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Kiss her and she’ll be yours. You can explain everything and she’ll
understand, because she’ll love you. She’ll win the Trials, you’ll be Blood
Shrike, and when you ask for freedom, she’ll give it to you.
But will she? If I’m entangled with her, won’t that make it worse? Do I want
to kiss her because I love her or because I need something from her? Or both?
All this passes through my head in a second.
Do it
,
my instincts scream.
Kiss
her.
I wrap her silk-smooth hair around my hand
.
Her breath catches, and she
melts into me, her body suddenly, intoxicatingly pliant.
And then, as I pull her face toward me, as our eyes are closing, we hear the
scream.
222
T
XXXIII: Laia
he school is mostly quiet when Izzi and I emerge from the slaves’ quarters.
A few students still out head to the barracks in small groups, their
shoulders slumped with tiredness.
“Did you see the Farrars go in?” I ask Izzi on the way to the training building.
She shakes her head. “I was sitting there staring at those pillars, bored as a
stone, when I noticed one of the bricks was different—shiny, like it had been
touched more than the others. And then—well, come on, I’ll show you.”
We enter the building and are greeted by the almost musical ring of clashing
scims. Ahead of us, a training-room door stands open, and gold torchlight pours
into the hallway. A pair of Masks battles within, each brandishing two slender
scims.
“It’s Veturius,” Izzi says. “And Aquilla. They’ve been at it for ages.”
As I watch them fight, I find that I’m holding my breath. They move like
dancers, whirling back and forth across the room, graceful, liquid, deadly. And
so swift, like shadows on the surface of a river. If I wasn’t watching it with my
own eyes, I would never believe anyone could move that fast.
Veturius knocks the scim from Aquilla’s hand, and he is on her, their bodies
entangled as they wrestle across the floor with a strange, intimate violence. He is
all muscle and force, and yet I can see in the way he fights that he is holding
himself back. He is refusing to unleash his whole strength on her. Even still,
there is an animal freedom to how he moves, a controlled chaos that makes the
air around him blaze. So different from Keenan, with his restrained solemnity
and cool interest.
Why are you comparing them, anyway?
I turn from the Aspirants. “Izzi, come on.”
The building seems empty other than Veturius and Aquilla, but Izzi and I
edge along the walls carefully in case there’s a student or Centurion lurking. We
turn the corner, and I recognize the doors the Farrars used when I saw them enter
here the first time, nearly a week ago.
“Here, Laia.” Izzi slips behind one of the pillars and raises her hand to a brick
that, at first glance, looks like all the others. She taps it. With a quiet groan, a
section of stone swings away into darkness. Lamplight illuminates a narrow,
descending staircase. I look down, barely daring to believe what I’m seeing, then
223
envelop Izzi in a grateful hug.
“Izzi, you did it!”
I don’t understand why she’s not smiling back until her face goes rigid and
she grabs me.
“Shhh,” she says. “Listen.”
The flat tones of a Mask’s voice echo from the tunnel, and the stairwell glows
with approaching torchlight.
“Close it!” Izzi says. “Quickly, before they see!”
I put my hand to the brick, tapping it frantically.
Nothing happens.
“—pretend you don’t see it, but you do.” A vaguely familiar voice rises from
the stairwell as I paw at the brick. “You’ve always known how I feel about her.
Why do you torment her? Why do you hate her so much?”
“She’s an Illustrian snob. She’d never have you anyway.”
“Maybe if you’d left her alone, I’d have had a chance.”
“She’s our enemy, Zak. She’s going to die. Get over it.”
“Then why did you tell her that you two are meant to be? Why do I get the
feeling that you want her to be your Blood Shrike instead of me?”
“I’m messing with her head, you bleeding idiot. And apparently it’s working
so well that even you’re affected.”
I recognize the voices now—Marcus and Zak. Izzi pushes me aside and
punches at the brick. The entrance remains stubbornly open.
“Forget it!” Izzi says. “Come on!”
She grabs me, but Marcus’s face emerges at the bottom of the stairwell, and,
spotting me, he bounds up, reaching me in two strides.
“Run!” I shout at Izzi.
Marcus grabs for Izzi, but I shove her out of the way, and his arm wraps
around my neck instead, choking off my air. He wrenches my head back, and I
stare into his pale yellow eyes.
“What’s this? Spying, wench? Trying to find a way to sneak out of the
school?”
Izzi stands unmoving in the hallway, right eye wide in terror. I can’t let her
get caught. Not after all she’s done for me.
“Go, Iz!” I scream. “Run!”
“Get her, you twit,” Marcus roars at his brother, who has just emerged from
the tunnel. Zak makes a half-hearted effort to grab Izzi, but she wrenches out of
his grasp and runs back the way we came.
224
“Marcus, come on.” Zak sounds exhausted and looks longingly toward the
heavy oak doors that lead outside. “Leave her be. We have to be up early.”
“Don’t you remember her, Zak?” Marcus says. I struggle and try to kick the
soft place between his foot and ankle, but he yanks me off my feet. “She’s the
Commandant’s girl.”
“She’s expecting me,” I choke out.
“She won’t mind if you’re late.” Marcus smiles, a jackal’s grin. “I made you a
promise that day, outside her office, remember? I told you that one night, you’d
be alone in a dark hallway and I’d find you. I always keep my promises.”
Zak groans. “Marcus—”
“If you want to be such a eunuch, little brother,” Marcus says, “then piss off
and leave me to my entertainment.”
Zak regards his twin for a moment. Then he sighs and walks away.
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