Chapter 42

"Run!" Althea screamed, frantically waving her hands from off stage.

I didn't hesitate, darting behind the curtain as the gathered performers that had come to watch our feral dance scattered like rats in the sewer.

"Plan?" Paesha shouted, running for the tunnel,

I drew short, yelling for them to stop. "We can't go through the tunnel. It's the easiest way to trap us. We need a different way out."

"On it," Thea answered, taking a sharp right down a narrow hall.

"Stick with her," Paesha said, letting me pass. "I have to get Quill."

"Be careful."

She yanked me into a hug. "You, too. We'll be right behind you."

Moments later, we were sliding behind one of Drexel's massive art pieces, into a hidden hole in the wall.

"There's another tunnel?"

The handle of Thea's hammer, hanging loosely on her belt, slid against the wall of the metal tube as she reached for my hand. "Syndicate use only. No one else knows it's here, not even the Maestro."

"Gods. You put this down here with your power?"

"For special occasions like these." She beamed. "Come on."

We ran for what felt like forever, twisting and turning through the narrow tunnel buried beneath the city. A masterpiece. A labyrinth depositing us into a small room beneath an old apartment building within the heart of Silbath.

"Keep going. Up these stairs."

Letting her guide the way, I gripped the iron railing in the hall, taking the steps two at a time, just as she had. "This is Ezra's old place. We've been using it as a backup meeting spot since Orin kicked everyone out of our house."

"How big is his apartment?"

"Not just the one, silly. He owned the whole building. Four little homes." Thea took a deep breath, resting her hand on the knob of the furthest door from the stairs we'd climbed. "The others… they can be a little rough around the edges."

I leveled a serious stare. "So can I."

"Good point." She pushed the door open, stepping aside so I could take in the room littered with strangers. In the middle of a long, droopy couch, Elowen sat sandwiched between two men, likely older than Orin. One, the large man that'd helped him the night he'd stabbed me, stood, moving his body as a shield between us.

Elowen shooed him away. "I've told you a hundred times, Jarek, she's perfectly safe. Stop this." She rose, coming to rest her hands on my arms. "I'm sure you have questions. I'll start from the beginning. Shall we sit?"

The dusty paintings and tapestries hung along the walls had lost their luster, matching the worrisome faces of the gathered people as they watched the door. The entry room had clearly been transformed into a meeting space, filled with as much seating as they could fit. The lamps were dim, as if to hide the secrets of the Syndicate, and, though it was tidy, dust had begun to collect on the chair rail circling the space.

I followed her to an empty couch crammed in a corner. She lifted a blanket and spread it across her lap, tucking her dark hair behind an ear. "When Orin was a boy, he would bring home every stray child he could find. We'd feed them and clothe them as best we could, offering shelter for as long as we could. We'd asked both kings to help fund the house, to help with food and coin, but we were denied. We try not to get involved with the politics of it all. We just help those who need it and keep our heads down."

"We're not here to fix the world," Thea added. "We're just trying to make life easier for those who need it most. But some of the people we'd been helping started disappearing. Tolen Santus, for example. And, at first, we thought it was because of you. But even when you were at the house, and we knew you hadn't left, it was still happening."

So, they hadn't been a great crime ring or their own version of the law. They weren't even warriors. Just a group of people trying to do right by the world.

"That's why Orin wanted me to stay there?"

Thea stepped forward. "We never meant to make you feel like a prisoner. But we wanted to know what was happening. And we couldn't risk the Maestro finding out about any of it. We knew he wouldn't demand answers if he didn't know anything, so we've been working together to keep everything from him, even searching for the Life Maiden."

I drew back, shaking my head. "Gods, you could have just asked. I would have given you my victims' names."

"And trusted you to speak the truth?" Jarek rested an arm on the back of the couch.

"Who are you to question me? You don't even know me."

His accusatory eyes narrowed just as the door slammed open, and Paesha, Hollis, and Quill rushed inside.

"Orin?" Elowen asked.

Paesha shook her head, eyes cast to the floor. "He said he had some stuff to sort, and he'd be here as soon as he could."

"How many would you say there were, Dey?" Hollis asked, stepping beyond the door to take a seat in one of the old wooden chairs lined up against the wall.

"At least fifty, not including any that might've been in the halls."

"Just tell us what happened," Elowen interrupted. "Nyx saw the soldiers leaving the castle and came to get me, but we've heard nothing else."

"They're hunting me. I should have known it would happen. They found out I was in the last show, I'm sure."

"Well, you killed two of his guards, and we incapacitated a lot more. The new king might've been scorned when you left him at the altar, but now he's pissed," Paesha said. "The only thing we can do right now is wait it out."

"I have to perform in the next show, no matter what. If I don't…" My voice trailed off, unwilling to reveal the stakes to strangers.

Elowen leaned into me. "You better make a plan then, because my brother isn't going to miss the opportunity to see you captured before you can walk out on that stage."

Orin never came.And though I knew it was foolish, I found myself on the rooftop of the apartment building, still dressed in the golden gown, with a heavy blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I stared out over the city, listening to the gritty ambiance of Requiem. Far off in the distance, the clock tower in Perth orientated me. Beyond that, my father's castle could hardly be seen, bathed in shadow, a reminder that even the strongest could be slain. No one took their title into eternity. In Death's court, people were nothing more than wandering souls.

Every movement in the city below snatched my attention as I watched for armor, but more than that, I sought a broad figure with a heart of stone and enough stubbornness to break me.

"You'll catch a cold," Hollis said, startling me. I whipped around just in time to see his smile curl. He walked to the edge, wrapping age-marked hands around the rusted railing. "Care to share your thoughts with an old man?"

"Trust me, whatever's twirling around in this brain isn't worth the time it takes to speak it."

"Oh, Little Dove. We all see the way you look at him."

"I'm not supposed to care," I whispered. "Caring makes me vulnerable and weak. And all we do is fight. He hates me."

"No. He doesn't. You just make him feel things he'd rather believe are not possible. In all my years, I've learned that when it comes to matters of the heart, there's nothing rational about it. And just when you think you've got it all figured out, you find out you know nothing at all. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have traded the only freedom he would ever know for your safety."

We watched the crows peck along the cracks in the ground, bathed in the blue cast of the streetlamps. A hunched figure, wrapped in layers of worn clothing, stepped a little too close, and the birds scattered, cawing their disapproval as my mind spun with confessions best left unspoken.

But I was weak. And more than anything in the world, I needed a friend. This friend.

"It's just… There are these moments I have with him that feel so raw and real. Where the man behind the anger that consumes him comes out, and that version of him is so kind. The night he married me… I know he lied, Hollis. I know he was doing it because he had to. But there was a sincerity there, in his hopes for the world, in the way he'd looked at me. And I've spent every day since longing for the way he'd made me feel."

I swallowed the thick lump in my throat, leaning my head on the old man's shoulder when he wrapped an arm around me. My nose stung, giving away the tears that pooled in my eyes. I tried to force the heavy emotions away, but there was safety here with Hollis. A space he'd created where I was never judged. "You've always made me feel like more than what I am. Thank you."

He chuckled, leaning his head to mine. "You are more than you believe yourself to be, my girl. He'll see the light one day, I'm certain."

"But what if I truly am only darkness?"

"You aren't. But if you were, then he would see the cataclysmic depths of you and wonder how you find the will to light up a room, all the same."

I swiped away the tears freezing my cheek. "How did you get so wise, Old Man?"

He sighed, watching his breath plume in the chilly air before drawing back his sleeve to reveal an aged golden band on his forearm. "I loved a woman once. Promised her the world, and I intended to keep that promise. I didn't have much more than the clothes on my back and a spool of thread in my pocket, though. So, I stitched her a bracelet and promised to replace it one day with a gold band. I wanted everything with her. The home, the children, the world."

I was almost afraid to ask. "What happened?"

He lifted his chin to the silver moonlight, eyes falling shut as a single tear fell, wrenching my heart into pieces. "My sister killed her."

Old men weren't supposed to cry.

Jarek slammeda handful of posters onto the table the next morning at breakfast, his massive brown hand wrinkling the whole stack as he slumped so heavily into the metal chair beside Quill, I thought it might break. "We've got a problem."

Sliding my glass of water to the side, I lifted the paper, eyes gliding down the beautifully crafted message.

Step into a realm of wonder and awe,

Misery's End awaits you.

Unlike anything you've ever witnessed before

A final act that will leave you eager for more when Death's Maiden takes the stage.

Tonight only – Admission will be free.

I nearly chokedon my own gasp. "What the hell is he planning?"