“That wasn’t the plan at all,” Ru said, frowning slightly as she spoke, her thoughts spinning faster than her tongue could accommodate. “You didn’t make the professors sick… you altered them. Professor Obralle wasn’t herself. She was distant, glassy-eyed, and empty.”Like Inda, thought Ru.Like Nell and Ranto, devoid of humanity. “The poison wasn’t a delaying tactic at all,” she continued. “You’ve made the professors into Children. You’ve weaponized them.”
“You know I love it when you remind me just how clever you are, Delara.” His voice was low, his eyelids heavy over shining eyes. A flash of tongue appeared at his teeth, and then he tapped his fingers on the table. “And then? Don’t keep me in suspense.”
Schooling her features into practiced neutrality, Ru shrugged. As if this conversation were nothing to her, a whim, a simple entertainment. “And then I suppose you’ll have the professors sign the Cornelian Tower over to you permanently, enabling you to conduct your deadly experiments within its walls. No doubt the palace is already undergoing a similar transformation.”
Her words didn’t falter. But inside, Ru was gasping at this uttered revelation, holding back a new wave of horror. Simon was at the palace. Hisletter…She was used to hopelessness, used to self-hatred. But she much preferred it to the fear of what might happen to her brother.
“Are the professors… alive?” she asked, knowing how the question sounded. There was no such thing as theundead.
“Of course they are.”
“But their minds are gone.”
“Astute,” said Lord D’Luc, still watching her with a subtle hunger. “Minds are pliable things. Easily redirected.”
Ru grit her teeth until it hurt. “You didn’t have to go that far. You could have just…”
“What, would you rather I… how did you put it? Drive needles under their fingernails?”
She was momentarily lost for words.
“I thought not,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“Their minds,” Ru said, choosing her words carefully, “are they… repairable?”
He raised a brow. “I’m not sure what you mean. If you’re asking whether you, personally, could perform some kind of brain surgery—”
“Youknowwhat I mean.”
Lord D’Luc did her the honor of looking slightly shocked. “There’s no need for that kind of tone. I’ve plenty of needles at my disposal. No. They are not… repairable, as you put it. Whatever delicate change has taken place in the professors’ weak minds, it is decidedly permanent.”
“And the Children?”
His mouth quirked as if he found this exchange amusing. “The same.”
“You’re unforgivable,” Ru said, her voice shaking.
A shadow passed over the lord’s face, and for a moment, it was as if his gaze were a thousand miles away.
“Perhaps,” he said, in a raw voice that Ru had never heard from him before. And then he smiled, his expression shifting into an unreadable mask. “But I wish you’d give up on this self-righteous streak of yours, Delara. It serves no one. The professors are mine, as is the Cornelian Tower, and no amount of stubbornness from you will remedy that. Haven’t you conducted experiments and drawn the inevitable conclusion?It’s time to stop fighting me. You and I would be so much stronger together.”
“I’m afraid I’m not as eager as you are to reduce the kingdom to ash,” said Ru.
Lord D’Luc laughed. “Answer a question for me, if you will. How do you differ from Festra?”
The question caught her off guard. “He’s a fictional god, for one.”
“Humor me for a moment and assume that he’s not. Assume that, like magic, spiritual figures exist in a very real, documented way. How does Ruellian Delara differentiate herself from this deity she so reviles?” He tapped his chin with a finger, playing at thoughtfulness, a cruel glint in his eye.
Ru knew where he was going with this. “I’m well aware of what I did. That doesn’t make me a vengeful god.”
“In a thousand years,” Lord D’Luc said, low and crooning, “they will write about Ruellian Delara and her artifact. How she engulfed the Shattered City in darkness for a second time and miraculously survived. What would one call such a woman?”
Ru said nothing; her mouth tasted of blood where she clenched her teeth, gnawing flesh.
“A witch, maybe. A sorceress, a madwoman. But they are just as likely to label you a vengeful goddess.” He watched Ru with keen, thoughtful eyes. “Is that not what you want? Secretly, desperately? Why else would you seek the stone and carry it with you? Why else would you study it? I see a hunger in you, Delara. I’ve seen it since the moment I met you. Why deny it? I can help you.”
A deep, unwanted sorrow clawed at Ru. He voiced, so painfully, a fear that she tried hard not to face — that her own desire for knowledge, some unconscious need for scientific fame or even notoriety, had driven her to touch the artifact. Even asshe tried to push away the thought, the artifact smoldered a distant but tender touch against her mind.
