“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Try to explain why you’d rather see a barbarian seize the throne, dripping with the blood of his subjects. Good men and women.Children.Try to explain that.”
“I don’t wish Baudouin to take the throne,” I protested, bristling against his growing anger.
“He certainly will, if you allow the king to die.”
“I’m notallowinganyone to die. There’s no cure, no way to stop it. And Baudouin wouldn’t get the throne anyhow. It would fall toLeopold.”
Bertie scoffed. “Another fine choice. He doesn’t know the first thing about leading a country. He should be out there now, fighting his uncle, fighting to hold the front, but where is he?”
My brother wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t wholly right either.
“His mother died less than a year ago. His father is grievouslyill.”
“Then fix him!” Bertie all but screamed. His words echoed in the chamber, ringing sharp and hateful. “You need to find a cure, Hazel,” he said after a long pause. “Our world will fall into chaos if he dies.”
When he dies,I silently corrected him.WhenI kill him.
My eyes drifted up to the painted figure of the Divided Ones.
“I should go,” I said, suddenly wanting to be away, wanting to be as far from my brother as I could get.
“Back to the palace?” he asked, sounding distant, and from the corner of my eye, I could see he was staring at the mural too. “To find the cure, to save the king?”
I shrugged, suddenly too exhausted to even bother trying to explain.
He licked his bisected lips, his body tense with unspent energy. He looked like a large cat, caged and aching to pounce. “You should ask for a blessing before you do. It would be good to have every bit of the gods’ favor upon your work.”
“It would,” I agreed, sounding hollow.
Bertie toyed with the little bronze bauble I’d seen on his necklace before, and I wondered if he was about to press it to my forehead, offering a Fractured’s prayer.
Instead, he put it to his lips. “Félicité favors the bold,” he murmured, then blew.
Chapter 32
I wanted to bare myteeth against the sound. It was louder than anything in the natural world had a right to be. Only the gods could create such cacophony. The pitch was so wrong it hurt my ears, and though I covered them, I could still hear its echo through my body. It made my very blood feel uncomfortable in its veins.
When it mercifully faded, I dared to lower my hands. “What was that?”
“You need a blessing,” Bertie said simply.
He’d turned to me, his eyes round and luminous. He looked intoxicated, possessed by something bigger and stronger than he’d ever be.
He looked crazed.
“Who better than Félicité to give it?”
“You summoned the Divided Ones?” I hissed, horrified. “You can do that?”
Bertie held out his scarred arms as if that was all the response Ineeded.
“Oh, little mortal, we meet again.” The unified voices of the gods curled out from a corner of the dormitory that suddenly seemed too dark, impossibly shadowed on such a sunny afternoon.
Then, a shift in the darkness and the Divided Ones moved into the light.
I frowned. “Hello, Félicité. Calamité.”
