Page 119 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

I roll my eyes, but I like this version of Cas best, too—the one with a child’s handprints on his cheeks and sadness in his eyes.

Word must’ve traveled, because the crowd grows twice as thick as we near the gates to the fourth.

The electric furor in Dalca’s eyes is new. There’s no fear or fury in them, just jittery excitement. I smile when he beams at me. “We’ve saved them all.”

I push away all thoughts of the Queen’s gift, of the locked casket in Dalca’s heart. I’m looking for problems. Dalca has the Regia’s mark. The Great Queen granted his wish. The Regia—and the city—is as good as saved.

The copper and spun sugar of the Storm still lingers in my mouth, but there’s hope to be had. We’ve done it. We haven’t failed.Ihaven’t failed. Things will change, because of us. What’s Pa going to say? My feet itch to run to him, to tell him everything.

Cas sucks in a breath, his neck craned up. Ragno Haveli flies toward us, descending in style, striding forward as if walking down a long, invisible ramp, until he touches down five feet away. His eyes flick to Casvian before they settle on Dalca. It’s not exactly a gesture of fatherly concern, but Cas stands straighter and scrubs the sundust from his cheeks.

“Good to have you back. I didn’t realize your training exercise took you into the Storm.”

Dalca inclines his head. “Only a few trusted individuals were told.”

Their tongues are daggers, even now.

“We go to the Regia.”

Ragno bows. “My men will escort you.”

We climb under the weight of thousands of wide-eyed gazes.

Ragno’s men escort us from ring to ring, through densely packed crowds of increasingly finer dress. Dalca grows more confident the higher we climb. Casvian limps his way across the city, refusing to lean on anyone or have healers come to him. The same electric anticipation that’s on their faces quickens my pulse and quiets the part of me that wants to demand we go first to Pa. I’ll do this right; I’ll see it through.

We go deep into the palace, further than I’ve ever been. Further than most people have been, I’d wager.

There is nothing personal about the Regia’s personal quarters. No hint of coziness could survive under the onslaught of opulence that we walk past; the place is decorated as if in testament to the idea that ifsomething is good, then more of the same must be better. What I can see of the floor reveals shimmering stone laid in an intricate diamond pattern, though most of the elaborate design is obscured by grand carpets that are embroidered so well that I find myself sidestepping for fear of squashing lifelike flowers. In the same vein, some artisan once carefully laid ribbons of gold into the stone walls, only for some other artist to come along and drape the walls in luminous tapestries of ghostlike silk, like veils shrouding doorways to other worlds.

It’s as if the finest craftspeople were lured to the palace and trapped in an unending contest of skill.

And yet, even this triumph of mad maximalism seems muted against the intensity of the Storm. The Storm was dark and humid as if pregnant with a hurricane, but this place imitates the opposite: a searingly bright and dry world of air and fire, a world born in the sun, a world you can enter only when the light burns your eyes blind.

This is where the Regia lives.

We come to double doors of pure gold. Engraved with terrible eyes that glower down at us, thin golden rays shooting from irises that glow like twin suns.

Dalca shoves them open.

Casvian and I follow him through the Regia’s apartments, past a sitting room packed with courtiers and council members wishing her a quick recovery—and currying for favor—past a herd of black-robed healers, to the Regia’s bedchamber. Warm light floods in from the diamond-paned windows and the domed glass ceiling. In all this light, there’s no escaping how small and frail the Regia looks against the massive bed, just a dry bag of bones scorched from the inside out.

The air is still and quiet. Dalca stops by her side. The Regia’s eyes roll in their sockets, but they burn with life, with the Great King’s presence.Her chapped lips part, but though her throat moves, no sound escapes.

Dalca bares his teeth. “We have the true Regia’s mark.”

With a gasp, he doubles over in pain. The Regia’s eyes fix on him, bulging from her ashen face.

“Stop it.” The words hang in the air, and it registers that they came from me.

The Regia’s eyes turn to me. A crackling burning voice sounds in my mind.

My ancient enemy has chosen this?

A scorching light burns under my eyelids.

A weakling—hardly more than a child!

The voice laughs and laughs and laughs.