From the confident glimmer in his eyes, I can tell that Marcher knows what is happening. Or he thinks he knows. Or he wants me to think he knows.
“Mull it over,” he says. “Let me know if you’re willing to deal. Me and my crew get your Royal protection, and you get to finally understand what’s been happening to the missing Nameless.”
Before I can contemplate whether to accept the deal or spit at his feet, he departs with a swooping bow.
As soon as I’m inside, I lie down on the floor next to the couch where Hat is sleeping. I pull aside the long curtain and stare up at the night sky, tracking the patterns of constellations.
So, Marcher is back. With a gift, a surprise, and a deal.
I want nothing more than to push away every word that comes from Marcher’s spetzing mouth, but I don’t have the luxury of ignoring the darkest parts of my past. Those memories helped forge me. They are the iron veins running through me.
Every time I see Marcher, it’s as if I never left and I’m still a kid, running wherever he points, sitting huddled with the other kids on old mattresses tucked in the corners of abandoned houses. At night, I would stare through the last unbroken window, barely able to distinguish starlight from the glowing air of Seriden.
Part of me will always be staring out that window, seeing the city but wishing for starlight.
I can’t see the stars the way Hat does. She feels their warmth like a barrel fire. They inspire her. They shine inside her eyes. To me, lights from a distance are cold. They are everything I cannot have. When I wish for starlight, I want the freedom to see it. To be somewhere far outside the city, where Seriden’s lights are faint shivering flickers against the horizon.
On the night of the riots, Devil asked me if I wanted to stay in the palace. She was offering me the same thing she had when I first came to her after I found the tattoo on my arm: a way out. But it’s hopeful and selfish to think that leaving Seriden will make anything better. Hat was nearly executed today just because General Belrosa wanted to prove a point. What happens to the rest of the Nameless if I leave? And abandoning Seriden will mean I’m walking away from the only chance I’ve ever had to find my name.
If King Fallow died and made me queen, then I must have a real name, given to me at birth. Whoever named me, father or mother, died and left me Nameless. Fallow somehow found it and spoke it before he died, giving me this tattoo. No matter what the crown means—that I’m meant to rule or to speak another name and die—my name is out there. An ache fills my chest as I imagine a whisper—barely a breath—passing through the king’s lips.
Maybe, with a name, I’ll finally learn how friendship works when it’s more than the alleys you share, the blood, the secrets, and the food. I’ll understand courtesy and common kindness, smiling on the streets instead of slipping through the shadows to avoid reproachful glares.
Then there’s Hat, who stares at me with all the impossible optimism that I can never understand. When she looks at me, she sees everything she thinks I can change about Seriden. What’s stopping me from proving to the Legals and Royals that the Nameless have worth?
What’s stopping me? Aside from this trembling ache inside my chest? Aside from fear?
I stare up at the stars, trying desperately to feel their warmth, trying to understand how hope can fuel me instead of crush me.
By morning, I’ve made up my mind.
CHAPTER 12
The shadows are soft against the ceiling when I wake. The curtains are closed again, so I’m not sure how late it is. There’s a quilt tucked around Hat and an afghan draped over my waist.
Devil is sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, drinking something steamy from a teacup.
I smile suspiciously and point at the blanket on me. “Did you?”
“No,” she answers curtly, and I hardly believe her, but I let it rest.
“Listen,” she says after a moment. “I’ve asked about the Nameless going missing, and so far no one knows anything. It’s like they vanish overnight. I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you.”
I whisper over Hat’s sleeping form. “Hat said a boy disappeared from the prison in the middle of the night, that maybe it was a Royal guard who took him.”
Devil considers this. “Could be. The lack of information is telling. If there’s no sign of what’s going on, either something very organized is happening, or nothing is happening and we’re just reading into it.”
But we know that’s not true. They’re going missing, and we don’t know how or why.
Hat yawns and stretches, and as she sits up, it’s clear that her hair has gone from a tangled mess to an unrivaled frizz ball. She fixes the problem by grabbing one of Glenquartz’s hats from his rack and pulling it down tightly over her head.
She springs to her feet, full of sprightly energy. “I could have slept for days!” she says. After being in prison for that long, I’m surprised she didn’t.
“We’re not staying here,” I say to Hat. “I need to get to the palace. I’ve been letting them dictate the terms of my reign until the festival. But they’re stuck with me. They don’t get to control how I act and what I do. Not anymore.”
“If you want to keep her safe, the best way to do that is to keep her close by,” Devil says. “You should take her into the palace with you. It’s the last place they’d search for her, especially if you tell them she left the city. Tell them she left on…” Devil counts on her fingers. “It’s a Wednesday? Tell them she left last night on a ship called the Delicate Crest. It’s an old schooner headed around the south coast toward Olefar. That type of ship is fast enough that they wouldn’t even think about chasing it down. Not to mention that its captain occasionally dabbles in…untethered acquisitions and transport.”
“You know a pirate?” I ask.
“A part-time pirate,” Devil says. “But it works as a cover story. Just remember: southbound schooner, Delicate Crest. Then all you have to do is get Hat into the palace unnoticed.”
I peek through the curtains. It’s early enough that the streets won’t be filled, but we will still be seen if we aim for a casual stroll through the Royal Court.
“How do you suggest we do that with no one noticing?”
Devil downs the rest of her tea in a single gulp. “You forget so soon. I’m a smuggler. It’s what I do.”
* * *
Devil’s plan involves two scaled walls, a padlock to pick, and the loading entrance near the kitchens for shipments from the South Farms. We make our way without incident, which in and of itself is a feat.