Page 93

“And other people?” Melodie asked.

“Other people call me Queen Ava of Kassia and Cervantes.”

“I lookedfor you and your father for years.” Ava had her arm through Melodie’s and she tugged her a little way away from the buildings. “I offered your father a place to stay at my grandmother’s estate in Grimwalt, but he never came.”

Melodie glanced behind her, grateful for a little time away from the curious stares and sidelong glances.

Ava would not countenance leaving Marchant’s things to be stolen and used by those as bad as he was, and Melodie couldn’t allow the soldiers to handle things she knew were dangerous, soshe had personally sorted all the items into a useful pile and a dangerous pile.

In doing so, she had exposed her gift to all thirty of the Commander’s unit, and she felt naked and vulnerable now.

Ava seemed to understand, and had suggested a walk while some of the men and women stacked the useful items onto Marchant’s cart, to take back to Kassia and Cervantes, and others built a fire to burn the rest.

“My father sometimes wished he had taken you up on that offer, when times got hard for us.” Melodie wondered what their lives would have been like if her father hadn’t been so suspicious and stubborn.

Ava sighed. “I wish I had known you were living in Illoa.”

“My father circled back there after years of wandering around Grimwalt, and when he died, I had no connections anywhere else.”

“And you were too young to remember my full name.” Ava shook her head, but Melodie laughed.

“Even if I had remembered it, I’d never have put it together with the queen of Kassia and Cervantes.”

Ava made a face. “The thing that makes my blood run cold is that I should have realized that some people can see spell work. I knew you could. The fact that Marchant was wandering around looking at my shirts on soldiers makes me wonder who else knows.”

“I think it was just him and me,” Melodie said. “And he’s dead.” She touched Ava’s arm. “And while our abilities were similar, I don’t think they were the same.”

“What do you mean?” Ava asked.

“I think he could see magic. I can see spell work. He could tell if someone had magical ability, and he could see the magic in a spell-worked item, but he couldn’t discern the difference.”

“So he saw Viviane’s magic, but she tells me she was able to fool him into believing it was her cloak that he saw. And she wove a spell to hide her magic into her hair, and fooled him into thinking he was wrong about her magical ability.” Ava spoke slowly.

“Yes. I can’t see the magic inside someone. I can see the spell work woven into an item.”

“But he didn’t understand that.” Ava glanced at her to confirm.

“He didn’t. And I made sure he never did.”

Ava stopped and turned to face her. “Can I persuade you to work in my court? Obviously there is an entire cohort that knows what you can do after this morning, but we can try to keep your ability as secret as possible.”

Melodie glanced at her. “My father would strongly object.”

Ava smiled. “I’m aware. I spoke to him about you on that journey.” She lifted a hand to Melodie’s shoulder. “How did he die?”

Melodie closed her eyes. “I saw a woman in the market square in Illoa, selling little wooden tokens. People were taking them, and then opening their purses and emptying everything in them into a hat she held out.” She shook her head. “I tried to tell one of the men who’d just bought one that he was being cheated. I could see the spell work covering each token, but instead of confronting her, he turned and struck me. I fell to the ground and the woman started edging away. I watched her look very deliberately from me to him, and then she said:Kill her.”

“And your father jumped between you?” Ava guessed.

Melodie nodded. “He had just come to look for me. He roared something and rushed forward just as the man pulled a knife from his boot and struck out at me.”

“The crowd around us was suddenly galvanized and pulled him away, held him down. There were witnesses to the wholething, but when the guards tried to find the woman, she was long gone. The man was sobbing when the guard took his token. He claimed he never meant to do anything to either me or my father.” She sighed, shared a look with Ava. They both knew that he had been telling the truth.

“The woman sounds like someone I knew, back in the early days of the Rising Wave.” Ava patted her hand in sympathy. “I know your father would be horrified, but you’ve always seemed to push against his strictures.”

Melodie hesitated. “Theo says he’ll help me help others. All those people my father wouldn’t let me help, or who I wasn’t able to warn. They weigh on me.”

“We can work something out.” Ava gave a slow nod. “We can call it fieldwork and palace duty.”