Mari’s breath caught, one hand absently pressing against her chest before she forced it back into her lap.
“I find myself with the Caldienan naval fleet under my command, and the urge to make sure Kirythea doesn’t even think about crossing the border,” Finn continued. His grin went fierce. “Help me do that, and I’ll do whatever I can to bring back your daughter.”
Mari stood, the sudden softening that the mention of Lore had brought to her face washed into wariness. “Let me get Val.”
“Right here, love.” The other poison runner had daggers in her eyes, and one in her hand. The other rested on the hilt of a pistol always at her waist. For a smallish woman, Val certainly found lots of places to hide weapons. “Care to tell us how, exactly, one such as yourself is now the head of the naval division?”
“Easy.” Finn shrugged. “I killed the Prime Minister, and all the Rotunda delegates who were in on it with me are too busy fighting over who gets his job or cowering in their giant houses to pay attention to who commands the fleet.”
“That assumes the fleet will listen to you.”
“They’re mobilized and waiting for my word.” The feigned nonchalance Finn had employed up to this point fell away, replaced with steely resolve. “They’ve been listening to me for years.”
Val stared at him, expression granite. But she slipped the dagger back into its hidden sheath on her forearm, and her grip on the pistol relaxed. She looked at Gabe, then Malcolm. “And you two are in support of this, I imagine.”
“I’m in support of anything that will save Lore,” Gabe said. Bastian, too, though he didn’t know yet how he could. He’d find a way. He’d save them both. Doing anything less was unfathomable.
Flame crept through his veins, his palms heated beneath the candle tattoos of a station he no longer held. When he blinked, the world was a tangle of red thread, fire waiting for a flint.
Val’s lips pursed. She nodded. With a sigh, she waved her hand. “All I ask is that you give my ship back. It cost a fucking fortune.”
Footnotes
1 An addendum written by an unknown Malfouran monk, only appearing in one Compendium circa 3 AGF.
The sea was shallow enough now that Bastian’s head was almost always breaking the surface.
It was disorienting after so long being pushed down. He could see through his own eyes sometimes. Moving his own limbs still felt like a monumental effort, pushing hard against an immense weight, but he could do it occasionally. His moments of control were brief, nothing like the hour he’d snatched when he helped Alie find the ring, but they all felt like small miracles.
Apollius railed against him, screamed and cursed, but it was only so much white noise as that golden ocean gradually drained, a little every day. A steady decline of power, all of it siphoning… elsewhere. Lessening every time Bastian fought free.
Apollius knew what was happening. Of that, Bastian was certain. More than just the magic drain; He knew the why and the how, but He used every ounce of the power still available to Him to keep the knowledge from Bastian, to hold on to his body until… something.
All that Bastian could surmise was that a decision had been made—one that Apollius felt less than thrilled about, maybe, but also one that didn’t feel wholly like a loss. The god was waiting.
So all Bastian had to do was wait, too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ALIE
Never underestimate the loyalty of a once-kicked dog.
—Rouskan proverb
For two days after finding the Fount piece, Alie hid in her room.
It was a rather childish way to deal with it, she had to admit. The Fount piece and ring she hid in the very bottom of her unmentionables drawer, tucked into a corner behind a froth of lace. Apollius knew what had happened, certainly, and surely He would be able to figure out that she was the one who’d stolen the ring and found the broken piece. She knew that bloodcoats and builders had been dispatched to clear the area, to stabilize the street and make sure no other tunnels were in danger of caving in. Apollius had to know the reason, and now He would deal with her, kill her and wring out her power like water from laundry regardless of Jax’s protection.
She’d considered leaving, chartering a carriage or stealing a horse. But the only landlocked direction to go if she wanted to stay out of the Empire was Caldien, and she’d be caught in no time, with the added complication of trying to come up with anexcuse for why she’d run in the first place. Ratharc was an option, if she managed to steal onto a boat, but it would make the journey back to the Mount double. Bri’s family’s ship was on loan, apparently, expected back in three days, and then Bri assured her she could use it for whatever she needed.
Three days to hide, like a rabbit with a wolf at the door, and then she could escape, head to the Mount, follow the pull of the stone in her underthings drawer.
If Apollius would wait that long.
But as the hours ticked by, as Alie watched them go with a churning stomach and a cup of tea gone cold, the god in the body of the Sainted King never sent for her.
Jax did, though.
