Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

To my chosen, I bequeath my power—Spiritum, the magic of life. May it be used to bring about the world as it should be.

—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 714 (green text; spoken by Apollius to Gerard Arceneaux)

Lore the poison runner felt slightly nauseous, between the hunger and the smell of poison and the anxiety that numbed her limbs. But Eldelore Remaut would be thrilled to be pulled out into a mad Kirythean dance by a handsome prince, and it was Eldelore Remaut who needed to be here tonight, getting close to the Sun Prince and learning if he was currently committing treason.

If he was, the choice of Kirythean music was a bold one.

The deep-purple tulle of her skirt caught under her heel again, and Lore swore soundly, kicking it away. Bastian arched a brow, an amused smile picking up the corner of his mouth.

Eldelore Remaut probably wouldn’t do that.

The cousin of a duke would also be expected to dance well, a skill Lore didn’t possess. She’d tried, once, with a job at a tavern like the one Elle had, keeping patrons dancing, drinking, and spending their coin. She’d knocked over two barmaids and hadn’t lasted the night. Poison running was the only thing she’d ever been good at.

Poison running, and spying. She could do this.

Lore pulled back on Bastian’s leading hand. There were calluses on his knuckles, she noticed, which seemed strange for a prince, and the nose beneath his black mask looked slightly crooked, like it’d been broken before.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I won’t bite.” Then, the smile twisting higher, “unless you decide you want me to.”

She supposed she should blush, but she’d heard much worse, and dealt it, too. She tried for an answering smile she hoped was demure. “I’m afraid I don’t know this dance.” The Kirythean music careened wildly from the violins, a match for the cavorting of the crowd. The dance appeared to involve jumping and clapping, neither of which Lore thought she could do in her dress. “I’m not familiar with Kirythean customs. Are you?”

A leading question: Start easy, and see how hard they were going to make you work.

“Not necessarily.”

Harder than that, apparently.

Bastian pulled her to the center of the floor, through courtiers that parted like a jewel-toned wave. He raised a hand and gestured to the band in the corner. Abruptly, the music changed, moving to something slow and measured.

“But I’ve decided I’m over the katairos.” Bastian grinned, placing one hand on her waist. A beat, and he swept her into something Lore thought was a waltz. Hopefully, her guise as a country cousin would be ample cover for her lack of grace.

“So the Kirythean music was just for Gabriel’s benefit, then?” Lore cocked her head, smile still in place, though there was a hint of venom behind the question. The Mort was stuffy and overimportant and built like he could take care of himself, but their odd circumstances made her feel almost protective of him.

“It wasn’t for Gabe’s benefit at all.” Bastian spun her out, then pulled her back in, close to his black-clad chest. He was shorter than Gabriel, but only just, and Lore’s forehead would’ve knocked into his chin if he didn’t lean gracefully away, making it look like part of the dance. “The Kirythean music was because I like it.”

“I’m sure that thrills your father.”

His eyes sparked behind his mask, the slight smile on his mouth going sharp. “Nothing I do thrills my father. He’s decided I’m worthless, and I don’t particularly care enough to try and change his mind.”

Another spin, under his arm this time, his hand staying on the small of her back to guide her through.

“And just so we’re clear,” he murmured as she passed close again, “I wouldn’t taunt Gabe about his family. I know he thinks I’m awful, and he has his reasons, but even I’m not that heartless.”

Lore hoped her laugh didn’t sound as false as it felt. “But you’d make sure he doesn’t have a mask, so that everyone here can see his face.”

“I wanted the court to know he was here. To give him an opportunity to see what he’s missing, maybe decide to stay instead of slink back to the Presque Mort.” Bastian’s voice was pleasant, but the ridge of his jaw could carve stone. “My uncle has been half mad since his accident, even if everyone wants to pretend like it’s something holy, and he’s controlled Gabe’s life for fourteen years. I saw an opportunity to set him free, at least for a few weeks, and I took it. He should thank me.”

Lore wondered what Bastian would think if he knew that Gabe was only in the court because of Anton. That his uncle’s control was still ironclad.

“How exactly would making sure the court sees him here make him want to stay?” she asked.

Bastian waved a hand at the party. “Stick a man in a den of iniquity after he’s been cloistered for over a decade, and it’s likely he’ll fall into sin. If it was public enough, Anton might not let him come back into the monkish fold. That was the hope, anyway.” The Sun Prince snorted. “Though I’ve probably underestimated Gabe’s piety. He always was predisposed to martyrdom.”

They swayed in silence for a moment, the air between them filled with violins and the scent of spilled champagne.

“I suppose the fact that Gabe joined the Presque Mort was fortunate for you.” Bastian’s eyes were so dark a brown as to almost be black, and lit with prying curiosity. “As it was your ticket into the Court of the Citadel. I can’t imagine the third cousin of a disgraced duke being invited for the season if said disgraced duke hadn’t become the Priest Exalted’s pet project.”

He said it with a purposeful sort of condescension, like he was trying to bait her into disagreeing, and as if that disagreement would give something away.

She gave a closed-lip smile. “I would’ve found a way in,” she answered.

A country cousin hungry for power and placement, eager to be here. It was as far from what Lore felt as possible, but she could play the part.

Bastian stared at her a moment, inscrutable beneath his mask. Then he laughed, spinning her around again.

Gabriel still stood with Alienor at the edge of the ballroom. The two of them spoke with their heads bowed toward each other to hear, but his eye, bright with nerves, kept straying to find Lore and Bastian.

She was better prepared when Bastian spun her out this time. And when everyone stomped their right foot to the beat, Lore was perfectly in sync.

Bastian grinned. “A fast learner, are we?”

“I’m certainly trying to be.”

They came together again; Bastian slipped a hand around her waist, and she did the same as they circled each other, a movement that would’ve looked predatory without the softness dancing brought it. “That dress suits you,” Bastian said, not trying to hide the turn of his eyes up and down her form. “I didn’t get a very good look at you during the Consecration—or yesterday morning in the gardens, occupied as I was—but I thought it might.”

So he did recognize her from the gardens. Lore gave him a self-deprecating smile. “That was you? How embarrassing. My belongings didn’t arrive on time, so I had to borrow a dress from the Church’s donations.”

Hands left waists, came to face height and hovered within an inch of each other, palms flat as Lore orbited around him. “How fortunate,” Bastian murmured, “to have such a close contact in the Church.”

The dance ended. Around them, other couples were in a pose with their right hands together and the other curved above their heads, but Bastian and Lore still stood with their palms facing between them, almost touching but not quite.

“I look forward to having you around, Lore.” His voice was low, breath brushing her temple as he leaned forward to speak into her ear. “It certainly has the potential to be interesting.”

“Do you think so, Your Highness?”

He was close enough that she felt the brush of his lips curving. “I know so.”

Across the room, Alie watched them, giggling behind her hand. Next to her, Gabe caught Lore’s eye, arched a sardonic brow. She tried to make a face that communicated what else am I supposed to do? but mostly just succeeded in looking nauseous.

Bastian stepped back. He reached into his coat, and for a wild moment, Lore thought he was going to pull out a dagger or one of those tiny pistols, prove himself the Kirythean informant his father thought he was by taking care of her right here in the middle of his own party. The courtiers would probably love it. They’d all bring in peasants to murder at their own balls; it’d be the next big trend in masquerade hosting.

But all Bastian pulled from his coat was a pressed flower, a line of pale-purple blooms on a green stem.

“A foxglove for a foxglove.” Bastian handed it to her with a bow and a flourish. “Beautiful and poisonous. Much like yourself, if I may be so bold as to make an assessment after our brief acquaintance.”

Gingerly, Lore took the bloom. The dry petals crunched slightly between her fingers.

“Until next time, Lore.” Bastian turned and walked away, a drop of ink in a sea of color.

Lore closed the door to the apartments behind her and leaned back against it. “I suppose that went about as well as it could.”

“You performed your assignment admirably,” Gabriel said, sitting down on the couch with a long sigh.

“It seems ingratiating myself with Bastian won’t be the hard part.” Lore pulled off her mask and let it drop. “Getting any kind of information out of him will be. He’s not going to tell me he’s a traitor just because he thinks I’m pretty; he’s smarter than his father or his uncle gives him credit for.”

Gabe snorted.

Lore toed off the heeled slippers that had come with her costume, pale purple and embroidered with serrated leaves. Foxglove leaves. The dried bloom Bastian had given her was still in her palm. If she’d been found with something like this on the streets of Dellaire, it’d be at least three days in the Northwest Ward stocks if it was a first offense, and a ticket to the Burnt Isles if it wasn’t. But here, in this gilded palace full of money and excess, it was a prince’s idle gift.

She thought of the courtiers in the corner with their belladonna tea, physicians on call and no reason to worry. Her fist closed, crushing the flower into pastel dust. She brushed it from her hands and let it fall to the floor with her mask.

Feeling coming back into her feet now that her slippers were off, Lore walked over to Gabe and stood in front of him, gesturing to the buttons down her back. “Help me out here, I can’t reach.”

He hesitated a moment before setting to work. For a monk, he was a clever hand at undoing a woman’s buttons, a thought that flashed across her mind unbidden before she resolutely shut it out.

“Did he say anything important while you were dancing?” Gabe asked.

The only things she’d learned while dancing with Bastian were about Gabe. But some tug of intuition told her that if she tried to talk about that, he’d shut down. She’d only known Gabe for two days, but it was enough to know that he wouldn’t take lightly to disparaging Anton or the Presque Mort. People who thought they’d been saved tended to deify the savior.

“Not really. Certainly not anything that made it seem like he’s a Kirythean spy.” With a sigh, Lore flopped on the opposite end of the couch and propped up her aching feet on the ottoman. “I don’t understand why August is so convinced the informant is Bastian.”

“He told you. Because Bastian doesn’t want to be King.” Gabriel stared into the dying embers in the fireplace, head propped on his hand. He’d loosened his cravat, revealing a triangle of pale, freckle-dusted skin. “When we were young, he used to tell me he wanted to be a pirate.”

It was strange to think of the man across from her as the boy he must’ve been, cavorting around these halls with the Sun Prince and pretty Alie every summer. Not knowing that his life would crash down around his ears, that he’d have to rebuild it into something holy in order to survive.

“As someone who was maybe one degree removed from being a pirate,” Lore said, “I would like to disabuse anyone of the notion that it’s a great time.”

“A better time than being a King, I’d think.”

“Doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to start a war.”

“It might seem like one if you had the responsibility of being an Arceneaux King hanging over your head,” Gabe murmured to the fire.

She gave him an incredulous look. “For someone who clearly dislikes the man, you seem very in tune with how his mind works.”

He frowned at that. “I’m just saying I know Bastian well enough to understand that he’d see a war—especially one that seems all but inevitable eventually—as a small price to pay for leaving behind the responsibility his lineage brings him. Holy and otherwise.”

Lore scoffed, thinking of the iron bars on the marble floors, what they symbolized. The Arceneaux family’s divine right to rule came with the caveat that they’d have to control the Mortem leaking from Nyxara’s body. Establishing the Church and Citadel on top of Nyxara’s tomb kept Mortem contained, mostly, but according to the Tracts, the Arceneaux line could also wield Spiritum, Apollius’s power—the magic of life.

But not one Arceneaux had ever actually been able to do it.

“Do you believe that part?” she asked. “The Spiritum bit?”

Gabe stayed quiet for a moment, thinking. “I believe that the presence of the Arceneaux family in the Citadel is what keeps Mortem from overwhelming the continent.” He spoke slowly, piecing together a tapestry of belief and doubt. “That’s just history; we have records of what it was like before the Citadel was built, before Gerard Arceneaux made it the seat of his power.”

“But there’s no records of him actually using Spiritum, like it says in the Tracts.”

“It’s possible that was a misinterpretation. It’s happened before.” He looked her way. “Did your parents ever scare you with tales of the Night Witch?”

Her throat went dry. “The mad priestess?”

She said it like a question, like she wasn’t sure if she had it right. Like that story wasn’t an indelible part of her history.

“Exactly.” Gabe shifted on the couch, scratching at his eye patch. “The Night Witch was just a priestess, leader of the Buried Watch, a holy order tasked with guarding the Buried Goddess’s tomb and monitoring how much Mortem leaked out. They were a sister sect of the Presque Mort, actually, another group of Church-sanctioned channelers, though after the Citadel was built and Gerard Arceneaux crowned, that requirement was waived. By the time the Night Witch came around, she was the only channeler in the Watch.”

Lore made herself nod along.

Gabe continued. “Eventually, she went mad and tried to open the tomb. She claimed she was the goddess reborn, because she’d misinterpreted some Tract in the Book of Holy Law. It’s been stricken from the Compendium since.” He shook his head, almost in pity. “That’s why we need men like Anton, who can read the Tracts and help us know what they mean. The consequences can be horrific.”

Her fingers knotted in her lap, cold and numb.

They sat in silence, except for the crackling fire. After a moment, Gabe stood. He went into the bedroom that had been designated as his and came out with blankets and pillows, then began piling them by the door.

“You know there’s a perfectly serviceable bed in there, right?” Lore asked.

“I’m sleeping in front of the door.” Gabe glanced at her, a calculating shine in his visible eye, before stripping off his doublet and shirt. His chest was well muscled, covered with reddish hair darker than the gold-tinged shade of his head and beard. “I don’t trust anyone in this Citadel as far as I can throw them.”

“It looks as though you can throw them rather far,” Lore muttered.

“Let’s hope I don’t have to demonstrate.” Gabe nestled down into his makeshift bed, back against the door. If anyone tried to enter, they’d be blocked by a pile of one-eyed holy man. “If I were you, I’d go to bed. First Day prayers are at sunrise.”

First Day prayers—she’d forgotten that August was officially introducing them to court then. With a groan, Lore rose and walked to the bedroom that Gabe hadn’t ransacked. “Good night, Mort.”

“Good night, heretic.”

She had barely enough energy to laugh. Lore stepped out of her foxglove gown, leaving it in a lavender pile on the floor, and fell into sleep and darkness.