The way Flick saidMotherwas how her mother saidFelicity.
That was why it irked her so much, Flick realized. She hated the way the syllables dug into her eardrums, the way the name sat over her like an ill-fitted coat.
The Ram’s lips thinned. She snatched up her mask and secured it over her face, pulling up her hood to cover her tightly bound hair before wrenching open the door and barking orders in the hall that Flick couldn’t make out. And then the door clicked closed, a promise of more to come hanging in the air.
18ARTHIE
Arthie steered the Horned Guard carriage to the side of the road, and when the infernal horses came to a stop, she yanked on the brake and leaped off the side. Matteo opened the carriage door, staring as she ran in the direction they’d come.
Toward the midday Ceylani traffic. Toward where Jin had gone and crashed a carriage of his own.
“Apprehend the captain,” she shouted back at Matteo without breaking stride.
“With what?” he asked.
“It’s a guard car, Matteo! Check the trunk, find some rope. Get creative.”
She had a fool of a brother to save. She rushed down the grass to where Jin had crashed, fear compounding at the throng of people gathered around the wreckage up ahead. A simple crash wouldn’t hurt him, but a crashed carriage provided plenty of sharpened stakes she didn’t want to worry about just now.
As she approached, she heard words of alarm, whispers, murmurs.
In Ceylani.
She saw brown faces. She saw saris, batik dresses, sarongs. She saw hair as dark as hers had been before she’d dyed it mauve. And in between each Ceylani, she saw Ettenians, two or three to every one. There were more of them than there were of the people to whom the country belonged. Arthie wanted to stop it, change it,fix it.
She shook the ringing from her ears and dove into the crowd, pushing through until she stumbled to the ruined carriage. Its undyed covering fluttered in the humid breeze. Arthie’s heart clamored to her throat, but at last the rubble shifted and Jin rose, unscathed except for the dust he was brushing off with a frown. He was holding the warped carriage door over his head to shade against the sun and tossed it away as he dropped to his knees.
Fear clenched Arthie in a vise, but no more than a second later, Jin rose to his feet again.
“Found my hat!” he shouted, waving it in the air and meeting her eyes across the fray.
The crowd cheered. Arthie sighed.
He hopped over the wreckage, and the two of them squeezed back through the crowd, Jin tossing “thank yous” and “oh, it was nothing” as he strode through them like some sort of hero. Arthie all but dragged him out before someone could call him back for questioning.
“You’re looking chipper,” he said when they were alone.
Arthie paused beside a stone wall erected by a house. “Next time you might be dead, I’ll plaster on a grin.”
“I was never in any danger. I’m a vampire now, remember?”
“You’re immortal, not unkillable,” Arthie reminded him. “Now come on.”
Imitating her seriousness under his breath, he followed her to the Horned Guard carriage where, in the shadows of a few teetering coconut trees, Matteo was making good work of binding the still-unconscious captain’s wrists behind his back. There was a strip of rope knotted around his mouth too.
“I didn’t mean this creative,” Arthie said. “Can he even breathe?”
Matteo frowned. “I was being careful! I think he can breathe.”
“Nope,” Jin said with a shake of his head, while polishing the handle of his umbrella to a shine.
Matteo loosened the knot by a smidge. “Better?”
“Perfect.” Arthie glanced back at the carriage and then at the captain. “Now undress him.”
“Darling, when I’m right here?” Matteo asked, eyes wide.
Arthie glared, surprised by the heat that flared in her cheeks. The smell of the coconuts didn’t help, goading her to let down her guard and relax.
