Chapter Thirty-Six

I woke with a kink in my neck and pain in my bladder. The candle had burned out, washing the world in sweeps of shadow and gray. Moonlight shone off the walls of the tent, illuminating the fuzzed outline of a bed, a chair and—

Erik.

He’d grabbed a pillow and a blanket and hauled them onto the ground beside me. His breath came out deep and even. Lashes shaded his cheek.

The memory of last night swam through my mind, the tangle of his hand in my hair, the brush of his knuckles against my jaw…

The pain pressed harder.

There was a chamber pot on the nightstand near the bed, but there was no way I was going to pee in Erik’s tent, especially with Erik sleeping right there.

I pulled on his soft blue jacket and piled my hair into a high ponytail. I caught my reflection in the mirror—gaunt cheeks, bloodshot eyes. I hadn’t slept long enough.

Still, from a distance I might pass as Vold, especially if I kept my head down…and there had to be rocks farther down the beach.

I’d just pee and come right back. It would be quick. Erik wouldn’t even know I was gone.

I fumbled through the dark, searching for my shoes. Not there. Not anywhere.

Fine. I’d go barefoot.

The world was sharper outside, starker. White sea. Black sky. Silver moonlight spindled shadows into hands, into puppets, into a play. Foam tumbled like threads of cotton.

My bare feet left a string of footprints in the sand, and there was careful silence, a sucking silence, a dreamy silence filled with the lap of water and the tink of shells on the tide, and I was a seed, a spark, a small thing set against the sky.

I went a little ways around the side of the cliff, found a secluded spot between two rocks, and maybe I shouldn’t have gone so far, but I couldn’t shake the sense of being watched. It needled the base of my neck.

Wind and foam, the ink-black bodies of birds and the mouth of dreams yawned wide.

A flash of color, of warmth.

“Isy!”

I jumped. “What the hell?”

Katrina threw her arms around me, and then it was all wax and wool, the rosemary scent of her soap. “You’re back!”

The last time I’d seen her, she’d been hitting me. Now she was hugging me, and I didn’t even care because this was Katrina and she was okay. Okay . But now I really couldn’t ignore the pain in my bladder. “I was going to the bathroom.”

She squeezed harder. “I missed you. You—”

“You said you’d come back,” Stefan supplied. Fog matted his hair, darkened it to a ruddy red and caused water to pill along the strands. He’d shoved his hands into his pockets, popped his jacket collar against the cold.

I wiggled out of Katrina’s grip. “You should have waited for me to come to you. It’s not…” I glanced over my shoulder. “It’s not safe.”

Stefan gave me a hard look. “ Were you going to come to us? Or were you going to—”

“Oh save it,” Katrina said. “We were trying to figure out whether or not to kidnap you out of that tent. I said yes, Stefan said no. But you’re here now, so that doesn’t matter. Do you want to see what we’ve been up to?” She shrugged off her shoulder bag and flipped the flap to reveal bottles—rows of them, all filled with the same cloudy liquid.

She plucked one out and held it up to the moonlight. Not cloudy. Amber. The color of fresh-strained honey. The sharp tang of lamp oil cut through the air.

“What…?” I asked.

She grinned, pulling out something devious. “They’re incinerates. For the Vold ships. We’re going to torch the fleet.”

I plucked the bottle from her hand, a perfume vial with a curving neck and glass butterflies that scalloped the edges. Pink. The color of starfish or slippers. The butterfly wings caught the light, casting rainbows across the sand. “You’re going to… Why?”

“Think about it, Isy. When do you use a weapon? If you’re attacking or if you’re under attac— ”

Down the beach, a dog barked. Shouts.

Stefan grabbed Katrina’s waist and hauled her into the shadow of a rock. I snatched the bag and ducked after them.

“That’s not—” Off the shore, hundreds of boats floated. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it wasn’t a good one, either. “If you torch the fleet, you’ll be trapping them. You’ll be making things worse. Erik said there was a corruption growing in Larland, a darkness. He said it’s going to devour everything. Maybe if we—”

“Why are you defending them?” Stefan shot back. He pressed himself under a rocky outcropping. “They literally conquered us. What don’t you understand?”

“We could steal the weapon for ourselves. Instead of turning it over to Larland, maybe we use it to—”

Something blinked above the cliff side, a glint of light, a speck of silver, there then gone.

Stefan dug a mirror out of his pocket. “He’s lying. I’ve been to Larland. I have family in Larland. I visit them every summer. There’s nothing there.” He tipped the mirror, sending back a flash of light. “Our best chance—our only chance—is maintaining our alliance with Larland. That’s it. And torching the fleet is the best plan we have. So unless you have a better idea—”

“That was the signal,” Katrina said.

My stomach lurched. “Wait. You’re going tonight?”

“Yeah, silly. You coming?” Katrina offered her hand. There was an eagerness in the gesture, a giddiness that reminded me of sneaking out.

But this wouldn’t solve the problem. I’d spent more time around the Volds than anyone. We’d be trapping them. No trees meant they wouldn’t be able to rebuild the fleet. They’d be stuck and the hellhounds would burrow like ticks into the island. If Erik was telling the truth—and I believed he was—torching the ships would cause more destruction, not less.

I needed to talk Stefan and Katrina out of it.

“What if we wait a little while?” I asked. “Watch the patrols? Maybe I could get the information from Erik—”

Stefan snorted. “We poisoned Lothgar and stole a crate of syn rót. We’ve snuck in and out of the Vold camp dozens of times. We’ll be fine. Let’s go.”

“ You poisoned Lothgar?”

“Yeah. Pipe root.”

“But there isn’t an antidote for pipe root…” Once it was in the system, it would be a slow death like a caterpillar eating a leaf, consuming the muscles until the lungs gave out and the heart could no longer squeeze.

Stefan gave me a sharp look. “Why would I give him something with an antidote? Come on. We’re out of time.”

Another flash of light above the ridgeline.

He grabbed my wrist and—

I had to stop them. Stefan and Katrina were like caged cats, desperate animals, and they were about to make things worse, so much worse.

“I think I know what the weapon is,” I blurted.

Stefan paused, his fingers still on my arm. Fog rolled around us like water, like dreams.

“They’re called the Lover’s Boxes,” I continued. “You can pass messages for a toll, like the ability to see the color green or smell rain. Erik can’t hear whistling.” My heart pounded, ba-dum, ba-dum . Erik had told me not to pass information, but I had to get Stefan and Katrina to back down.

“That doesn’t sound like a weapon,” Stefan said. “You didn’t find anything else? What were they looking for?”

“A place to launch ships.”

“They told you this?”

“I saw the map. White stones and black. Rythja and the other houses. Erik was going to make them invisible, but that doesn’t matter. When I used the boxes, I felt something. Wings. Fire. Death. I’m going to help him steal them from the Vold king.” Ba-dum, ba-dum . I was floating, falling, outside my body looking in. “They’re from the Sanokes. I-I think they have some sort of magic.”

The sea tossed, a roll of foam, a sweep of hands. A pair of petrels skirted the sky.

Stefan’s brow furrowed. “The Sanokes don’t have magic.”

Katrina shrugged. “I mean, there’s the screaming thing.”

Another blink of light on the ridgeline, this one more frantic.

Blink, blink . Pause. Blink, blink .

“We have to go,” Katrina said. “They’re moving.”

“Time,” I continued. “That’s all I’m asking for. Give me time to steal the boxes. I think that will fix things. If it doesn’t, maybe we can use the boxes to drive the Volds out ourselves.” What about Hans? His memory? His legacy? “Just…” I pressed a hand to my forehead, “trust me.”

“How much time do you need?” Stefan asked.

“Ten days?”

He glanced between me and the ships, his jaw set, hands curled. He was going to torch the fleet, anyway. He was going to—

He pulled out the mirror and gave three sharp twists of the wrist. “You can have seven. Come on, Katrina.”

Katrina hesitated, her mouth drawn. “I thought you died,” she said after a moment. “I thought you went off and got yourself killed. I thought…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It doesn’t matter.”

I bit my lip. “I get it. I was pretty sure you were going to die, too.”

“You don’t get it. I grieved you. You made me grieve you. You did, Isy. And I was still grieving Hans and it was—” She pressed a palm to her temple and shook her head. “I don’t want to fight you. I’m sick of fighting you.”

I tucked my hands under my arms. “I’m sorry you grieved me. What did you write?”

Something in her expression softened. She laughed and swiped a tear. “I said you were an idiot, but you were my idiot, and that I hate you, but I also love you.”

“Sounds about right.”

She slipped a silver ring off her pinky, one of the bands the carrier pigeons wore. “It reminds me of him.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “Maybe it’ll remind you, too.”

Seven days to steal the boxes.

It wasn’t enough.

It had to be enough.

Alone in Erik’s tent, I balanced the pigeon ring on the lid of the letter box. Made it stand. Made it spin. Each rotation caught my face, caught the light. Face. Light. Face. Light. Face—

“We’ll work on your lying first,” Erik said, grabbing two blunted knives and heading toward the beach. “Repeat after me. Erik isn’t attractive.”

The sea spit like a cauldron of foam, all smoke and sleepy white. The morning held a clean sort of cold.

“Erik isn’t—wait!” I fell into step beside him. “Why do I need to be a better liar?”

He smirked. “I am not sometimes flustered by Erik’s incredibly impressive abdominals.”

I swiped my nose. “You realize I’m stealing boxes, right? No lying involved. Also, I wanted to talk about the timing of this heist. How does next week sound? Maybe before Thursday?”

He kept an even stride. “We need to figure out where Herleif’s keeping the boxes. The best way to do that is to shadow walk, and the only person I trust to shadow walk is in prison. So first step: break into the prisons and shadow walk with Bo. And yes, you will need to lie for that. So, ‘I’m not sometimes flustered by Erik’s impressive abdominals.’ Say it.”

“Erik is a grump.”

He cocked a brow.

“Fine. Erik isn’t attractive.”

He waited.

“I’m not saying the thing about the abdominals.”

Back in the tent, the ring scraped against the cracked leather, spinning and spinning. Face. Light. Face. Light. Face —

“We need more information,” Stefan said. It was two days later and we were in the cellar, shadows spilling over sacks of potatoes and radishes with pink-colored tops. “Where are they keeping the weapon?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“What can we use against them?”

“I’m working on it.”

He pounded the table. “Dammit, Isy.”

Time blurred, slowed, slipped between my fingers, an hourglass with the sands running backward, running up.

Face. Light. Face. Light. Face—

Erik took my hands in his, flipped my wrists over. “The key to lying is to maintain your baseline. You get nervous. It’s a tell. Take a deep breath.” His eyes found mine, so steady, so sure. “Good. Now,” he traced the heart line on my palm, “tell me you don’t think I’m attractive.”

We’re running out of time. Stefan.

“Take your time.” Erik.

Always keep your eye on the enemy. Stefan.

“Always keep your eye on the environment .” Erik. His leg swept out, knocking me to the ground.

The knife skittered out of my hand.

“Rude,” I said, shaking the sand from my skirts. “And against the rules.”

Rain pattered and a thin fog rose from the sands. Streams squiggled toward the beach.

“Stop trying to act like a Vold warrior. You’re not a Vold warrior, and you probably won’t ever be one. That’s okay. You have different skills. Use them.” He picked up the knife and placed it in my hand, correcting my grip. Thumb on top, fingers underneath. He smoothed my knuckles. “Again.”

To be clear , Stefan said. You don’t know where they’re keeping the Lover’s Boxes. You don’t know what the Lover’s Boxes do. What are you doing?

“Erik isn’t attractive,” I said, braiding my hair.

“Erik isn’t attractive.” Spooning bites of porridge into my mouth.

“They took another city,” Stefan said.

“The hellhounds are getting worse.” Erik.

The ring wobbled. Face. Light. Face. Light.

“Come at me,” Erik said.

Rain came down in sheets, hard and heavy, blurring the world into a river. That clean sense of cold curled up my back.

I lunged for his bicep, scraped the blade across it, and dove for his thigh.

He whirled and struck my heart. “I win.”

“Wrong.” A fluttery feeling swept through my hands. “Your bicep controls arm extension, your inner thigh, your ability to run. You’d be disarmed and on the ground.”

Rain matted his shirt, his hair, darkened the strands to a straw-spun blonde. He flashed a smile. “I knew you’d figure it out.”

You’re supposed to be stealing the boxes , Stefan said. What are you doing instead?

“Erik isn’t attractive.” Brushing my teeth.

“Erik isn’t attractive.” Washing my face.

“Erik isn’t attractive.” Hunting for a place to pee.

“Erik isn’t—”

I pulled back the flap of Erik’s tent. “You are the ugliest person I have ever seen. You are a gargoyle, a troll, and your abdominals look like a wheel of cheese. They offend my eyes. Sometimes I lie awake and think about how terrible and ugly they are. I hate them, I hate them, I hate—”

The ring clattered to the lid of the letter box.

Erik glanced up from the stack of papers on his desk. The corner of his mouth quirked. “I think you’re ready.”

“I’m ready?”

He stood and stepped around the furniture, leaving his palm against the wood. “Provided you promise me one thing.”

I cocked a brow. “Depends on the thing.”

“If it comes to a physical fight, I want you to use your skills to disarm them. Then I want you to run. Run as fast as you can.”

My heart sunk. “So you don’t have faith in me.”

He laughed and stepped closer. “Isabel. You were so fast when you tried to bolt out of my tent.”

“You still caught me.”

He captured my hand and pulled me closer still. “I’m exceptionally quick. And I was motivated.”

“To use your…talents?”

His eyes flashed. “To keep you with me.” He swept his thumb over my palm. “After all, you are a dangerous spy.”

I caught his scent. My knees wobbled. “I’m…dangerous?”

“Oh, the most.” His thumb continued to circle. He took a step forward, then another, walking me against the desk. “Poisoning my men. Befriending everyone. I’m fairly certain you stole the Lover’s Boxes a few times on the trip back.”

“I…” My chest buzzed.

He dropped his voice to a purr. “Were you a naughty little spy? Are you going to confess?”

“No.”

“Liar.” He tangled his hand through my hair and tipped my chin back, exposing the column of my throat. He pressed his lips there, gave a little nip, a little suck, drawing another bruise to the surface. “Come now. Confess to me.” Another nip, another suck. His mouth moved lower. Nip, suck.

My palms went sweaty. I wanted to faint. “Are you trying to get me to crack again?”

“Oh, I’m not just trying .” He turned me to face the desk, positioned my hands on the wood, and knocked my stance wider. “Did you steal the Lover’s Boxes, Isabel?” He wrapped one arm around my waist and brushed his mouth against the back of my shoulder. Nip, suck.

“I…did.” The words came out breathless.

Nip, suck. “I thought so.”

“Every night.”

Nip, suck. He moved my braid aside. “I’m not surprised.” His hand fell to the front of my skirt, untucking my sweater. Without the bulk, the waistband slipped lower, and he toyed with one of the buttons, his knuckles skimming the bare skin of my stomach.

Chills swept through my body. “Sometimes I stole them multiple times a night.”

He sucked harder, rocking slightly, and his hand doubled back as if he might slip his fingers beneath the fabric and touch me lower.

My heart thundered, and something inside me said yes, yes, yes and please, please, please .

“Like, a lot of times. More times than you think. Are you going to make me scream it?”

The heat of him disappeared. “Withstanding interrogation is like withstanding any other type of torture. It’s all mental.”

I turned, and he stood by the door, tugging on his jacket.

He grinned. “We’ll practice it again sometime. Later. Right now, we have work to do.”