Page 76 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

Why am I hesitating? My loyalty is to Pa—right? I should get rid of it.

But if Dalca’s right, if it holds the key to saving the city... But Dalca’s idea of saving the city is to keep the Regia in power. He’d have the fifth safe, but like a parent keeps their infant from harm. Wouldfifth-ringers like me and Amma and Izamal—would we ever have any more power over our own lives?

It comes down to this: do I trust Dalca over Pa?

I don’t.

But I drop the soap anyway. I’m not ready to destroy Pa’s notebook, not just yet. I shrink it back down and wipe away the soap residue with my thumb. It’s a risk, keeping it on me, even shrunken and in Ma’s locket. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take for now.

Tossing the soap bar from hand to hand, I make a circuit of the room.

I could see if my turns-things-to-dust ikon would work on the door—but even if it does, Storm knows what—or who—is on the other side.

The balcony is a glass door set in a grid of smaller glass panes. They glimmer like jewels, distorting the world beyond into gauzy blotches of color. Were the balconies close enough together that I could jump across? Find an unlocked room?

And then what?

I bite my lip and pace the length of the room, the soap bar sticky in my hand. I don’t know what I can do.

A voice that sounds an awful lot like Pa tells me not to do anything.You’ve done enough.

I don’t want to believe it. But it rings of truth.

With the soap, my hand draws coarse lines on a single pane of glass. Maybe I haven’t helped anyone. Maybe it was never about helping. Maybe I am selfish—too in love with the idea that I can do something, be someone.

The outer circle closes, and the ikon is complete. The glass shrinks and pops out of its metal casing, falling into my hand.

The door bangs open. I whirl around.

Casvian Haveli. Two hot points of color on his cheekbones, a simmering something in the set of his mouth. His pale eyes drop to the glass in my hand.

He stalks forward, yanking it from me and inspecting the glass. “Rudimentary.” He scowls at me. “You do know these windows are a hundred years old.”

My heart’s still pounding from the shock of his entrance, so much so that I can’t quite wrap my mind around the fact that he’s critiquing my ikonomancy.

“But I wouldn’t expect you people to appreciate the work that goes into the finer arts.”

I try not to rise to the bait ofyou people. “What’s going on?”

That simmering something boils over. “What’s going on is that Dalca’s a softhearted, mossbrainedfool—andyoushould be inchainsin some dark little hovel in the fifth.”

My teeth grind as I bite back what I want to say, because it’s true that I’m not in a dark hovel. I have to be smart enough now to figure out if I’m right about why. “I’m sorry for lying to you, Cas. I was just trying to save my father.”

This makes him inexplicably furious. “Oh so tragic. Should I weep for your murderer of a father?”

I tamp down the fury that rises in me. Awful rich of him, talking about having a murderer for a father. “Why are you here?”

He reaches into his sleeve and pulls out a stick of chalk. “Any ikons on you that you’d like to disclose, besides whatever you’ve done to your face?”

“Just this. It bears my family ikon.” I pull Ma’s locket off with asmuch nonchalance as I can bear and toss it atop the bedspread. Cas glances at it, but, as I hoped, his interest fades when he sees the symbolic ikon etched upon the metal. He makes no move to open it, and I allow myself to breathe. Pa’s notes will be safe from whatever Cas intends to do to me.

With neat, practiced strokes, he draws a complicated ikon on the floor. “Step in. Hold on—are your clothes ikon-made?”

“I don’t know.”

He turns his back, but not before rolling his eyes. “Okay, step in.”

An icy wind buffets me, chilling me, stealing my breath. My skin tingles in its wake, gently everywhere, but intensifies into a painful prickling about my lips and nose and cheeks. I grit my teeth until at last it abates, and it’s as if I’ve been wearing a full-face scowl for ages, one that finally loosens. With the tips of my fingers, I touch my face, half expecting blood or bruiselike tenderness. There’s nothing; just my face, presumably restored to its default.