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Chapter 13
Morning sees me in the Ven scouring Casvian’s book of ikons. An enormous wealth of ikonomancy is at my fingertips, but my mind is filled with thoughts of Dalca.A thousand small evils,he said. Those are the words of a man who feels remorse, one who has a heart. Could I talk to him? And what, convince him to let the man who murdered his grandfather go free? What killer gets a pardon just because his daughter cries?
But if I could just get him to understand... What Pa did doesn’t represent all of who he is. There’s a bigger picture. Amma said something to me once, when I found a drawing someone had done of her when she was a teenager:In life we wear a hundred faces—the bawling infant, the happy child, the starry-eyed youth. Each face belongs to a different life.
I didn’t fully understand it then. But maybe I do now. A lifetime is made up of dozens of lives, tied together only by shared memory. Who I was when I was a baby isn’t the same person I was at age ten, much less who I am now. Who Pa was in his twenties isn’t the same man he is today. And I have to believe that the man he is today shouldn’t have to die for the mistakes of the other man who wore his face twelve years ago.
“I must go to the palace,” Casvian says, startling me out of my thoughts.
The garden. I think fast. “Should I come with you? I could work outside, in the hall. Then if I find the mark, I can bring it to you straightaway.”
It’s the last that convinces him. Casvian badgered me this morning to work quicker to find the meaning of the mark.
“Fine,” Cas says. “But don’t speak.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I follow him silently out of the Ven, through the golden gates to the second, then to the first, and into the palace. I push aside the strange, lightheaded feeling that comes over me again at how easy it is. Jem and I used to tell ourselves stories of what the palace must be like, but we never expected to make it up here. And now I’ve made it twice.
Cas waves an attendant away, marching along as if he owns the place. A honeysuckle-scented breeze tousles my hair, telling me that the garden is close by. I follow Casvian as he weaves in and out of hallways, through a pair of double doors, and out into a colonnade open to the sun. A beam of sunlight warms my face, and the scent of blooms descends upon me, thick as a blanket.
The colonnade edges a courtyard that’s dominated by a thick wall of living plants. Little of the shape of the gardens is visible through the hedge that encloses them.
Casvian pays no attention to the gardens; they’re merely a shortcut. He strides along the colonnade to an ornately carved door and pauses, one foot over the threshold of the room. “Wait out here.”
He disappears inside, the door clicking shut. I tuck the book of ikons in the crook of my arm. There are benches all along the walkway, and I’m sure Casvian meant for me to sit on one and wait. But he really was vague with what he meant byhere. The gardens are practicallyhere.
An arched opening set in the hedge wall grants a view of pink flowers. I glance over my shoulder once before slipping through.
The archway leads to an enclosure where there’s evidence of new planting: practical foods, a riot of vegetables and tubers in bloom. A path stretches past them to another arch that opens into a much larger enclosure. The air here is even sweeter; on either side of the path grows a small grove of trees heavy with luscious fruit, some red as blood, some golden. It’s a decadence that curdles my stomach when I see that fallen fruit has been left to rot.
Deeper still, the gardens become purely frivolous. Trees of the sort I’ve never seen, with black bark and leaves that glitter like diamonds. Flowers with blooms the size of my hand, in every color under the sun, filling the air with a fragrance I can almost taste. A master gardener has been at work here. Even though the garden feels wild, there’s a hidden pattern to the chaos, something I can barely make out, like a song that disappears whenever I listen for it.
Is there a path to the old city hidden in a tree? Or perhaps somewhere farther along the path. Everything is strange, and yet nothing stands out as a likely candidate.
Leaves crunch underfoot, but I haven’t taken a step.
Someone’s here. I press myself into the shelter of the trees and watch, squinting through a gap between trunks. His back is to me as he kicks at the ground, leaves and pebbles flying, then he stalks forward, running a hand through hair with the color and shine of spilt ink. There’s something familiar about the gesture. I inch forward as he turns right and disappears behind a wall of flowering plants.
The sharp edge of his jaw and the grim line of his lips name him just as well as if I’d seen Dalca’s distinctive eyes. I go as fast as I dare,taking care not to step on the piles of dried leaves that line the way. The path winds like a snake, and the trees become denser, branches intertwined like plaited hair, hung with flowers of every color. I edge around each bend, expecting Dalca at each turn. His footsteps grow quieter. There’s a quick, sharp sound of flying leaves and pebbles, a soft metallic clang.
Then all is silent.
My heart pounds, adrenaline turning my vision crisp and my palms sweaty. One more bend, and the path opens wide. A brown wall of thorns stands before me, so densely packed that the space it encloses is completely hidden. Its branches have been shaped by human hands to weave in an intricate pattern, braiding themselves around an arched opening. Set in the opening is a golden gate that comes up to my thigh.
Dalca is nowhere in sight. The gate swings easily, as if it’s been freshly oiled. Beyond is a clearing ringed with white-barked trees crowned with dark leaves and golden flowers that hang like teardrops. In the center is a lotus-studded pond as still as glass, with two stone benches before it and a freestanding mosaic behind it. The mosaic depicts a man and woman standing with their hands pressed together, fierce expressions on their faces. I can’t tell if they’re about to fight or dance.
On tiptoes, I circle the pond with eyes peeled. There’s no other opening in the wall of thorns; Dalca can only be behind the mosaic wall. I hold my breath and peek behind it.
Footprints remain on the clover-studded dirt, but there’s no Dalca.
My breath leaves me in a single whoosh. This is it.
I’ve found Dalca’s way to the old city.
The stone is bare on this side, but faintly grooved as if it was once carved. I adjust my grip on the book, so I can run my fingers along thecool surface. It has to be here somewhere, some mechanism like the poma in the tapestry that led to the stormtouched Wardana.
I go over every inch, over and over, until I know this wall better than any in my bedroom at Amma’s. There’s no mechanism, no knob, no button.
