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Chapter 22

Theo

Theo might have thought he’d imagined the Ottoline Holtzfall of last night. That girl burning with anger and want. Except—

Modesty had demanded Theo as her knight this morning. Commander Lis said it was because he had been the one to save her from the assassin. Theo was sure it had more to do with Modesty wanting to take him away from Nora.

But even though he was assigned to Modesty, he couldn’t let Ottoline step out in front of the cameras wearing nothing but a bathrobe. On the elevator down he was all too aware of the flashes of bare skin every time she moved.

When they reached the lobby, Theo turned for the back entrance. “No.” Modesty snapped her fingers at him. “The car is at the front.”

He could already see the flashes of cameras through the grand glass doors of the Paragon Hotel. Modesty forged ahead, Ottoline following.

Seconds before they stepped out, Theo turned sharply, stepping in front of Ottoline so fast she almost walked into him.

“Here.” He pulled off his coat, draping it over the bathrobe. Shielding her as best he could.

And then he saw it, in the second before he stepped away. Like he had in the dark hallway last night, though the shape of her was clearer to him now. That porcelain skin flushed from the heat of the shower. Her damp pale hair glowing that unnatural shade of blonde that only Holtzfalls seemed to have. The sharp wanting in her eyes.

And in that second, he wasn’t so sure that she didn’t know exactly what she was doing by walking into a sea of cameras half-dressed.

He pulled away swiftly. And she was gone again. Back to wide-eyed innocence and country accent.

He watched for the sharpness, but he didn’t see it again.

There was certainly no sign of it in the girl who was now letting Modesty drape her in dresses like she was some life-sized plaything. Theo stood to attention in the doorway of the private room at the back of Rikhaus Department Store. Shop assistants ran to and fro, bringing dresses and shoes and jewelry for Modesty to appraise as she lorded over them like an empress.

He wasn’t surprised that only hours after winning the first Veritaz ring, she was already abusing her power. He’d been able to envision a future with Nora as Heiress easily. But one with Modesty as head of the family…He saw the line of dead knights from last night all too clearly.

“Are you ready ?” Modesty demanded to the curtain of the dressing room, just as Ottoline pulled it back. She wore a silk emerald gown that clung to every part of her body, dipping dangerously low at the back in a way that made it impossible not to trace the curve of her spine. Theo dropped his eyes swiftly, suddenly feeling like even more of an intruder than he had seeing her in the robe.

“I don’t think so.” Modesty waved her back into the dressing room. “It’s not you. ”

The door opened behind them. Theo’s hand was on his sword in a second, attention snapping back to his duty. But it was Hilde who entered, followed close behind by Edmund. Neither one of them looked like they’d slept since the vote in the garden in the small hours of the morning. Edmund caught Theo’s gaze, giving him a quick eye roll behind Hilde’s back as she sketched a bow to Modesty.

“We’ve come to relieve Sir Theodric,” Hilde said.

Modesty’s mouth pressed together in displeasure even as she turned her attention to a platter of jeweled rings a shop assistant was bringing in now. “On whose authority? Nora doesn’t have dibs on him, you know. And you.” She flicked a finger at Edmund. “Didn’t I already send you away this morning? Or was it another one of you knights? You all look the same after a while.”

Hilde ignored the second part. “On Commander Liselotte’s authority.” Which meant Mercy Holtzfall’s authority. Even Modesty couldn’t fight that.

“Very well.” Modesty waved a hand now adorned with rings. “You can go.”

Edmund followed Theo out. “How did you draw the short straw?”

“What does the commander need?” Theo knew better than to speak poorly of any Holtzfalls, even out of earshot.

“Guess who’s nowhere to be found? I’ll give you three guesses. The first two don’t count.”

“I don’t know where Nora is.” Theo and Alaric’s father had warned them when they were young that being a Rydder now was not like it was in the old days. It was mostly standing guard at doors and driving the Holtzfalls places. He’d forgotten and looking for reckless runaway Holtzfalls from his list of duties that became rote. “She took my locanz charm last night, which I’d say means I’m the last person she wants to find her right now.”

Theo had seen Nora’s storms before. One would last a few days of silence and then it would be gone. She hadn’t spoken to them for two weeks soon after her father had died, even though it was Theo and Alaric she had sought out at his funeral. And though she’d come to their father’s funeral too.

She’s grieving , Verity Holtzfall had said in apology for her daughter then. Everyone had seemed to forget that Theo and Alaric were grieving too. But Holtzfalls always came first.

Edmund rubbed the back of his head tiredly, making his hair stick up awkwardly. “I don’t know what to tell you, Commander Lis’s orders.” He clapped Theo on the arm. “See, this is why the rest of us don’t make friends with them.”

It was well past midday, and the sky had begun to storm as Theo stepped out of the department store, turning his collar up against the weather. He could do what he had done before, move through the places that the 1st circle haunted until Nora finally decided to make herself known.

If you want answers about your brother, come to 113 Flint Street .

The napkin was still in his pocket.

He knew he should’ve destroyed it by now. It had his handwriting on one side, inviting a Grim into the house. And on the other side, the Grims inviting him in return. It was tantamount to treason. Especially since he’d had his chance to hand it over to Commander Lis. But if he did, he would never get answers about Alaric.

The rain began to slip its fingers under his shirt as Theo hesitated on the corner. Rikhaus Department Store was in the 7th circle. Only five circles away from the address. He knew better than anyone that he wasn’t going to find Nora if she didn’t want to be found. He could waste the rest of his day looking for her.

But that was what he had been commanded to do.

He had never disobeyed a command before. Not until last night, refusing to stand down from Ottoline. His whole life, Theo had believed that his duty and his oath were one and the same. That he was serving a proud purpose.

But again he saw the twelve knights lying dead on the ground. Ordered to do something against their oath. They had sworn, like every knight, to protect the Holtzfalls with their lives. And they had died for failing to kill one of them.

Theo, too, had refused to let her be killed. But he was still alive.

And, he thought, turning away from the upper circles and moving south, Alaric might be too.

113 Flint Street turned out to be a boarded-up betting shop in the 12th circle of the city.

The windows had been plastered with posters advertising everything from a play that had closed months ago to medicine that promised to heal you for a fraction of the price of charms.

Theo knew that in all likelihood, this was a trap. He would be a fool to take instructions from an assassin. To walk through a door with no idea what was on the other side and the slim hope that it might be his brother.

But fool or not, he didn’t walk away.

Suddenly, through a torn poster, there was a flash of movement, a face looking out onto the street quickly before vanishing. Theo’s hand was already on his sword, heart hammering in anticipation of a fight. Slowly, the door opened a sliver, revealing a girl, her face hidden behind a sharp-snouted metallic fox’s mask.

“Look at that,” she said, her voice tinny through her disguise. “The lapdog slipped his collar long enough to come play with the wolves.”

Theo felt every muscle in his body tighten, ready for a fight. But Theo had been trained to be a good knight.

A good knight waited for his opponent to make the first move. Behind the mask, the girl’s eyes swept over him once before she finally stepped aside. “Come in before someone sees you.”

A good knight knew better than to walk into enemy territory alone.

And yet, Theo followed the fox inside.

The room was dimly lit, the only light from a flickering bulb in the middle of the room. Offshoot energy, siphoned illegally from LAO’s supply that ran like a nervous system of magical energy through the city.

“It looks like I owe you twenty zaub.” A man’s voice came from the darkened corner. Theo fought his impulse to draw his sword toward the voice. “I didn’t think he’d come.”

A truck rumbled by outside, the glare from the headlights splintering in between the posters, casting a spiderweb of light across a floor littered with betting slips. The rest of the room was filled with people in tin animal masks. A dozen of them or so.

An older woman in a doe mask leaned in the corner, a broad-shouldered man in a boar mask, a blonde girl with a scratched-up mouse’s mask, a hawk, a bear, a squirrel, an owl…The only thing he didn’t see was a wolf. No sign of Isengrim.

And then the truck was past, and the room was thick with gloom again, though Theo could still see the glints off the masks as they shifted. His nerves felt more awake than he could ever remember. Like the blood from his ancestors who had been stalked in the woods by creatures like these was waking up.

After years of training, when they were finally put into duty, Alaric had been known to complain that he could feel himself rusting like a toy soldier. Standing around, guarding them when there wasn’t much to guard against. But serving the Holtzfalls had always given Theo purpose. And he felt that purpose alive in him now. If it came to a fight, he was badly outnumbered, but he would go down a knight all the same.

“I didn’t even think your little pet project would get close enough to deliver the message,” the fox girl said.

“Your messenger tried to kill a Holtzfall,” Theo said into the darkness. He saw the redheaded girl’s wide-eyed gaze, sprawled on the grass. “She’s dead.”

The brashness of their chatter dropped instantly into silence.

“You’re lying,” a woman’s voice cracked, thick with the kind of grief that meant she knew he wasn’t. “It would have been in the papers.”

“No,” another man in a mask said, “ they don’t want the city knowing we got that close to them.” Theo had no doubt that they meant the Holtzfalls. “Foolish girl. What was she thinking?”

“Saskia knew what she was getting into,” the girl in the fox mask snapped. “It was her idea to use that Loetze boy to try to get into the ceremony in the first place.” She turned her fox grin at Theo. “But you made it so she didn’t even need him. Who says chivalry is dead?”

Theo felt the twist of the knife in his stomach. “Even if she’d managed to kill Modesty you had to have known she wouldn’t have made it out alive. Is that what you do, send people to die for your cause?”

“At least Saskia chose what she was dying for,” the fox girl said, her voice crawling through the darkness. “Unlike you and your dozen brothers-in-arms.”

The Grims couldn’t know about the twelve dead. It had been only knights lined up in the garden last night. And the footmen who had carried them in.

“I’m not here for a debate.” Theo’s hand had never left his sword. “I’m here because you claimed to have news about my brother.”

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Theo could see the masked figures casting looks between each other, a wordless conversation. Finally, the fox girl moved toward a door at the back. It looked like it might have led to a stockroom once. She pulled it open sharply, revealing a kneeling bound figure. “I guess you could say that.”

Theo knew his brother even before the fox girl ripped the bag from his head.

Alaric looked worse than Theo had ever seen him. He was battered and bloody. He squinted against the light suddenly shining in his eyes, drawn with sleeplessness. One of his eyes was blackened, a gag shoved into his mouth.

But he was alive.

Alaric was alive.

It somehow seemed to Theo simultaneously impossible and inevitable. Impossible that Alaric wouldn’t die executing his oath. Impossible that he could have fallen from something as average as a mugger . Impossible that he could be alive and not have found his way back to his duty.

Theo instinctively took a step toward his brother, but the fox girl crouched down in a flash, pressing a blade to Alaric’s throat, pulling his head back. Only then did Alaric’s gaze seem to focus on Theo.

“We’re not fools, knightling, we know we’re no match for you in a fight, but I think they can hold you off long enough for me to slit his throat if you try anything.”

Theo forced himself to stay rooted, his hands clenching at his sides as questions went through him. “Alaric.” He tried to steady his voice. “Are you all right?”

Somehow, even around the gag in his mouth, Alaric managed to give Theo a rueful half smile that Theo knew was meant to reassure him, and a bare nod, before the knife pressed into his throat harder.

“How?” Theo demanded, his mind reeling. How could Alaric still be alive when Verity was dead? Was Lukas Schuld working for the Grims? “Was Verity Holtzfall’s death your work?”

“Are you asking us to confess to murder?” The fox girl tsked behind her mask. “That would be foolish of us, wouldn’t it?”

The knife shifted as she moved, drawing a bead of blood from Alaric’s throat. Making Theo tense.

“You didn’t bring me here to watch my brother die.” Theo tried to keep his voice steady. How many of them had it taken to wrestle his brother to the ground? To bind and gag him.

“No,” the fox girl said finally. “We brought you here to strike a deal. It’s simple, really. You can have your brother back. He’s more trouble than he’s worth to us. All we want in exchange is for you to bring us one of those little magic rings.”

They wanted a Veritaz ring.

That’s why the Grims had come for Modesty last night with a knife. When just hours before, they’d only come for Nora with cheap wine. It was why the redheaded girl had suddenly turned from messenger to would-be assassin. The difference was the wooden band on Modesty’s hand.

“You want a way into the woods,” Theo realized aloud.

Desperate men had been known to try to get into the woods. To seek their fortune like people used to in the old days. Knights had found them on the Holtzfall property before, trying to press their way into the trees. Held at bay by the ancient magic that shielded the woods. But somehow Theo didn’t think wandering the woods and hoping to be granted an immortal gift was what the Grims had in mind.

The only sure passage into the woods was a Veritaz ring.

“If there’s enough magic in those woods to power this city”—the boar surged forward angrily—“there’s enough for all of us.”

The solitary lightbulb flickered. “That’s how Isengrim intends to keep his promise of magic and money for all ?” Theo asked. He was aware of his brother watching him. Aware that he had neither agreed nor refused them right away. “By taking it from the woods?

“And how do you think you’re going to succeed where so many others have failed?” Even in the decades since LAO had begun to draw the magic from the woods, there were still those foolish enough to try to steal magic from the power lines that ran through the city. It always ended in their death, surges of untethered magic stopping their hearts. Taking it straight from the soil of the woods like LAO did was the only way. And whatever charms Leyla used to do that were a closely held secret.

“Much like how we’re not going to confess to murder, we’re not about to tell you how we’re going to get into LAO. Isengrim is done asking the Holtzfalls to do the right thing. We have to take our equality by force. And if needed”—she jerked Alaric’s head up by his hair—“by blood.”

The Grims were asking him to betray his oath. Veritaz rings weren’t simply wooden bands. They were immortal magic, bound to the victors. The only way they could be removed was if an heiress took it off willingly. And no heiress was going to give up her ring by choice.

But she might with a knife against her throat. Or if they sawed off her finger.

“This really is very simple, but you knights seem simpleminded, so I’ll lay it out for you plainly.” The fox girl’s knife pressed harder against Alaric’s throat, a fervor in her face. Theo had seen the same one in the eyes of the redheaded girl a moment before she took poison. The Grims had no hesitation in choosing death for their cause. “It is twelve days until the Veritaz Trials end. Bring us a ring by then with a Holtzfall attached to it or not, or else we will slit your brother’s throat. Equally, if we see a chance to take a Holtzfall ring, and you stand in our way, we will slit your brother’s throat. Tell anyone about us and we’ll—”

“Slit my brother’s throat. I know.”

“Wonderful, you get it.”

Alaric made a noise against his gag. Theo felt like her knife was pressed to his own throat. His brother was gagged, but he could see it in his eyes, urging him not to betray his oath. But the fox girl jerked him back, and the knife drew blood again. “You decide, knightling. Your oath or your blood. Which do you value more?”