Chapter 53

Alarmed, I turned to see Margaux fumble past the guards flanking the entry. Once she was in, the door shut and the lock clicked back into place.

The oracle raced over and snatched the pillow from my hands.

"Don't—Hazel! Please don't!"

"What are you doing here?" I gaped, too surprised to put up a fight. "How did you know?"

"You can't do this," she said, squeezing the pillow tightly to her chest as if that was all it would take to stop me. "Euphemia is not meant to die. I had a vision."

Of course she'd known what I was about to do. Of course the Holy First had shown her. Nothing about this night was destined to be easy. I could almost hear Calamité laughing at me.

Except…

There was a prick of wrongness at the back of my neck, ticking, tapping.

"The Holy First sent you a vision?"

She nodded fervently, looking radiantly flushed, bursting with pious authority and hope. "She said that Euphemia was sick but that you're going to save her. She said that I'm to help you."

It didn't add up.

None of this did.

Merrick had made a bargain with the Holy First, allowing her to use me to save the lives of innocents. Why would she place a deathshead on Euphemia if she was going to show Margaux that I was meant to save her?

She wouldn't.

So who had seen the correct vision? Margaux or me?

I cupped the princess's cheek, watching as the skull blossomed over her. It was still there, staring up at me with the void of its empty eye sockets. Nothing had changed. My order was clear, even if Margaux was trying to muddle it up.

She could say the Holy First has declared the moon is made of pumpernickel and we all would have to believe it because no one can say otherwise.

Leopold had said that so many months ago as we returned from the Rift. He'd doubted Margaux from the very beginning, but I hadn't listened. I'd thought her an ally, a friend at court who was just like me. A thirteenth child, a marionette whose strings were pulled by our designated deities.

But what if Margaux had been the puppet master all along?

Just yesterday she'd talked the king into executing Baudouin and his family. What was she trying to get me to do now? I couldn't begin to guess what she was playing at, what her endgame was meant to be. But I knew I needed to be careful. I could give her no reason to think I suspected her of anything other than wanting the princess well.

Euphemia coughed, and a fresh wave of Brilliance poured from her mouth.

Margaux let out a sound of pained surprise. "Shouldn't you be treating her?"

I held out my hands helplessly. "In your vision, did the First show you how I'm supposed to save her? The king has locked me in here, and I don't have my bag. There's nothing I can do, and she's so terribly sick."

Margaux brightened. "But there is! I have your medicines!" She gestured to the satchel crossed over her chest with a long strap, hidden in the deep pleats of her layered robes. I'd not even noticed her wearing it till now.

I blinked in surprise. "Why would you have those?"

Margaux's smile was one of long-suffering patience. "I told you, the vision. I was at the ball—dancing with the prince, of all people—when I saw what was to happen. I knew you'd be trapped here, without your supplies." She frowned, a look of guilt crossing her face. "I took a bunch of things from your workroom. I hope I didn't make too much of a mess. I just wanted to grab whatever you might need quickly, so that you could fix all this." She motioned to Euphemia.

At face value, the story sounded believable, but it still clanged against me all wrong.

Margaux, dancing with the prince?

"That was clever thinking," I began slowly, unsure of how to handle this, what to do, what to say. "What did you bring?"

Margaux let out a sigh of relief and hoisted the satchel over her head. In her haste, part of the strap snagged at her neckline, pulling a button loose and exposing the hollow of her throat. It was the most undone I'd ever seen her. Her worry was palpable.

When I opened the bag, I was surprised to see it crammed full of vials and sachets, envelopes of herbs and powders. A whole chunk of black agar resin, a small mortar and pestle. Everything you'd need to treat someone with the Shivers, packed as thoughtfully and thoroughly as if I'd done it myself.

But Margaux couldn't have known the princess had been stricken with something that looked like the Shivers. Euphemia had been fine before the ball—a little fevered, a little bright-eyed, to be sure—but the Brilliance had not begun until she and I were on the dance floor. And I'd covered her face the moment I realized what was happening, racing her from the hall before anyone else could see and panic.

The only people who knew she was sick were me, the king, and the two maids he'd kicked out.

How had Margaux known?

"These are…These will be very useful," I said, rummaging through the bag and pulling out vials. Nothing within was an overt poison, nothing that would give Euphemia a quick death. I scanned my labels with a critical eye, pondering potential combinations. The pillow would probably be a quicker kindness.

"Such a blessing," Margaux murmured distractedly. Her eyes were fixed on Euphemia's chest, watching it rise and fall. "Are you starting treatments now? What can I do to help?"

She sounded in earnest, her concern most evident. There was an odd expression on her face, relief mixed with something bigger, darker.

Guilt.

My mind raced, trying to put together all the pieces I had, flipping them from this side to that, but I couldn't make everything fit. I couldn't see the full picture. Not yet. And I was running out of time.

I had no idea where the king was now, or if he'd found Bellatrice yet, but if there was a way, I needed to warn her. And I couldn't do it with Margaux watching my every move.

"Margaux?"

She looked up, dragging her gaze from the princess.

"How did you know Euphemia was sick?"

She frowned. "I told you. The vision."

I slowly shook my head. "I don't think that's true. I don't think any of your story is true."

She made an odd little noise, laughter mixed with disbelief. "Hazel, what do you mean? What could you possibly—"

"Euphemia isn't going to make it. If the Holy First had actually sent you a vision, you would have seen that. You would have seen me kill her."

Fear flashed through her eyes. "The pillow…I saw it in your hands when I arrived, but you wouldn't have really…Were you going to kill her? Euphemia? Truly?" She swallowed, waving her hands as if to waft the horrible thought from her. "It doesn't matter. I brought all the things you need to treat her. You have the medicines now. She's going to get well."

"Margaux, this isn't the Shivers. These medicines won't fix it."

For one slip of a moment, I could see her panic, her uncertainty. "They won't?"

"They could, maybe; I don't know. But what she has isn't the Shivers, and I won't—"

"Just fix her!" she demanded, striking the mattress with the thick flesh of her palm, her voice growing high and pitched with desperation.

We stared at each other with wide eyes. Margaux seemed as surprised by her outburst as I was. She let out a small laugh, running her hand up the side of her neck, fumbling with her neckline, thumbing a chain she wore as she sought to steady herself. Her fingers were trembling.

"I'm so sorry. That was uncalled for," she murmured, careful to regulate her tone more evenly. She raked her fingers through her hair, mussing the elaborate curls, and the necklace fell free.

A little bronze charm dangled from a matching chain. It sparkled in the room's candlelight.

My eyes narrowed.

Reverents of the Holy First wore silver. Margaux's fingers and wrists were covered in it, rings and bracelets all hammered from the finest sterling.

Bronze was the metal of…

The Divided Ones.

"What a pretty necklace," I said, keeping my voice light and innocent. "I've never noticed it before."

"Oh," she began, but stopped short, fingering the charm for a moment before tucking the chain away. As she parted the unbuttoned neckline of her robes, I saw a flash of red just under the hollow of her throat.

It was a line, thick and angry, and it looked like a burn or a welt.

Or one of the scars that covered my brother.

My brother, a member of the Fractured.

I glanced over the oracle's robes with fresh interest. Every inch of skin from the curve of her chin to the knuckles of her fingers to the tips of her boots was covered with layers and layers of thick fabric.

"An old family bauble," she said, patting at her bodice to make sure the necklace was well and truly covered. "I don't usually wear it, but since tonight was a special occasion…" She sighed, arranging her face into a look of contrition. "I'm sorry for yelling earlier. I'm just so worried about Euphemia. We need to—"

Without warning, I launched myself at her, knocking us both from the bed.

We fell in a tangled heap of twisted limbs as I fought against the long layers, trying to find the scar I'd glimpsed.

"Have you lost your mind? Hazel, what are you—" she started, struggling to defend herself.

I knew the instant she realized what I was doing. Her efforts to throw me off her escalated and she lashed out, swiping at me with curved fingers and flailing legs. One of her kicks landed a direct shot in my stomach and I doubled over, clutching my abdomen with one arm. When she tried again, I caught hold of her foot and hung on, flinging aside layers of gauze and brocade, ripping them in my attempt to reveal a long swath of bare leg.

I couldn't suppress my gasp.

Margaux's calf was broken into a dozen segments of mutilated flesh. Scars, thick and angry, crisscrossed her skin from ankle to thigh. The cuts were cruel and jagged, carved by hands that had been too small and too young to wield a blade so large.

"Oh, Margaux," I murmured, reaching out to her with sympathy even as I realized what the scars meant.

She flopped backward, trying to cover herself, but the scars could not be unseen.

"You're not an oracle," I said slowly. "Not for the Holy First. You're…"

"Fractured," she confirmed after a long, tense moment. She let out a curse, growling darkly.

I leaned back against the side of Euphemia's bed, suddenly exhausted. "You've been lying this whole time."

"No," she hurried to disagree, but then stopped short, looking lost and without a script to follow. Whatever her plan had been, it had not included this. "I mean…it looks that way, yes. But…I'm not Fractured. Not anymore…" She offered me a small smile, as if that confession was enough to regain my trust, to show me that we were on the same side.

I wasn't falling for it.

"Has anything you've told me ever been true? Are you even a thirteenth child?"

"Of course I am!" she snapped, wounded. "I'm every bit as special as you are. Even more so, truly."

There was something in her tone, in that imperious tilt to her head, that stirred up a memory I'd not thought of in years.

"I know you," I whispered, floored as I pulled that dreadful afternoon from the deep recesses of my mind. "You were the little novice at the temple in Rouxbouillet, that day when Bertie was sold off." My hands flew to my face, covering my mouth. "That wasyou!"

Margaux's lips parted. She looked as though she was going to deny it but then nodded. "It was."

I felt stunned into silence.

Her face curled in a sneer, all fa?ades falling away. "You've no idea how much I hated you."

"What? Why?"

Margaux snorted. "That look right there, for starters! You're like a little woodland creature, all big-eyed innocence, fawning naiveté. It's sickening."

"Margaux, I don't know what I've ever done to offend you. I don't even know how I could have—"

Her hands balled into fists. "Just…being here. Just… existing," she snapped, struggling to explain her resentment. "Our priestess wanted you so badly. It was all she could talk about." She pantomimed a spread banner. "?‘The Thirteenth Child Who Got Away.' When she already had me! And your brother! Oh—he was the worst!"

Her words rushed from her in a manic deluge. I felt each exclamation land on me like an assault.

"When he first arrived, of course, he had to take a vow of silence. One whole year of wordless devotion, of purifying your thoughts and mind and readying to serve your gods. But when his vow ended, all sorts of stories came tumbling out of him, and they were all about you. He was so proud, proud to have a sister chosen by a god. He was starstruck, I think, bragging about all the things your father had told him. The night that three gods came for you. The night you were chosen. The night the Dreaded End promised you all those extra years."

"Extra years," I repeated, dismayed that my father had understood Merrick's promise for me before I ever had. He'd told Bertie, and Bertie had gone on to tell Margaux. I felt a lurch of queasy dread in my stomach. That was my secret. That Margaux knew it felt terribly, terribly wrong.

"What do you need so many years for anyway?" she went on, the question falling from her lips with ease, and I suddenly pictured her in her chambers, asking it over and over as she paced, as she fixated, as she raged. "Why did your god give them to you but mine didn't do the same? It's so unfair. So infuriating. No matter what I did with my life, no matter how talented I was, no matter the great things I'd accomplish, at the back of my mind were all those extra years of yours, taking up space, pricking and prodding at me. So yes. I hated you," Margaux admitted. "You weren't living in a crowded dormitory, fighting for every scrap of attention, for a chance to be noticed. You weren't flaying yourself open, literally pouring out your blood to prove your love. You had blessings untold, and on top of everything, all those years."

"Margaux, I never asked for them. Merrick had it arranged before I was even—"

"Eventually," she went on, speaking over me as if my protests, my explanations meant nothing, "my anger and resentment built to such a fevered pitch that my lord finally took notice. Calamité came to me one night and promised that if I devoted my life to him alone, he would bless me too."

"But you're a daughter of the Divided Ones…of all their gods. How could you abandon the rest of them?"

Margaux shrugged. "What have they ever done for me? Calamité saw that I was special. He promised to reward me. So I accepted his offer. And he has."

She reached into the folds of her robes and withdrew the bronze chain once more, showing off the trinket.

"Where's your whistle, healer?" she demanded, her mouth open wide as she laughed. Candlelight winked off her canines, making her look as dangerous as a rabid dog. Without warning, she put the pipes to her lips and blew.

A low and familiar atonal rumble rang out, a call to war, a call to chaos and ill fortune. A call to the only god who ever came when beckoned.

Calamité.