"Good job," I said. "You've done very good work here, Jenny. Brilliant."
But it wasn’t praise she wanted. I crossed to my leftover fruit—fruit pieces that looked like little red glittering beads. I dropped a few pieces before her, and she gobbled them down, then cocked her head again, looking at me expectantly.
“Don’t you worry, little bird. I have another task for you. I need a second hair clip.” I pointed at it, then pointed at the window, and Jenny was off again, swooping outside.
While I waited for her, I turned the bejeweled hair clip over in my hand once more. The craftsmanship was exquisite. The diamonds had to be worth tens of thousands of crowns. Was this a relic of the Albian royals who’d once lived here?
Touching my throat again, I scanned the room for signs of the ghost. My gaze flicked above, where the ceiling rose to sharp peaks—dark stone carved with intricate, thorny engravings. Everything looked normal.
I glanced in the mirror again, my body rigid with fear.
The rumors in Dovren were that this Iron Fortress had been built five hundred years ago. A king had kept his beautiful mistress somewhere in the castle. Her name had been lost to history, so everyone called her the Iron Queen. Once Alice had tried to draw a picture of her—with long legs and pale skin, black hair, and a crown of long thorns. Legend held that the king had loved her so much he’d locked her up in one of these rooms so she could never leave. She’d died in here.
Some said she'd gone mad in captivity, feral. To be honest, right now, I was relating to her a little too much. And what if this had been her room?
When Jenny came flying back through the window again, another bejeweled hair clip clutched in her talons, my chest unclenched. Nearly to freedom.
“Jenny, you absolute beauty.”
Finally, I would be free. I could find Zahra, and hug another human again before I figured out my next move. Then, I supposed I’d have to live in disguise so Samael never found me again. Ernald would never take me back after the bomb incident.
But even the ragged paupers had something to do with their days, a way to earn a penny. After all, someone had to clean the streets of horse manure.
I knelt before the door. With shaking hands, I got to work as quickly as I could, sliding the long hair pins into the lock. I felt around a little, trying to work out the shape of the lock. It was a complex mechanism, but with years of experience, I was able to gently compress one pin after another, moving my way through.
Perhaps Samael had scoured the room for lockpick items, but it seemed he hadn’t anticipated that I would train a raven.
“Lila!” It was the ghost’s gargling voice behind me, making my heart slam. “Where do you think you’re going? This is your home. Don’t you want to know how you’ll die here?”
“Absolutely not.” I was trying to work faster now, rushing.
At last, I compressed the final pin. When I heard the lock click open, my heart leapt with relief.
I was going to break out of my prison at last, and I would never see these four walls again.
4
Samael
I gripped the stone arches above me, trying to focus on the simple movement of pulling myself up, then lowering myself down again. It was a pointless exercise, but I liked the burn in my muscles. In the ruined church, I'd been moving my body up and down again for … I didn’t know how long. Hours? My arms burned, but I was losing myself in the pleasure of the ache.
I breathed in the scent of life around me—the moss growing on the crumbling stone, the grasses carpeting the ground. Silvered rays of moonlight streamed through the fog, illuminating the sharp peaks of a half-ruined medieval church. The ceiling had crumbled long ago, and now a misty sky hung above me. From here, I could see one of the towers of the Iron Fortress stretching up into the clouds.
Lately, my senses were sharpened, sometimes overwhelmingly so. The rich tastes of food delighted me; the feel of alcohol burning my throat made me feel alive.
Something had changed in me since my brush with death. Since Lila had tried to murder me.
There was a destructive side to me, one I’d kept under the surface since the early days of the fall. Sourial called it my reaper side—the one that slaughtered with abandon. I could hardly remember it, but Sourial claimed that, when I’d first fallen, I’d left piles of the dead in my wake. The reaper enjoyed the kill. The reaper didn’t understand love or mercy. That side of me had once watched Yvonne burn to death and failed to step in.
Now, I was a hair’s breadth away from losing my mind, ready to plunge into the abyss of madness at any moment. Hell of a time for me to become King of the Fallen.
And yet, I felt stronger than ever.
I wanted to rule.
I hoisted myself up again, reveling in the power coursing through my body. I hadn’t felt so far from Heaven in ages. But maybe I liked it a little. Once more, I pulled myself up, my fingers gripping the stonework above the arch. Then, I lowered my body down again.
The sound of footfalls made me pause, and I let myself drop to the ground. In the billowing fog, my fingers twitched at the hilt of my sword.
It was only when I saw Sourial's blue cloak through the mist that I started to relax.
He crossed through the archway and leaned against one of the ruined walls, folding his arms. “Where were you?”
“What do you mean? I was here.” I said it like it was normal to lurk in a dark, ruined church all night.
"The Fallen Council met, as planned,” he replied. “You were supposed to be there. We were discussing the conditions for you to become king.”
I stared at him. How had I forgotten? “Oh, that,” I said quietly. Confusion slid through my mind. I had no idea what day it was anymore. “Do you have any whiskey?”
Sourial fell silent for a moment. “Since when do you drink alcohol?”
I flashed him a smile. “Since I nearly died and started learning to enjoy the world around me.”
He pulled out his little silver flask and arched a quizzical eyebrow. “I notice that you’re lurking outside the castle where you’ve imprisoned Lila. Is she on your mind, by any chance?”
I took a sip and let the smoky whiskey roll over my tongue. Why had I gone so long without this? “No. I haven’t been thinking about Lila at all. What are the conditions, then, for me to rule as king?”
“Before they will crown you, you must swear an oath to kill the Harrower. I don’t suppose you know where you’d find the Harrower?”
My muscles tightened. “The Free Men haven’t yet summoned the demon.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll feel it as soon as they do. I’m working on finding out as much as I can. What else?”
“You must follow the custom of the Fallen—take at least one mortal wife.”
I leaned back against the wall, considering this. They had given me clear directives. Unfortunately, I hadn’t the faintest clue where the Free Men were anymore, let alone how close they were to raising the Harrower. The effort of trying to stay sane had been consuming my thoughts completely. I needed to focus better.
I scrubbed my hand over my jaw. “So I must marry Lila.”
He snatched the whiskey from me. “No, you must marry a mortal. Not Lila. She tried to murder us both with a bomb. I may not be an expert in matters of the heart, but I’d say that makes her a bad choice for a wife.”