Page 77 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

My Wardana-issue clothes stay just as they were. “You can turn around.”

Cas turns and squints at my face. I wait for a flash of recognition, but all I get is his disdain. “Hmm. I see why you did it.”

I cross my arms. “I didn’t do it to improve my looks.”

He sneers, voice thick with sarcasm. “I’m sure.”

“Is there anything else you needed? Or you just came by to set my face to rights and throw in an insult or two for what, fun?”

He meets my scowl with his own. “Dalca thinks you can help. But I think you’re just a selfish little girl.”

I bite my tongue. I don’t like being seen by Casvian Haveli.

“You don’t even know what’s at stake, do you?”

I know what’s at stake for me. I know what’s at stake for the fifth. But I don’t know what Cas thinks is at stake. I don’t know why he tries so hard for Dalca.

I shake my head.

He blinks, caught off guard, as if he was expecting a fight. He frowns, pinches the bridge of his nose, and then, as if he already regrets what he’s doing, he sighs. “Fine. Come along.”

“Where?” I ask as he reaches the door.

“First rule: don’t speak. Not a word. I know an ikon that’ll melt your lips together. Never had a chance to use it. Always wanted to try.”

I press my lips together, though I wonder about the second rule.

He opens the door and leads me through endless golden hallways with gleaming marble floors, stopping only once, when a man in a black and gold version of a Wardana uniform crosses before us. Cas pulls me back against the wall. I make no objection, once I register the gray-white hair and the family scowl. Cas waits until Ragno passes before shepherding me forward.

We approach a grand set of double doors, carved, gilded, and inset with hundreds of tiny mirrors. Cas veers to the right and takes me into a much smaller room off the side.

In this room—a wood-paneled meeting room—he works something at one of the panels, and it slides free, revealing a small space beyond. He puts a finger to his lips, and in case I didn’t understand, he follows it up with a threatening gesture.

I trail him in, and he replaces the panel behind us.

Voices murmur from the other side of the wall. Light flows in from holes in the wall at about eye level—peepholes.

I peer in and swallow a gasp against the blinding light. I drag my gaze to the Regia’s elevated seat, made of the bones of some ancientbeast dipped in dark gold. That same dusky gold colors the floor, the walls, her seat, the folds of her dress. It’s the tattoo curling across her sickly-looking skin, stretched taut over the too-prominent bones of her face and bare arms. Thousands of tiny mirrors reflect both the pale ikonlights that line the walls, so the air is thick with pinpricks of light like stars. The light drowns out everything but the Regia’s eyes. She pins those eyes on a figure kneeling before her.

“You are a poor example of your blood.” Her voice is doubled; a high, thin woman’s voice, and underneath, a deep, sonorous one that crackles.

The figure looks up. Dalca.

“On the eve of the Trial, you lose the accused?”

My heart stops. What’s happened to Pa?

Dalca answers. “He was not harmed. The Trial will proceed as planned, Regia.”

I let out a slow breath, tension draining out of me.

“He was not harmed. Yet how did the circumstance arise, that such a thing was a possibility?”

Dalca stiffens. “It will not happen again.”

The Regia crooks her gold-tipped finger.

A soft, pained gasp comes from Dalca as he tenses, his face twisted in agony.