“Not bold,” I say. “Just desperate and sick of seeing my people suffer.”

“I hear truth in your words, girl. And yet . . .” The king looks to his daughter. Whereas without the ghuls, she looked regal, even beautiful, now she looks angry and merciless, her lips leached of color, her pupils overly bright.

The old man shakes his head. “Perhaps what you say is true,” the king says. “But if we arm ourselves with Serric steel, prepare our fleets, ready our defenses, the Martials could declare war by claiming we are planning an attack.”

“The Martials are in a constant state of readiness,” I say. “They can’t attack you just because you do the same.”

I hear his age in his sigh. “Oh, child,” he says. “Do you have any idea of the dance the Mariners have been forced into these past five hundred years, with the Empire snapping at our borders? Do you know how difficult that dance has grown with Scholars pouring into our country? I am old. Soon, I will die. What do I leave my daughter? Tens of thousands of refugees. The Great Library destroyed. A people divided—half wishing to help the Scholars, the other half tired from five hundred years of doing so. And I am to muster my armies? On the word of a girl who has apparently been helping to make illegal weaponry?”

“At least help the Scholars from the refugee camp,” I say. “They—”

“We will replace their tents. In time. That is all we can do.”

“Father,” Nikla says. “I request to take this girl—and her brother, who is no doubt lurking in the city—into custody.”

“No,” King Irmand says, and though his words are laden with the authority of his office, I notice with a chill that his hands, spotted and shaking with palsy, give away his immense age. Soon enough, his daughter will be queen.

“If we keep them here, daughter, we give the Martials cause to question our commitment to peace. They are fugitives in the Empire, are they not?”

“Sir,” I say. “Please listen. You were friends with my mother—you trusted her. Please, in her place, trust me now.”

“It was an honor to meet a daughter of Mirra’s. We had our differences, your mother and I, and I have heard wretched rumors about her over the years. But her heart was true. Of that, I am certain. In honor of our friendship, I give you and your brother two days to leave the city. Captain Eleiba will oversee your preparations and your departure. Musa”—the king shakes his head—“do not return here again.”

The king reaches a hand out to the captain of his city guard. She clasps it immediately, steadying him as he stands. “See that Laia of Serra and her brother find their way to the docks, Captain. I have a kingdom to run.”

XXXIII: The Blood Shrike

I cannot celebrate the fact that I have saved Livia and thus thwarted the Commandant. Marcus knows now what I can do, and though he said little after discovering me, it is only a matter of time before he uses the knowledge against me.

But worse than that is the fact that within days of arriving in Antium, I learn that Keris has managed to procure her freedom.

“The Illustrian Paters discovered a bleeding loophole.” Marcus paces in his private study, boots crunching against the shattered remnants of a table he destroyed in a fit of rage. “It doesn’t allow the head of an Illustrian Gens to be imprisoned for longer than a week without the approval of two-thirds of the other Illustrian Gens.”

“But she’s not Mater of Gens Veturia.”

“She was when you threw her in jail,” Marcus says. “Apparently, that’s what matters.”

“She let thousands die in Navium.”

“Skies, you are stupid,” Marcus groans. “Navium is a thousand leagues away. The Illustrians and Mercators there can do nothing to help us. They couldn’t even keep her locked up. Her allies in Antium are already spreading some ridiculous story about how she wasn’t to blame in Navium. Would that I could lop all their heads off.” He cocks his head, muttering, “Cut off one, and a dozen more appear in their place—I know, I know—”

Bleeding skies. He’s talking to his brother’s ghost again. I wait for him to stop, and when he doesn’t, I back away, willing him not to notice and closing the door quietly behind me. Harper waits outside, fidgeting at the mutters coming from the study.

“Keris will be here in a little more than two weeks,” I say as we emerge into the noon sunshine. “And all the more dangerous for the time she spent in a cage.” I glance back at the palace. “Marcus is spending more time talking to his brother’s ghost, Harper. The moment Keris gets here, she’ll try to take advantage of it. Get a message to Dex.” My friend remained in Navium to help oversee the rebuilding of the destroyed parts of the city. “Tell him to get eyes on her. And tell him I need him back here as soon as possible.”

An hour later Harper finds me pacing in my study, and we set to work. “The Plebeians are suspicious of Keris after what happened in Navium,” I say. “Now we have to destroy the Illustrians’ confidence in her.”

“We go after her character,” Avitas says. “Most of the Illustrian Paters are classist. None of her allies know Elias’s father was a Plebeian. Release the information.”

“It’s not enough,” I say. “It was years ago, and Elias is long gone. But . . .” I consider. “What about her do we not know? What are her secrets? That tattoo of hers—did she ever tell you anything about it when you were working with her?”