“I mapped those tunnels long before Thaelan did,” Alistair says. “I planned my escape long before he even met you. I was going to be a doctor, Faris; I was going to save people. But then my father died with no other heir and I inherited the family business, and with it, the family obligation to the crown.”
Disgust fills his voice as he tenses beneath me. “This oath binds me to the king. If Perrote pulls the right string, he could follow me anywhere I went—even beyond this kingdom. If he cuts the right string, I’m no better than your sister, taking his orders without question.” He releases his collar. “I told Thaelan where to look. I warned him that the tunnels shifted. Those tunnels were mine and I gave them to him. To you. You’re not the only one who wants out.”
Grabbing my wrist, he wrestles me onto my back. The glass slips from my sweaty hand and skids across the floor, out of reach. “You’re not in the fighting ring anymore,” he says, “and you are going to need more than nineteen silver kronets to save your sister. You’re going to need me, the same as he did.”
I shake my head, refusing his logic. I know Thaelan and I were not the first to want to leave Brindaigel, but at least we tried. Mapping tunnels does not equate to following them, and Alistair had sixteen years to leave before his father died. So why didn’t he?
I lash out with my knee, but Alistair anticipates the move and digs his own knee into my upper thigh, applying enough pressure that I cry out in pain.
He swallows hard, eyes half hidden behind his hair. “I envied him,” he says bitterly. “Every night, he escaped this city. Every night, he’d sneak back into the barracks, more alive than when he left. And it wasn’t even magic, Faris.” His eyes meet mine. “It was you.”
The fight drains out of me and I stare at him, stricken. Weak street light carves shadows in his face, hollowing his cheeks and thickening his mouth before the light shifts and his sharp edges return, a wolfish boy with eyes that devour.
“I’m a monster because that’s what I was bred to be,” he says. “I don’t expect forgiveness, but I expect you of all people to understand the cost of survival.”
Releasing his hold on my arms, Alistair sits back with a soft exhalation, loosening his cravat before lightly touching the cut I made on his neck. He mutters to himself, wiping blood across his trouser leg with open disdain.
I don’t move. I can’t. When I close my eyes, I’m thrown back to that gray spring morning when I looked up and saw Thaelan’s sweet face the color of bruises, the color of stone, the color of never again hearing his voice, seeing his smile, feeling his lips warm against mine.
He told me it was an accident, finding those tunnels. That he mapped them alone. If he was friends with the executioner, why didn’t I know?
I turn my head away from Alistair. He was right about that, if nothing else: Thaelan lived a double life, and I was only half of it.
Alistair gives me a wary sidelong glance when I finally sit up, drawing my legs to my chest. “What do you want?” I ask at last, barely more than a mumble.
“I want to offer you a job.”
“I have a job.”
“There’s no fruit to harvest come winter,” he says, “and there’s no more fights.”
I stare at my feet, only inches from his. “I’ll find something else.”
“Or you can hear me out.” Reaching into his coat, he withdraws a fist and offers it toward me. I keep my own hands holding tight to the folds of my skirt and, rolling his eyes, he tips a coin out to the floor. A golden kronet.
“There’s forty-nine more of these and a letter with a royal seal that will release your sister into your care, her spell removed, no names or questions asked,” he says.
My breath hitches in my throat. Greed unfurls my fingers; temptation draws them to the coin where they hover, debating. Five of these could buy back Cadence. Five seems so few, so deliciously possible, with more than enough leftover for a chance outside Brindaigel. If not in Avinea, then somewhere else, in one of the countries Thaelan used to whisper in my ear.
But then reality returns and I retract my hand, furious at how easily swayed I am by the promise of gold.
“Not interested,” I say, a lie that twists in my stomach with a warning that pride begets arrogance, and arrogance is a vice I cannot afford.
Alistair stares at me, a muscle twitching at the back of his jaw, as if he wants to say something but knows he better not. Leaning forward, he retrieves the gold coin and pinches it between his fingers, holding it between us. I shy away from him, eyes tracking to the shard of glass just out of my reach, but his body blocks my path. “If you say no, I leave right now, like this never happened,” he says.
“Is that a promise?”
His fingers curl the coin into his palm and he lifts his eyebrows. “I know your name, Faris. I know where you work, I know where you live, I know where to find your sister, and I know where to find your father.” He shifts his weight, wetting his lips as he lowers his voice to a dusky whisper, forcing me to lean forward to catch his threats. “Maybe I’ll forget who you are,” he says. “Maybe I won’t. Maybe one night after too many glasses of wine, it’ll fall right out of me, that girl that nobody claimed: Cadence Locke. And there, hanging on its heels like an annoying burr I can’t shake, Faris will follow.”
So this is how the king’s executioner kills. With manipulation and coercion and a smile as black as his soul.
“I want to offer you a job,” Alistair repeats.
“It doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” he says. “In this case, it’s whether you think I’m more likely to help you or hurt you.”
My eyes meet his. “I knew that answer four months ago.”
His jaw tightens: I’m testing his patience. His ego. Good.
Or bad? This boy could kill me with his words, let alone his hands. I look away, to my own hands balled in bruised fists in my lap. I need these hands to conquer the world—
Stop it, I command. Not here, not now, not while Thaelan’s murderer watches me for any sign of weakness to exploit. First commandment of the fighting ring: You don’t have to be stronger, you just have to last longer.
But agreeing to anything Alistair Pembrough offers me would be treason. How can I even entertain the idea of an alliance with this boy, this monster—
Because he knows the tunnels beneath the castle.
I straighten my back and lift my chin. Cheap gestures that offer a small taste of control. “What’s the job?” I ask.
He smirks and I hate him for savoring his victory. “Does it matter? You’ll be saving your sister. Buying your freedom. Escaping Brindaigel.”
“While you stay behind, slave to the crown.” I snort, shaking my head. “Right.”
“I already told you, I can’t leave—”
“Nobody leaves Brindaigel,” I say flatly.
Alistair stares at me. “Thaelan did,” he says at last. “And he wasn’t the first. Take this job, and maybe he won’t be the last.”
The familiar longing swells through me, but I force it down and shake my head. “Your word is not good enough,” I say. “I need guarantees, money upfront, my sister’s immediate freedom—”