is Tav in on the plan?”
She swallowed, voice knotting into a rasp. “No.”
They both went quiet a moment, recoiling from the salt in the wound. Fie cleared her throat, then called her Owl tooth back to better cement her memory of this moment. “I haven’t long. Tell me about this cell.”
“It’s made to hold royalty.” Jasimir frowned. “Technically, only the royal family and their most trusted servants are supposed to know about them, and even then, Owl witches have been called to wipe memories if anyone got too loose-tongued. I’m sure Rhusana’s only sending servants under her control.” He shook his head. “And you just… walked in? Just like that?”
“Pigeon witch’s tooth,” Fie said by way of explanation, but couldn’t help feeling the teensiest big smug. The palace was fine, but clearly it had not been Crow-proofed. “How do we get you out?”
“Ah. That I don’t know.” Jasimir twitched his fingers. A tiny golden flame ignited over them, then snuffed out. “Any of us can call fire in the palace, since we’re so close to the god-graves. But these cells are built so that if I tried it, I’d burn up all the air and suffocate long before the bars got hot enough to bend. There’s one under every statue in the Divine Galleries.”
Fie closed her eyes, letting the words stamp into her mind with the memory Birthright. Anything that could help break Jas out, she needed to note. “Walls are stone, bars are metal, no fire. How’d they get you in to begin with?”
“I don’t know. The last thing I remember is Aunt Draga’s tent, and then I woke up here.”
“Sounds like a healer’s sleep,” Fie muttered as she looked around, just to commit the words to memory along with everything else. “So Rhusana has at least one war-witch, along with a glamour-weaver. You’re getting meals through that?” She pointed to the metal flap beside the stack of dishes, and Jasimir nodded. “No other locks, levers, anything?”
