Chapter 55

Chapter Fifty-Five

It was a lot easier breaking into the cathedral than Petra thought it would be, but then again, it wasn’t like anyone expected her to return, seeing as it was an objectively stupid thing to do.

Silas kept reminding her of that as they hustled through alleys, tracing a familiar path to the secret entrance to her suite. Despite the pre-dawn hour, the city was already coming alive in ways it normally didn’t. Red and gold paper decorated storefronts and banners with Glory’s symbol dangled from street lights. A massive flower arrangement nearly eclipsed the grand door of the cathedral, and all throughout the Temple complex, lights were on.

A crowd had already begun to gather in the streets, making the use of her necklace’s built-in glamour necessary.

Of all the days to sneak around the cathedral to theoretically stop a coup, the solstice was the worst possible one. By the time the sun touched the horizon, the streets would be overflowing with revelers, vendors selling drinks and sweet treats, and pilgrims making the two hour trek from the cathedral to San Francisco’s highest point, Mount Davidson, where they’d dance and sing and eat until sunset.

Normally Petra loved the solstice. It certainly came with its own set of challenges, and was the day when everyone in the cathedral was stretched to their limits, but it was the one day of the year since Max’s death when she’d allowed herself to simply enjoy life.

She loved the music that played throughout the city. She loved the sticky, fatty foods served from carts everywhere she turned. She loved how joyously people came into the cathedral, how much love they radiated as they prayed to the goddess.

And she especially loved watching her staff cut loose a little after sundown in the belltower. For one day of the year, she could smile and mean it.

But this solstice was different. Everything was different.

She ignored the sting of exhaustion in her eyes and the hunger pangs that came with the scent of cooking things on the breeze. Her body had to carry on with little more than adrenaline.

Silas squeezed in through the secret entrance first, his form fully cloaked in shadow. He gestured for her to wait outside. After a beat, she felt a gentle pulse around her throat and hurried in after him.

With the unassuming access door shut behind her, she whispered, “What if the cameras in the suite are working again?”

Clearly a little offended by the question, he answered, “I left signal jammers around before we got outta Dodge. I also infected their entire server and all connected tech with a virus that bricked the whole system. Unless they shopped around for new tech, we’re fine.”

She breathed out a short sigh of relief. “Of course you did.”

It was so dark in the passageway that she nearly missed it when he stopped. If his shadows hadn’t snagged her around the waist in time, she would have smashed her face into his back.

Something tapped the tip of her nose. “Stay.”

Petra listened intently as he opened and then shut the secret door into the closet. Her heart raced, but not because he’d left her in the dark. She wasn’t scared of that anymore. No, what made her palms sweat was having Silas out of sight, knowing that he could potentially walk into an ambush. There was little doubt he could take care of himself, but he was hers, and she hated the idea of not having his back.

Magic surged under her skin, ready to unleash holy calamity on anyone who’d dare touch him. C’mon, she urged, rocking from foot to foot as her nerves strung ever-tighter. Please be okay.

Luckily she only had a few moments to rile herself up before he threw open the door. “C’mon,” he muttered, pushing the coats and her ceremonial gown out of her way.

She emerged into the dark sitting room of her suite and looked around. A wave of disorientation washed over her. It wasn’t quite deja vu and it certainly wasn’t nostalgia, but some mix of intense emotion that came with returning to a place that had been both prison and refuge.

For three years, the suite had been the only tenuous connection she maintained to Max. She’d imagined him sitting in one of the retro chairs, an ankle propped on his knee as he read the news after dawn service. She could see him pacing, arms tucked behind his back, as he practiced his sermon for the next day. For a while, she thought she could make out traces of his scent in the closet — cheap tobacco and even cheaper cologne.

But as she looked around the darkened room, Petra no longer saw his ghost. She didn’t feel his presence. Maybe she never had. Maybe it had always been in her head. Now that she had more to live for, she didn’t need to cling to the memory of a dead man to keep herself from drowning.

That wasn’t what she wanted to believe, though. Petra chose to think that perhaps her dyadya had lingered until he knew she could handle herself, and that the cause he’d died for would continue. She chose to believe that the memory of his spirit that had saturated the air in the suite had at last crossed the river to join Grim in paradise.

Swallowing the lump of joy and grief and fear that clogged her throat, she turned to Silas and said, “I need to talk to Robert. He was going to be my stand-in for the ceremony, so he’ll know when Margot and the sovereign are supposed to arrive. He should know what’s been going on since we left, too.”

He had to, because there wasn’t time to consider what might’ve happened to him if he wasn’t around.

Of course, she knew Margot and Theodore’s rough routine and had glanced at the details of this year’s ceremony, but Petra also hadn’t thought she’d be around to see it. So she’d left the vast majority of the planning and execution to her assistant, who would act as High Priest during her sabbatical — or whatever was to come of her after her meeting with Antonin.

Silas rolled his shoulders and stalked toward her. When he spoke in his shadow form, his voice was much deeper, almost a growl, and it conjured decadent, sweaty memories of the rut. “I need to figure out how many of the soldiers are around, so I’ll pick him up on the way back. Go sit on your bed and wait for me.”

Petra gave him a funny look. “Why the bed?”

“I warded the floor around it,” he explained, like that was totally normal. Cupping her cheeks with hands tipped in jagged claws, he pressed a kiss to her lips that ended in a sharp bite. “Be good, baby. And don’t open that door for anyone who isn’t me.”

“Are you sure you can move around without being seen?” she worried, fingers curling into his shirt.

“I’ve been doing this a while,” he dryly reminded her. “Pretty sure I’ll be all right. Who would expect a demon in Glory’s Temple, anyway?”

He moved to leave, but Petra hung on for just a moment longer. Trying to summon her courage, she whispered, “Okay. Just… be safe. Please.”

“Oh, I’ll be very safe,” he replied, gently breaking away to stride toward the door. “It’s everyone else you should worry about.”

Petra wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do while she waited for Silas’s return, so she sat on the bed and tried to be as quiet as possible. Time crawled by as she strained to hear any small sound, but there was nothing except the gradually increasing noise of the crowd outside.

Minutes stretched too far as she picked at her blankets. Her mind ran in every direction, working through all the possible ways their plan could go right or horrifically wrong.

She was just contemplating being very not good and hunting Silas down when the sound of familiar, rapid footsteps reached her.

Petra shot up from the bed, her heart jammed into her throat, as the door to her suite eased open. Rushing out of the bedroom and into the sitting area, she held her breath as she waited for a sign that it was Silas out there. That sign came not a moment later when the shadows around her throat pulsed twice.

Robert’s dear face, pasty except for the blotches of red on his full cheeks, peered out from behind the door. “Your grace?”

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to recognize her through the glamour, she whispered, “It’s me, Robert.”

Gasping, he threw himself inside and nearly slammed the door in Silas’s face.

“Watch it,” her mate growled, shoving her assistant farther into the room.

Robert hardly seemed to notice. He stumbled toward her, and Petra met him with arms extended. His crimson ceremonial robes fluttered with every hasty step.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he wheezed, gripping her hands, “but what are you doing here? It’s not safe!”

“Don’t worry about that. Tell me what’s happened since I’ve been gone!” She shot Silas a questioning look, hoping he’d give her some good news and they would get to call everything off. “Are Antonin’s soldiers still here?”

Silas leaned against the door and crossed his arms. He shook his monstrous head. “They’ve taken over a wing.”

Dread washed over her. Searching Robert’s expression, she asked, “What have they done? Did they hurt you? The initiates?”

Shaking his head vigorously, Robert answered, “Nothing! That’s the bizarre thing. They haven’t done anything.”

She hardly had time to feel any relief when the strangeness of his statement immediately put her on edge. “What do you mean?”

“I thought after the Protector, uh, disappeared and you left, they would ransack the place or try to find you or interrogate us or— But no. Nothing happened. They’ve just acted like nothing’s wrong. All they do is watch us and patrol the grounds. I nearly had a heart attack when one of them asked me what time the ceremony would start yesterday. They hadn’t said a word for weeks.” He leaned in close to whisper, “Your grace, I don’t even think they’ve noticed he’s gone.”

Uneasiness rolled down her spine. “How is that possible?”

“They’re brainwashed, and no one’s been around to change their instructions,” Silas interjected with a shrug.

She and Robert turned to give him identical horrified looks.

Frowning, Silas waved a hand in front of his eyes. “You didn’t notice? There’s nothing going on in there. Every soldier I’ve seen has had the same look, and the one in the bathtub died when whatever it was keeping his brain on a leash hit my wards.” He snapped his shadowed fingers. “Went out like that.”

A chill ran down her spine. “And you never thought to mention this?”

“Never came up.” Silas shrugged. “And I’ve been… distracted.”

Petra opened her mouth to vehemently insist on a later discussion about what information he deemed important to disclose to her, but instead found herself asking, “Bathtub?”

Robert waved away her high-pitched question. “I took care of it, your grace. Don’t worry.”

“Took care of what? A body in a bathtub?” Petra covered her eyes. “Good gods, I’ve got to figure out how to get you a raise.”

“The brainwashing makes sense,” Robert gravely informed Silas. “I’d heard rumors about something like that, but I always thought it was a scare tactic used to keep dissenters in line. And there’ve been stories about luminists being forcefully recruited for years. The more talented, the more likely they were to just disappear one day. The way they’ve acted, though… It’s like they’re toy soldiers just waiting for someone to play with them.”

“That’s exactly what they are,” Silas replied, “and they’re about to come to life.”

Robert squeezed her arm reflexively. “Why? What’s happening?”

“We think there might be a plot to depose the elves,” she rushed to explain before Silas could say something that would send her assistant into a panic attack. “Something involving the Ardeo, Antonin, and someone else. That’s why Antonin wanted to be here, Robert, and that’s why he was interested in me.”

Cold sweat broke out across her chest at the thought of the Protector having a small army of brainwashed soldiers. No wonder he was so confident, she realized. He didn’t have to worry about anyone questioning him or disloyalty. He probably would’ve turned me into one of them, too.

Was that what he’d meant by changing her mind? The possibility made her want to kill him all over again. Blackmail, coercion, torture — all awful prospects, but none of it held a candle to stealing a person’s will. Their mind. Their sense of self.

And Robert was right. Max had always warned her to keep her head down due to those same rumors. Luminists came in many types, but someone like Antonin would no doubt highly prize those who were extremely talented at weaving light into illusions or disappearing from sight altogether. Any number of nefarious things could be done by those hidden in plain sight.

If they didn’t want to be part of the Ardeo, then he didn’t have to ask twice. He could pluck the best and brightest from the Temple’s ranks, add them to his little toy chest, and kill the humanity in them little by little until they were nothing but husks.

Petra was viciously glad the Protector was dead. She almost wished she could kill him again, for the sake of everyone he’d hurt.

“Depose the…” Robert’s complexion went from ruddy to green in a heartbeat. “Oh, Glory. One of them asked about the service. I thought it was weird but I didn’t— I didn’t know. What should we do? We— we need to call someone. Tell them not to come to the dawn service!”

Using her most calming, authoritative voice, she explained, “We can’t do that, Robert. We have evidence that something might happen at the Tower, too, and if that’s the case, they can’t stay there. They could be targets in their own home.”

She doubted anyone could break through the blood wards guarding the family suite at the top of the Tower, but if Margot and Theodore were anywhere else… It was just too risky.

Looking like he might actually be sick, Robert asked, “Then what do we do? How do we stop them?”

As usual, her mate was quick with an answer. “I planned on killing them all.”

“Silas!”

“What?” He gave her a long-suffering look. “They’re all in one wing right now. If I locked the door and started a fire?—”

“No.”

“If I threw in a grenade?—”

“Absolutely not!”

“Baby, if I just killed a few ? —”

Petra sliced her hand through the air. “No, no. We are not killing innocent men!”

“Are they innocent if they’ve done Vanderpoel’s bidding for who knows how long?” He lifted his lip in disgust. “They watched you, remember?”

“If they were brainwashed, then it wasn’t because they wanted to,” she argued. “They could be locked inside their own minds right now, Silas, screaming for help. They could be begging us to stop this but completely unable to control their actions. We can’t.”

“We don’t know that all of them are brainwashed. Seems unlikely.”

“We don’t have time to make that call, and I’m not risking it. We don’t play fast and loose with innocent lives, Silas. I don’t want any more bloodshed in my damn cathedral.” She gave him a hard look. “I’m not budging on this. We aren’t killing a dozen men who have no control over their actions. Period.”

Robert smoothed hands down his ceremonial robes. In a hoarse voice he asked, “Then what do we do? None of the staff know how to fight, and even if they did, they have weapons, your grace.”

Petra scraped her hair back from her face and muttered, “No one is fighting. I’m not risking anyone’s safety. We just need to knock them out of commission for a while. We have to get them out of the way, like—” She whirled on Robert and demanded, “Where are they now?”

“About to eat breakfast in the guest wing, I think,” he answered, brows furrowing.

“Have they gotten their food yet?”

“No? I— I don’t think so. The initiates were helping in the kitchen when your demon dragged me down the hall — which was very scary, by the way. Why?”

“Do you know if any of the staff takes sleeping pills? Sedatives of any kind, medicinal, recreational…” She waved her hand in a jerky circle. “Anything.”

Comprehension slowly dawned on Robert’s face. Near the door, a guffaw erupted from Silas.

“Yes, I do,” Robert breathed.

Petra licked her dry lips and ordered, “Get them and deliver them to Yelizaveta. Tell her to give the soldiers one pill each in their food and then lock the door to the wing behind her.”

Speaking in a whisper, he asked, “Just one?”

She shared a glance with Silas, who only lifted a shoulder. Attention swinging back to her assistant, she amended, “Best make it one and a half.”