Page 29

Light flares in the hall as attendants turn up the lamps. I blink at the afterimage of the sun, lost in the glacier sea. I mourn its passing. Already the darkness twists through me, hungry and mocking.

Attendants quietly pass out more glasses of wine, and Kallias stands, lifting his glass high as he leads us all in the traditional Daerosian benediction.

I have heard these words many times, but never said them before: “Sleep well with the night, come again with the morning, leave us not forever in the Winter Dark.”

We speak as one, our voices murmuring around the hall. Kallias takes a long draught of wine, then hurls the glass as hard as he can against the floor. It shatters instantly, and if anyone was unaware of Kallias’s anger before, they know it now.

“Bring out my Collection!” he shouts.

He grabs my hand as he sits down again, threads his fingers through mine. I try to pull away, but he just holds tighter. Panic is a wild thing inside me. My vision washes white, and I can’t think around the vicious pulse of my heart, the pressure of his grip, like he means to crush my bones.

I am vaguely conscious of Vil on the other side of me, thigh pressed against mine, fingers light on my arm. He won’t let Kallias hurt me, won’t let him trap me like a beetle in a jar. Vil asked me to trust him and swore to keep me safe. I believe him.

I focus on breathing, even, slow. The panic dulls a little. I flick my glance to Vil and wonder if he knows how many times tonight he has already saved me.

Two girls are escorted to the space before the glass wall, both pale-skinned Daerosians.

The first is tiny, no more than five; the other is thirteen or so.

An attendant sets up an easel and presents the older girl with paint and brushes.

The small girl faces the audience, opens her mouth, and begins to sing.

She has a brilliant, powerful voice for such a tiny body.

Behind her, the other girl paints in swift, sure brushstrokes.

A scene unfolds on the canvas, an almost exact depiction of the great hall, of the sun sinking into the Sea of Bones, of everyone watching, glasses raised to toast Gods’ Fall.

“Exquisite, aren’t they?” says Kallias, smug again. “I found the little one just a few months back, singing for her mother’s funeral down in Garran City. Snatched her up at once. The other was the daughter of one of my own attendants. Imagine, such talent in a servant!”

I fight not to reach for the blade in my headdress. Bronze God, I can’t bear this. But at least my fury is less debilitating than my fear.

The song ends, and the older girl finishes the painting. She kneels to present it to Kallias, who waves her away and gives the painting to me instead.

The performances go on, knife throwers and musicians, a tiny Skaandan girl with an impossible memory. Kallias commands her to recite obscure lines from ancient epics, and she does so, flawlessly, in her little thread of a voice.

Then Finnur is brought out. At fifteen, he’s all elbows and knees, with hands that are too big for him; he looks for all the world like a gangly hound pup in the middle of a growth spurt. His Prism magic, which two years ago was already impossibly strong, seems to have outgrown him. It staggers me.

At a mere word from Finnur, a dragon rises out of the Sea of Bones, lunging at the crowd before exploding into colorful sparks.

He makes a tree grow from the marble floor, a hesitant silver sapling that shoots ten feet into the air, then unfolds dappled leaves that smell of cinnamon.

Unlike his previous illusions, the tree doesn’t vanish—Finnur has made something out of nothing.

The tree stays, glimmering, even when Finnur is taken back to his cage.

Kallias stands to address the onlookers, his eyes flashing in the lantern light. “You have seen and heard things tonight to impress and amaze, but there is one act left to thrill you with daring and danger. I give you ... the acrobat of Tenebris!” And he points upward.

My neck strains to the ceiling and I take in a scene horrendously familiar to me: a girl stepping from her cage onto the wire, a scrawny girl with pale skin. Her dark hair is cropped short against her head and she shakes, but her eyes don’t leave the wire.

She does a tumbling passage onto the wire, and I go numb. I can’t watch. Instead, I fix my eyes on the impossible tree, letting the audience’s gasps and smattering of applause tell me when my ghost has successfully made another leap.

“Do you have no stomach for acrobatics?” says Kallias coolly. His fingers are still tangled in mine, hard and cold as bones.

“I am afraid of heights,” I tell him past the acrid taste in my mouth.

“My acrobat is not,” he returns. “Look.” He grabs my chin and tilts my head upward again. I’m forced to watch with his fingers digging into my face as the acrobat makes one final, death-defying leap over an impossible distance, catching herself at the last possible second on a pair of aerial silks.

The audience applauds wildly, and Kallias stands again, clapping with them.

I flee the hall before I’m even aware of my intent, with Vil hard on my heels.

The doors shut behind us, and I run, run, not stopping until I hurtle into my chamber, leap up the wall, and haul the vent off. I cram myself through and crawl to silence, to safety, somewhere in the depths of the mountain. Kallias cannot reach me here. Nothing and no one can.

I curl up into a tight ball, and I sob until I choke.

“Brynja.”

I jump at Saga’s quiet voice as I slip into the bed we share; I’d thought she was asleep.

“You’re not alone here. You know that, right?”

I shut my eyes, which are swollen from crying. I don’t answer, and she grabs my hand, squeezes it.

“Vil told me about Kallias. About having to watch the performances tonight.”

I gnaw on my lip until it’s bloody.

“We’re here to end all that. To end him .”

I don’t trust myself to speak. I am all raw nerve, tense and jangling.

“Have you gone to see them yet?” Saga says quietly.

I blink into the dark.

“The children.”

“No. How could I?” My voice is ragged, rough.

“Because it’s part of the plan. And because—it would do you good, Brynja. If you confront your ghosts, maybe they won’t haunt you anymore.”

I see the new acrobat leaping across dizzying space, snatching the aerial silk, spiraling down. I wish I could claw it out of my mind, but I can’t, I can’t. Fear and horror fight to consume me. “What about your ghosts, Saga?”

It’s her turn to be quiet, and I hate myself for making her think of Hilf, of his dying scream, of his broken body and his blood on the floor.

“Why do you think I’m here?” she says.

I thought I’d had my fill of crying, but fresh tears leak out onto my pillow.