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I was finally outside her game, perhaps able to get answers instead of more questions.
“I’m staying,” I called down.If I could spy on them, perhaps—
“Do you want to die again?”
“I’m the only one who never wanted anyone to die.”
Lana scoffed. “But you always tried to throw away your life.”
“Can’t throw away something that’s already gone.”
“Well, you’re not throwing away mine or what I’m building. Leave or I’ll hand you over myself. And if you still want nothing more when you return, you can go back to emptying my chamber pot and cleaning the hearths. At least then you’ll be useful.”
No matter her reasoning, she had seemed to enjoy beating me at Flora’s command. Had humiliated me and Lumi for years while insisting we should be sold to the brothels. Lana would not hesitate to give me to Ealhswip. I was only surprised she had stayed her hand this long.
I no longer fear death, part of me wanted nothing more than for it all to be over—Lumi should have lived, I should have died—but Ealhswip’s threat of keeping my Spirit as a pet did terrify me.
I dragged myself to my feet.
“I’ll go. Will you at least tell me what she wants?”
“Why would I?” There was a suspicious note in Svetlana’s voice, as if she thought I was trying to trick her.
“Maybe if I knew more… if we told someone… they would be able to do something to stop her.”
“Like the king? Have you not had enough of playing someone’s side thing?”
I swallowed. Dimitri would never trust another word I said. After arresting and killing and resurrecting me, he ordered me to leave Tal. As he sat on that throne of skulls and roses, watching me when they ordered my death, there had been only anger in his eyes.
“You tell me what she wants, and I’ll findsomeone.”
Lana shrugged. “Just don’t lead any mess back to my door.”
Her heels clicked down the stairs as I shredded the last of the flying clothes, I had fought in. Hung in. Lumi’s blood stained the leather and while part of me wanted nothing more than to destroy them, another part clung to the timebefore—flying with Dimitri’s arms around me, when the world stood still and simultaneously rushed by.
But I could not walk the streets of Tal half dressed and bloody. So, trying to not think of the last time I was there, I quickly washed in the courtyard rainwater barrel. I should have shorn my hair in grief like Dimi had, but it was too similar to the courtesans preparing Lumi before we went to the palace. I might not know who I was anymore, but I could notbe her.
Shrugging into comfortable gray pants—which had once been black— shirt, and fraying coat, I could pass for a messenger boy if I stayed to the shadows. Dressing was mechanical until I faced the one pair of leather boots. Mine.
Lumi had given me hers when we arrived at the engagement ball, insisting I needed to be able to run. Still, the string had broken during my mad dash through the royal woods. One shoe remained with my few possessions in the Royal Theater’s attic, the other one probably ruined by the weather.
They were well made. If we had the coin, a cobbler could have given them new soles and polish. They, like us, had just needed a bit of care to not break.
Tears stung my eyes and the cold inside cracked, like ice in spring.
It should not matter. My sister was dead. She did not need shoes.
A tear fell as I laced my boots tight, then, refusing to think of why, I tucked Dimitri’s notebook into the coat pocket.
I climbed from the roof down to the alley, each step familiar enough that I could do it in my sleep, my determination patching the cracks, the ice transforming into something harder.
Lumi had been willing to give everything to change Tal. She had thought killing Dimitri was the key to stopping Ealhswip and the royals both. Coins clinked in my pockets. I had been given life and means—how I used both was up to me. I no longer fantasized of the impossible, happy future for myself I had thought I would find if we got away from Mandible Street and Tal.
It had not existed on the steppe nor in the scheming palace. I had been a dreamer.
Maybe if I gave it everything, like Lumi, a better tomorrow could exist for someone else though.
I passed burned-out husks with tents stretched across the remaining beams. People could live like this in summer, but the Day of the Dead and fall were only fourteen days away and the cold mountain winds would come.
