In a crash of grief, Lu’s childlike hope dissolved. Tom wasn’t a double agent, feigning allegiance to Elazar as he spied on Argrid for Grace Loray. He was a traitor to this island. To Kari. To Lu. To everything they had built together.
It was true. Her father had betrayed her.
Tom motioned at the Mecht prisoners behind him. “Do you know the history of Grace Loray? The Grace himself, Xoel Loray? The Church anointed him after his death to represent the Pious God’s pillar of purity. He warned of magic’s corruption and devoted his life to balancing magic with the Pious God’s will. But we failed Xoel Loray, and this land became overrun. Criminals, disorder. This island needs to be cleansed.”
Lu only half heard him. A tear slipped down her cheek. “Who were they? The people I killed for you.”
Tom wavered. “People who had threatened to sell Argrid’s secrets to the rebels.”
Enemies who could have ended the war. People who could have ended the war.
“Argridian traitors,” Lu stated, angling the words at him. What you should have been.
“You were not meant to kill two of them, sweetheart,” Tom told her, his voice soft as though he could be comforting. “My superiors requested it of me. You were only meant to lure them out so I could uncover if they had betrayed Argrid. That you did kill them was . . . fate.”
“Fate?” Anger spiked through her grief, refreshingly powerful. “Fate for me to have blood on my hands?”
“The Pious God chose you.” He closed the space between them and reached out, fingertips on her cheek. “I never realized what you had done after the war—to heal yourself of Shaking Sickness! The Pious God is wise. If you can do that, you can unlock the rest of magic’s secrets. You can make magic permanent the same way that the Mechts made their fire-wielding Eye of the Sun permanent. With it, the Eminence King will have the power to rise against the Devil and stop the evil that has taken this island.”
The metal tongs in her hand grew heavier.
This man didn’t sound like the father who had raised her. He sounded like the fanatical Church priests who had spewed doctrine across the island during the revolution.
Exhaustion plummeted through Lu’s body. She had tried to stop war from coming. She had freed Vex from prison, paid him to find Milo Ibarra, traveled from New Deza to Port Mesi-Teab to Backswamp to the ocean, to keep Grace Loray in a state of peace. But that peace had started cracking the moment the revolution ended, weakened by her own father and by the Council’s refusal to accept that raiders were worthy citizens of the island, not criminal pests.
War was already here. It had never left. Grace Loray would return to being an island of burnings and mission-prisons, where people were guilty until they screamed their innocence under torture. If Elazar’s defensors had permanent magic to make them inhumanly strong and fast and healthy, no one would be able to escape. Elazar could sort the world as he pleased.
The last time Argrid had threatened Grace Loray, Lu had relied on her parents to fight back. But this time? Would Kari alone be enough to stop Elazar—to stop Tom? What would it take to bring peace to Grace Loray? Why was peace such a difficult, impossible desire?
Lu leveled her eyes at Tom, not sure her heart was beating. “I will not help Elazar.”
Tom drew his hand off her face. “Let us start small. You are brilliant, sweetheart, to be the only known person to survive Shaking Sickness. Tell me how you did it.”
His belief in her clashed with a similar memory: watching Fatemah in the Port Mesi-Teab sanctuary cooking Budwig Beans to increase their potency. Lu had been confident in her knowledge of magic—and Fatemah had stripped her down to a questioning mass of uncertainty.
Lu bit onto the answer. That Shaking Sickness wasn’t a disease, but a body’s reaction to too much magic, and undoing it was as simple as taking the counter plants—which was what Vex needed. How long had she been a prisoner? How much worse had his condition gotten?
“No,” she told Tom. “Even if I was willing, I am no longer so narrow-minded as to think that I could make permanent magic. The Mechts, the Tuncians—there is knowledge that I will never—”
Tom cocked his head. “The Mechts made Eye of the Sun permanent—we know that, and have spent years trying to learn their secret. But the Tuncians? What have they done?”
Lu’s grip on the tongs slackened. Dread left a sour trail in her throat.
She hadn’t meant to draw attention to them. The process Fatemah had used to intensify Budwig Beans had nothing to do with permanent magic . . . did it?
Lu pinched her lips in a thin line. No more. She had indulged Tom long enough.
He took another step back, face graying. “You were never supposed to be so defiant. Your mother is to blame. You’re so like her.”
His mention of Kari sent heartache stabbing through Lu’s chest.
“I tried, Lulu-bean,” Tom said. “Remember, sweetheart, that I tried to reach you first, and I am sorry, so sorry, for what must be done. It shouldn’t have to happen.”
Tom had spoken such words to her on the floor of the safe house in Port Camden, after rebels had chased Milo and his defensors from the building.
“I’m so sorry, Lulu-bean. I’m sorry this happened to you. It shouldn’t have happened—”
He was putting the blame on her. It shouldn’t have happened—you should have been obedient. You should have been better.
Lu’s throat cinched closed. Reason told her that Tom was insane—but the pieces of her that loved him welled with questions.
What can I do, Papa? How can I be better? How can I bring you back to us?
The door, hidden from Lu by the stacks of crates, creaked open.
She tucked the metal tongs into her sleeve and twisted her back to a table littered with papers and books. Titles on the spines gleamed with embossed ink. The Virtue of Grace Neus. The Holy Doctrine of the Pious God. Sermons of Grace Biel.
Elazar swept into the room. Indigo robes spilled around him, gold trim sparkling like hand-woven treasure. Behind him, Milo watched Elazar with a masked expression.
Elazar surveyed Tom before turning his gaze to Lu.
Milo numbed her. Elazar peeled her raw.
“She refused,” Elazar guessed in Argridian.
Tom winced. That was why Lu had woken up here, why Ben was imprisoned. This had been a chance for her to save herself.
Nausea flooded Lu, that Tom had thought she would give in to him.
“She has provided an idea,” Tom said, straightening. “About new methods to try.”
Lu’s eyes widened. But resistance would confirm that there was validity to her slipup in mentioning Tuncians. She swayed, caught with inaction.
“New methods?” Milo frowned. He gathered himself and bowed to Elazar. “My king, permit me to begin testing these . . . new methods. I will not fail you.”
Elazar’s eyes stayed fixed on Lu. Exhaustion swarmed her again, thirst and hunger and a bright, disintegrating reminder of how alone she was.
Ben was here, somewhere. But what of Vex? Anyone else?
“Correct, Ibarra. You will not fail me again.” Elazar pierced the last word. Milo cringed. But Elazar swept past him and turned his heavy focus to Tom. “Andreu. The Pious God anointed your daughter for his mighty plans. But what role are you to play now?”