Ru’s attention, as it often did, wandered to the artifact. She felt it near, a telltale palpation against her thoughts, and knewit was with Lord D’Luc. He had confirmed its location when his hand darted inside his coat outside the Tower, as if silently noting its presence. Ru would not act on the vague impulse to pickpocket; she didn’t have the skill, for one thing. And she found that she was relieved to be near it, to know that wherever the cursed stone went, she went too.
But the relief caught at her bitterly, an emotion she wished she could cleanse from herself. She hated that the artifact still held her like this, as if she were a bird with clipped wings, unable to fly even if she tried. Even if she wanted to.
“Simon won’t be happy,” Ru said, almost to herself. A mist grew in the air as they rode south, distant trees fading in and out of view as they went.
“And neither am I,” Archie said, indignant. “He warned you to stay at the Tower no matter the cost, and here we are, trundling away from it at a nice clip.”
“Why now?” Gwyneth said, hugging a tasseled cushion to her chest. “If the regent wants you at the palace, why not summon you sooner?”
Ru shrugged. “Ask me to interpret the will of Festra and I’ll give you the same answer: Hell if I know.”
Archie made a disgusted face. “Always with this Festra fellow. I was hoping that religious rubbish was a smokescreen for some secretive and highly volatile scientific theory, but I’ve been proven wrong for what seems to be the first time in my life.Being held in thrall by a religious cultwasn’t exactly on my list of things likely to happen this year, but everyone’s fallible, I suppose, even me.”
“You’re not being held inthrall,” Gwyneth said with obvious exasperation. “If anyone’s in thrall it’s Regent Sigrun, don’t you think?”
“Lord D’Luc didn’t poison the professors,” Ru said, realizing she hadn’t told her friends about her breakfast with Lord D’Lucthe previous morning. “I mean, hedid, but making them sick wasn’t the goal. It was to…changethem. He altered their minds, made them pliant, empty. Like the Children. He might have done the same to the regent.”
Archie and Gwyneth shared a look.
“Good god,” Archie said at last, running a hand through his caramel-colored hair. “I knew something was up, the way Obralle was behaving, but…”
Gwyneth’s eyes shone with restrained tears. “Why would he do something like that?”
Ru shrugged. “To ensure his power. The professors will do whatever he wants, sign whatever documents. The Tower won’t be a problem for him. And itwouldhave been, had the professors been left alone. They would have made him stop the demonstrations, sent him back to Mirith. But now… he has free rein over the artifact. And me.”
Archie nodded, his lips pursed in thought. “Of course the Children aren’t actual devotees of Festra, the most obscure deity possible. They’re slaves of the mind. How does one accomplishthat?”
“I don’t know,” said Ru, twisting her fingers together in her lap, “but we need to find out. There must be a way to stop it from happening to more innocent people.”
“Good luck to us,” Gwyneth muttered. “We’ll be nothing more than glorified prisoners in the palace. And who knows what Lord D’Luc means to do once we’re there.”
Ru stared out of the window, watching as the mist began to evaporate and pale sunlight lanced through it, burning away the cold wet. “Maybe it’s not so bad,” she said to herself, though she knew her friends were listening. “We couldn’t find answers at the Tower. Something tells me we’ll find them at the palace.”
“I should damn well hope so,” said Archie.
“And Simon,” Gwyneth added, “he’ll have more information, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” said Ru, distracted. Simon. She knew her brother. “He’ll get us the answers we need, or presumably die trying.”
“Let’s not talk about dying,” Gwyneth said, leaning forward to lay a warm hand on Ru’s knee. “You have us. We’ll sort this out. We’ll be fine.”
Ru turned to her, suddenly unable to contain herself, as much as she tried to remain calm. “Will we, Gwyn? You and Arch, maybe, if I stay in line. But I’m…Iam already not fine. I went to the parapet last night, in the cold. I sent Lyr away. I climbed on top of the wall.”
Gwyneth’s eyes widened, and she reached for Archie’s hand, but neither she nor Archie spoke.
Ru was grateful for it. She knew unwanted tears were forming in her eyes, just as the familiar stricture of shame and panic began to tighten about her heart. “I didn’t… I wasn’t planning to do anything, but I wondered what it might be like. To fall, to put an end to all of this. To make things right again, for all of you. And — no, don’t say anything — I felt the artifact. Stronger, like it used to be when Fen was here.”
“Fen,” breathed Gwyneth. “Do you think he’s here? Has he come back?”
“Fe— I meanTaryel,” Ru said, the name still so painful on her tongue, “could be clinging upside down to the bottom of this carriage for all I care. I’m more worried about what it means if Lord D’Luc wants more demonstrations in Mirith.”
Instead of immediately reassuring her as they were so good at doing, Ru’s friends sat in tense silence. They understood what it meant if the artifact was communicating with Ru again, if its influence on her thoughts and actions was returning. It meant that if Lord D’Luc pushed her again, if she fell into a rage like she had last time, none of them were safe.
That evening,they made camp at an old way station not far off the main road. There was a stream for the horses to drink from and posts on which to tie them up. The ground was relatively even and thick with grass, though the ravages of early frost had turned it brown. A circle of stones marked the fire pit, and logs were arranged around it for sitting.
Night was falling quickly. Inda, Ranto, and Nell began gathering wood for a fire while Lyr tended to the horses. Ru and her friends waited in the carriage, enveloped in blankets, until a fire was roaring between the stones.
Dinner consisted of meat pies, loaves of brown bread, and apple turnovers heated over the flames. Ru wasn’t particularly hungry. She couldn’t shake the mild nausea that seemed her constant companion now, an endless onslaught of dread. And when Lord D’Luc caught her eye across the flames, her stomach twisted.
