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CHAPTER EIGHT

ALIE

Chance is just fate biding its time.

—Malfouran proverb

S he’d never been one of those courtiers who sneaked out into Dellaire, at least not often.

Her friends would go once a fortnight, it seemed, either in their covered carriages or dressed as they thought commoners did, to experience the city .

Alie had never had much interest in that endeavor.

Not out of any sort of snobbery—in fact, the opposite: She knew she was in a privileged position, and pretending otherwise never sat well.

Especially when the outfits her friends put together made it so obvious they were merely sightseeing, trying on poverty like a costume.

But, desperate times.

Ever since Gabe and Malcolm had made it onto that ship—ever since she hadn’t—Alie had been looking for a way out of Auverraine.

She was well aware that staging an escape on her own would be nearly impossible, but still, she sneaked into Dellaire as often as she could.

Every time, going out a little farther, making it a bit closer to the city’s border. Making plans.

Jax knew she did this. She assumed Apollius did, too.

But neither of them stopped her, and she made it a point to act secretive when she came back into the Citadel, pretending that she didn’t know she’d been found out the moment she set foot outside.

If they thought she was inept and would always come back, they’d be less likely to come after her the one time she didn’t.

If she could ever get up the nerve. She’d come close to actually packing today, filling her satchel with provisions and money instead of an old dress and the clean lengths of linen she used when she bled to make the bag look full.

But Alie had left with the same decoy pack she always did; today was not the day she would escape.

Alie wandered around one of the markets in the Southeast Ward. She wore a plain dress, fine enough that no one would mistake her for poor, but not so ostentatious that she’d look like a noble voyeur. A scarf covered her distinctive hair.

The energy of the Wards invigorated her. She’d grown up a fixture of the Citadel, one of the people whom others looked to, emblematic of the perfect noble. Her visibility had only increased since she’d been engaged to Jax, since her true parentage had been revealed.

Here she was one of many. Anonymous. It felt nice.

And here she could practice using Lereal’s power without worrying she’d be caught. She still didn’t use much—a flutter to run through a child’s streaming hair, a whisper of wind to soothe the farmer at his fruit stand—but it was enough to hone the magic. To wrestle it further under her control.

There was an ease to her thoughts when she used it, a soft lightness, like this was something she was supposed to be doing. But Lereal never spoke to her, never made Their presence known in more than a feeling. Alie could live with that.

She only hoped the others could, too.

Alie approached the fruit stand, the farmer looking much more pleasant after her manufactured breeze. As she inspected apples, she flickered the fingers of her other hand, drawing whispers from the farthest corners of the market to her ears.

The payments dried up almost as soon as they started.

Once he got a feel for all that gold, he didn’t want to part with it.

Useless. He’s just as bad as his father. Just as bad as every other Arceneaux.

Worse, I’d say. No other Arceneaux invited a neighboring dictator to marry his half sister.

It was the same everywhere. Whispers about Bastian that ranged from irritated to seditious.

Alie couldn’t blame them, really, though it only added one more layer to her anger—Bastian was taking the public fall for what Apollius had done.

A revolution right now would be disastrous, but what was one more disaster at this point?

She wouldn’t fare well if the citizens of Auverraine decided to upend the monarchy. But monarchy was starting to make less and less sense. The Arceneaux line claimed to rule by divine right, and Alie had seen just what a farce divinity was.

Alie let go of the threads of wind carrying the whispered conversations. One problem at a time, and she already had a full ledger of them.

“I recognize you.”

Oh, excellent. Here was one more.

Alie considered ignoring the speaker, pretending she couldn’t hear. But she couldn’t guarantee that whoever it was wouldn’t make a scene, and the only thing worse than one person in the Southeast Ward knowing she was nobility was for everyone to know.

Slowly, she turned around.

The woman behind her wasn’t someone she recognized, though that wasn’t really surprising. What was surprising was the air of familiarity around her—she looked like someone Alie should recognize, a slightly off reflection of a person she knew.

The woman narrowed hazel eyes in a spare, white-skinned face. Her blond hair was held back in a drab scarf, and her black dress had seen better days. “It’s not here. What you’re looking for.”

“Pardon me?” Alie didn’t try to obscure the Citadel-polish of her voice. If she was caught, she was caught. Though it seemed like this woman might be a few drops shy of a wineglass.

“The thing you’re looking for.” The woman looked at Alie as if she were the cracked one. “The piece?”

“I’m sorry.” Nerves pricked their way down Alie’s spine; if the woman got agitated, she could get violent, and Alie had no weapons other than a dagger slipped in the top of her boot that she barely knew how to use. “I can’t say I know what you’re talking about.”

The woman rolled her not-quite-familiar eyes. Then she grabbed Alie’s arm and hauled her toward an alley.

Her boots skidded in the dust of the Ward; Alie tried to struggle away without making too much of a scene, but the woman’s grip was iron.

As a last resort, Alie looked around desperately for the bloodcoat she was sure dogged her steps.

There was no one. Maybe Jax and Apollius weren’t watching her as closely as she thought, at least not today.

Figured.

The woman pulled her into the shadows of the alley, old wooden crates stacked against stone walls, rotting through with rain. She turned and glared at Alie. “Are you going to run, or are you going to listen?”

The dagger glittering in the woman’s hand made running seem like a bad choice.

Her own dagger was itching in her boot. But all Alie knew was that the pointy end should be turned toward your enemy, and the woman in the black dress seemed like she was more knowledgeable than that. The best thing to do was to play along.

Alie nodded smoothly. “I’ll listen.”

“Good.” The woman tucked her own knife back into the ratty cloth at her waist. As she did, her palm turned toward the light. White scars scored the bottom edge where her hand met her wrist, the rough approximations of the phases of the moon.

The nerves in Alie’s spine went from pinpricks to near-painful gooseflesh.

“I know who you are,” the woman said. “You don’t know who I am, and that’s fine. I’m Lilia, and I want to help you.”

Another nod, still smooth, still courtly.

“If you aren’t looking for the piece of the Fount yet, I assume it’s because you didn’t know you should be.

” Lilia crossed her arms, but the movement seemed more like she was trying to hold herself up than meant to convey any particular emotion.

She looked tired, as if it had been ages since she felt safe enough to sleep.

“I guess I’m not surprised. All the pretty ethereal things made it into the Tracts; the gritty parts were only for those of us in too deep already. ”

In too deep, with moon scars on her hands. “You’re one of the Buried Watch.”

“Worse than that.” Lilia barked a short, painful laugh. “I was the gods-damned Night Priestess.”

The Night Priestess. Lore’s mother.

A pale brow arched over a hazel eye, one the exact color of Lore’s, now that Alie knew what to look for. “Are you going to run now?” Lore’s mother asked.

“No.” Alie shook her head. “If you know something that can help us, I want to hear it.”

“You’re far more willing to listen than my daughter,” Lilia said, trying to smile and succeeding only in twitching her lip. “Though I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise.” She leaned her shoulder against the wall. “You’re all trying to kill Apollius, then?”

Hearing it said so baldly made Alie’s eyes widen. She was still a courtier at heart, far more used to dancing around ugly subjects than addressing them outright.

“Of course you are,” Lilia said. “You’re in league with Lore, and she doesn’t do half measures.” A distant look came into her eyes. “Maybe if I’d told her all this, she would have asked for my help sooner. Though I can’t really blame her.”

Alie didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure if Lilia wanted her to. It sounded like she was talking mostly to herself, a conversation retread over and over.

Lilia shook herself, as if casting off a sudden chill.

“Too late for that,” she said briskly. “I made my bed. So I’ll tell you, and I’ll trust that you have a way to get the information to the rest of the reborn avatars.

We in the Buried Watch knew about dreamwalking, even if we couldn’t do it.

Some of the Presque Mort used to, back when Nyxara was newly dead and Her power was everywhere.

They can’t anymore, but I’m sure you can manage it. ”

That, Alie should probably respond to. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant despite the panic clawing into her chest. “But if you have helpful information—”

“Save it.” Lilia’s voice was threadbare, like this gruff, to-the-point persona was something she’d slipped into out of necessity, and it was wearing down fast. “You’re Lereal. I could feel you manipulating the magic across the Ward. How else do you think I knew to approach you?”

Shit. Shit shit shit. She thought she’d been so careful, so clever. “If you could feel it, then…”