She reached for the dustcloth over the bed. Something brushed across the back of her hand like a cobweb. When she went to pluck it off, she saw… naught.
Fie went still. Then she looked up again at the glass dome. A half moon stared back.
Solstice always fell on the middle of Phoenix Moon, when the moon had swollen to its fullest.
Someone had cast a glamour over the entire room.
No wonder luck had led her here. Fie closed her eyes, trying to think. She didn’t know if a Peacock tooth could undo a glamour the way Tavin’s tooth let her snuff out fires. Maybe the truth Birthright—but she’d only used it to draw the truth from people, not clear away an illusion.
Then again, she’d sorted out how to balance Peacock and Owl. Lips pursing, she found one tooth each of Peacock and Crane and kindled them both.
They clashed horribly, like a flute and a lyre in a tavern brawl, but she knew the trick of it now. It took a few tries to get them to settle into cooperation, but then—then she saw it, the glamour over the room, glowing too vivid to be real.
Show me the truth, she told the teeth.
It was as if they had pulled the cords on a curtain, sweeping the glamour aside in uncanny folds of another world. The true room unrolled before her, lit by the glare of a full, unblinking moon.
Fie couldn’t help a sharp breath. Her hands curled to her chest, nausea crawling up her throat.
Everywhere she looked, she saw hair.
Long, silvery strands strung about the room like sick garlands, knotted with other, darker hairs. Shelves and shelves of shorter hairs, all fastened to neat squares of parchment with names scrawled out in a neat square hand. More of those parchment squares broken out over the bed and the windowsills, even tacked to the walls like a papery rash. Bundles of hair like skeins of yarn, each bearing a single label:Livabai. Chalbora. Teisanar.
One bundle had been left unwound on a desk, its label next to it:Karostei.Beside it were strange, gray, papery curls. Fie made herself squint closer, only to stumble back, trying not to vomit.
Skin. They were strips of dried skin.
It took a moment for Fie to conquer her mutinous belly. When she saw a nearby shelf of tidy jars packed with more bits of skin, she had to fight that battle all over again.
But Fie had work to do and an oath to keep and time that was running short. She glanced about to take in the whole of the room.
There were two doorways she could see besides the passage she’d taken. One had been boarded shut for good, but the other stood agape, planks sitting nearby with the nails still protruding. If that was Rhusana’s way out, then likely it would work best for Fie, too—or at least it was better than popping out into the hallway with no way to check for patrols first.
A thick mantle of dust had accumulated on the higher shelves of the room, but mostly everything was where it had been in the glamour. One low dresser had been revealed as a tidy stack of crates holding envelopes, inks, parchment; a station had been set up nearby with parchment squares, a glue pot, and a quill.
That was the worst part, Fie reckoned: theorderof it all. She’d expected a monster. She had not expected one so organized.
More squares sat on the desk. Fie picked out names she recognized:Draga,Jasimir,Burzo,Kuvimir. She made herself get close enough to riffle through them all, telling herself it was just to make sure her own name was not among them. Then she checked the shelves and their rows of squares lined up like toy soldiers, ducking the long strands of what she presumed to be Rhusana’s hair.
She did not find a square with her name.
Nor did she find what she’d been looking for true. She checked every square, every name. None of them wereTavin.
She hadn’t expected it, she told herself, but the sinking twist in her chest called her a liar.
Expected, no. Hoped for, yes.
As she passed the shelf of jars, something caught her eye: a second row of jars tucked behind the row full of skin. Their contents looked more solid, weighty—
She drew one out, and her heart leapt into her throat. The jars were full of teeth, and not just any teeth. Fie dug out a handful and let them sift through her hands like grain, near choking down a laugh of pure relief.
Finally,finally, a boon.
They were Phoenix teeth. They werehers. It must have been Rhusana’s own killers who took them from Drudge and bore them here to make sure nothing so precious, sodangerous, ever fell into the hands of a Crow again.
“Ha,” Fie muttered to herself. “Guess again, you dog-faced hag.”
She stole one of the pillows from the bed, cut it open, pulled out the stuffing, and poured the Phoenix teeth in, jar after jar, until she’d emptied them all. Just the weight of it alone made her want to sing. She’d soft-footed her way around this miserable palace for fear of the terrible price of getting caught. Now, if it truly came down to it, she could burn her way free.
