“I’d prefer that you didn’t,” Jonus pressed, an edge to his voice. “Isn’t that reason enough not to?”

  Anya knew she ought to feel compelled to oblige him. She would have, only weeks ago. But the road had changed her and her great failure had already come and gone—she’d stood before the god of the mountain and had not made an end of him. She’d branded herself a heretic forever and doomed herself to carry the blame for every girl the god touched from the day of her transgression on. The only absolution for her rested in death, or in resuming and fulfilling her impossible purpose—in putting an end to Albion’s vast game of gods and girls and penitents.

  The faintest spark of anger flared into life at Anya’s center, and this time it was not for Ilva or any of the girls who’d gone before. It was on her own behalf.

  “No,” she said. “That’s not reason enough for me.”

  In answer, Jonus reached out. He hooked two fingers around the front of Anya’s band and tore it from her throat, the clasp Tieran had so carefully sewn on giving way. Jonus dropped the collar onto the carpeted floor in a single, dismissive motion, as if it were rubbish to be tossed aside.

  “There,” he said. “That’s better. Let’s go down.”

  Anya’s longing for the wanderers lanced through her once more, so sharp it felt like a physical pain. Perhaps she had never fully learned her place in their world, but none of them had tried to tell her what that place ought to be. She had not been pushed or molded into a prescribed role, and half her discomfort when among them, she realized too late, had stemmed from the simple fact that she’d never acquired a taste for freedom. She’d always been overshadowed and overawed, her own possible futures laid out for her as if they were already decided upon. A life at the side of Lord Nevis, it seemed, would be no different.

  Stooping, Anya retrieved her band without a word, and tucked it into her pocket.

  Jonus led her down the stairs and into a room so large all of Weatherell would have fit within it. There were people everywhere, dressed in flamboyantly colored gowns and suits, frothing with lace and laughter and gossip. The music was overwhelming, so loud that it was necessary to raise your voice if you wished to be heard. Dancers swirled about at the center of the room, tables piled high with food lined its sides, and liveried attendants moved swiftly about at the margins, waiting upon those who’d been born more fortunate than them. Everywhere Anya looked, she found only wealth and safety, and after what she’d seen elsewhere in Banevale, the sight was utterly disorienting.

  At her side, Jonus gestured to one of the musicians. Within moments, the entire room was still. Every eye fixed on them, and though Anya tried to will herself into calm, her stomach turned over. Her palms slicked. Her hands began, ever so slightly, to tremble.

  Jonus gave her a quick, disapproving glance.

  “Compose yourself,” he muttered, before gracing the revelers with a calculated smile.

  “My friends,” Jonus said with expansive goodwill. “I’m glad to see you all safe and well tonight, despite the trouble visiting our city. It is my pleasure and privilege to keep you so, and I’m certain we will weather this particular outburst of the creature on the mountain as well as we’ve done every other.”

  Sustained applause rose up from the crowd, and Jonus bowed his head, accepting them magnanimously, as if he had not expected and courted them with his words. Anya stole glances at the gathered revelers and tried to quell the anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Her ghosts were scattered among the crowd, staring at her fixedly with glassy eyes, and she did not let her gaze rest on them for long. Instead she looked from face to face, restlessness growing within.

  “It is also my pleasure,” Jonus went on, reaching out to take Anya’s hand as he spoke, “to present my daughter to you. You will have heard by now how she set herself against the Elect, and against the god of the mountain himself. Truly, I could not have a more worthy heir to someday take my place and serve as your protector here and throughout Albion.”

  More applause. Contrarily, Anya’s nerves did not grow worse, knowing attention was now on her. She did not like Jonus Astraea’s familiar manner, or how he spoke for her and claimed her future when she’d not yet made up her own mind. It was no wonder Willem had left him, trading the prison of this glittering estate for the simpler one she’d grown up within.

  “Enjoy your safety tonight,” Jonus said, letting go of Anya and taking a glass from a nearby attendant. “Enjoy your time with us. Before long, the god will have quieted and you will all return to your own homes. But I hope you remember, when you do, where help lay in time of trouble. That it is the Astraeas who protect you when the Elect cannot. That we are the ones who stand before gods, rather than cowering or offering up the weak.”

  TWENTY-THREE Bones Are for Protection

  Anya quelled the urge to roll her eyes as the banquet-goers applauded Lord Nevis yet again. Jonus raised his glass and, on cue, music resumed.

  With a dismissive gesture to his audience, Jonus dispersed the gathered crowd and drew Anya aside.

  “I’ve business to attend to tonight and can’t be with you much,” he said. “Soon you’ll be able to help me with such things, but for now, I’ve found you an agreeable escort.”

  A young man appeared, stepping over from where he’d been waiting for his lord’s command. He wore a dark broadcloth suit not unlike Jonus’s own, save for the addition of a lavishly embroidered waistcoat. Though he was towheaded and broad-faced and arrogant in his bearing, Anya could not help giving him a searching look.

  But there was nothing, not the vaguest hint of her thief about him. Catching Anya looking at him, the stranger offered her a self-satisfied smile.

  “This is Delaford,” Jonus said. “He’ll keep an eye on you.”

  And with that, Anya’s father vanished into the crowd. It was as if he assumed Anya’s allegiance was already within his possession. As if he’d won her, in taking her from the Elect, and decided her path by speaking of it.

  “An easy task, overseeing Lord Nevis’s daughter,” Delaford said smoothly, “when what I’m meant to be watching is a pleasure to look at.”

  Anya met his flattery with the blank stare she’d always employed against Tieran and Ilva, but her escort seemed unflappable. With a smile that had little of humor in it, he offered one arm, and unsure what else to do, Anya took it.

  “Do you know, His Lordship has spoken of nothing but you since word came that you were in Banevale?” Delaford tried again, speaking low and leaning close to Anya as if imparting a confidence. “I’ve the honor of serving as one of his personal aides, and it’s been all praise of Anya Astraea since your arrival.”

  “How nice,” Anya said tersely. She didn’t like the boy’s overfamiliar air or way of speaking as if there were a secret between them.

  “He’s not easily impressed, either.” Delaford drew Anya over to one of the delicacy-laden tables and made a great show of their closeness as half the room covertly watched their progress. Anya’s face burned, and she ducked her head. “Of course, we would have loved to meet your sister, too, but she wasn’t suitable—only kept company with the Elect after arriving in the city, and your father’s always been at odds with them. Whatever happened to her? Your sister, I mean? So many girls come and go from the mountain, I can’t keep track of what happens to them afterward.”

  “Her name was Ilva, and she died,” Anya said, voice toneless, eyes hard as flint. Deep within, her spark was gathering more heat, illuminating the ashes. “That’s why I’m here. I’d never have left home if she hadn’t been killed.”

  “Pity,” Delaford said, waving a dismissive hand. “All’s well that ends well, though, and Lord Nevis is terribly proud to have you with us.”

  “Is he?” Anya’s gaze cut to her father. He was deep in another intent discussion, and it did not seem to her that there was anyone in the room to equal him—anyone who could hold their own against the Lord of Banevale, or to whom he would acquiesce. It gnawed at her. She could see already that he was not the sort who could be easily denied, and that so long as he lived, she would be just another piece of property. A thing to show off, like this glittering estate or the god’s mountain.

  Anya Astraea, my daughter who was meant for a Weatherell girl. Whom I stole from the Elect themselves.

  From somewhere out in the city, there came a distant crash and rumble, and the ground shook. Crystal trembled on the laden tables, but at a sharp word from Jonus, the music swelled louder.

  “What was that?” Anya asked.

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” Delaford said with a forced smile. “We’re safe here, you know, behind your father’s walls, though we all pay for that safety one way or another.”

  “Tell me what you mean by that,” Anya pressed. “How is it Lord Nevis is keeping Banevale safe, and what sort of payment does he require?”

  Delaford shifted anxiously. “I’m not sure I’m allowed to say.”

  “Then don’t,” Anya said. “Show me instead.”

  When Delaford hesitated, she smiled up at him, acutely aware of her unaccustomed finery and the confidence she wore like a borrowed glove. “You said you’re my father’s personal aide?”

  Delaford nodded.

  “I suppose that’s a coveted position,” Anya went on, toying with one of the crystal chips gleaming on her sleeve. “One which comes with any number of privileges. One any number of people would jump at, should you need to be replaced.”

  She had no idea whether her influence on such matters would carry any weight with Jonus. But Delaford clearly seemed to think it would. He paled and nodded.

  “All right. Come along.”

  Anya swept along at his side, the crowds parting before them like water. Briefly, Delaford frowned down at her.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re more like your father than I expected,” he said. “When they told me Lord Nevis had a Weatherell girl as his heir and was planning to steal her out from under the noses of the Elect, I thought you’d be… different somehow.”

  “I’m not like him at all,” Anya said, lifting her chin. Ilva was following along, drifting through the revelers beside them, and her lips moved in a silent litany. “The best of me is like my sister, and the strongest of me is like my mother.”

  “And the worst of you?” Delaford asked lightly.

  Anya caught his pallid blue gaze and held it. She thought of her stubbornness, in forever refusing to see good in the long march of sacrifices the Elect had orchestrated. Of her unforgivable cowardice in letting Ilva go to the god. Of the way she had lied and hidden, all the way across Albion. Of how she’d stood before the god of the mountain and driven twin blades into his heart. How she was somehow still alive, in the aftermath of that failure.

  But mostly, she thought of the furious, foolish fire she clung to so tightly and was even now nursing back to life at her core.

  “I don’t think either you or Jonus could bear the worst of me, if I chose to let it show.”

  Delaford led Anya out of the manor house, the billowing sounds of merriment dimming as they emerged into the night. Before the estate lay a long sweep of gravel drive, lined with torches. Above it spread the stars. And beyond the drive, Anya could see only darkness and intermittent flame, which signaled the presence of the god.

  Before, when she’d thought of him, it had been with mingled revulsion and dread. She had feared and hated him above all else and wanted no more than his downfall. Now, in the wake of her failure, the fear she’d felt was gone, burned away by her own unquenchable passion. The only emotion left when she thought of the god was wrath.

  Her fear had died on the mountain. Anger, however, had survived.

  Delaford stopped a few paces from the gate, where half a dozen uniformed guards kept watch over the place where the Astraea estate’s walled grounds opened into the rest of the city.

  “There you have it,” he said, without meeting Anya’s eyes. “Our protection against the god.”

  Anya cast a cursory glance over the guards. “They’re not enough. You forget that I’ve seen him. Stood before him. Six guards could hardly set themselves against the terror that destroyed a Roman centuria in ages past.”

  “They’re better equipped than you give them credit for,” Delaford said, but he was no liar. Not the way Anya’s thief had been. His gaze strayed to the estate’s high stone walls, and impatiently, Anya slipped her hand from his arm, striding across the lawn and pushing apart the ivy that draped the stonework.

  Bones.

  Anya’s ghosts flared to life all across the lawn as she stood looking at a wall where the thick mortar had been inset with bones. Weatherell ringed with bones. The Astraeas’ gleaming and untouchable estate hedged in by the same. Bones lining the path to shepherd the god down from Bane Nevis, to the waiting city below.

  Bones are for protection, blood is for ill luck.

  Anya’s heart leaped into her throat. She’d been a hair’s breadth from success. All she’d needed was Ilva.

  “Leave me,” she demanded, turning on her heel to address Delaford. “I want to walk the grounds alone.”

  “But I—” he began.

  Anya channeled Willem, cold and imperious.

  “Leave,” she snapped.

  And to her shock, he left.

  Gathering up her skirts, Anya set off across the moonlit lawns, away from the gate and its guards. It irked her, to be so visible in her fine and glinting gown. She’d much rather have been in her trousers and roughspun shirt, and able to melt into the shadows. It was cold after dark too, and the chilly night air had her shivering in minutes.

  At the far side of the grounds, where a long expanse of secretive, tangled gardens lay between the wall and the back of the palatial house, Anya found the escape she needed. She came across a small and rusted back gate, and at this one, the lone liveried guard was slumped over, an empty flagon beside him, his breath deep and even with sleep. Hardly daring to hope, Anya picked her way delicately past him and tried the gate.

  Locked.

  With great care, she rifled through the guard’s pockets, her heart nearly stopping when he shifted once beneath her touch. Nothing, though. No keys. No knife. Not even a pin with which she might try to pick the lock.

  Moving back a little way, Anya glanced up at the bone-set wall in despair. It was thick with ivy here, too, and at the top, barely visible in the dim moonlight, was something that quickened her pulse and set the hope she’d tamped down arrowing through her again.

  Draped over the wall lay a thin length of braided crimson cord.

  Without hesitation, Anya gathered up her glistening skirts and knotted them around her waist, then set herself to climbing the ivy.

  For someone forest-bred, who’d spent all her life clambering up and down trees in a vain attempt to keep pace with Ilva, it was the work of moments to reach the top of the wall, though the gown she wore caught and tore more than once.

  Atop the wall, Anya cast about herself, and for a moment it seemed her flight had ended, and there was no way down. The wall’s far side had no accommodating ivy, and the barrier was fully twelve feet high. Anya could not afford to turn or break an ankle in her descent—Lord Astraea or the Elect would collect her within an hour, if she was forced to limp about the city. But then, in the shadows, she saw it—an old and half-rotted wooden ladder, leaned up against the stone. Making her way along the top of the wall on hands and knees and hardly daring to breathe lest someone catch sight of her shining like a fallen star in the moonlight, Anya reached the ladder. It groaned and creaked in protest but held her weight, and at last she was on solid ground, outside the bounds of Jonus Astraea’s gilded realm.

  Allowing herself a half smile, Anya bent to unknot her skirts, only to be nearly bowled over by a trio of familiar figures—Janie and Ella, who threw their arms around her and held her tight for a long moment, and a triumphant Midge. Though the dog kept silent, she put her muddy paws up on Anya’s fine gown, adding to the damage. Warm tears slipped down Anya’s face, but they had nothing to do with sorrow and everything to do with glad relief.

  “You look radiant. And miserable. And absolutely freezing,” Janie whispered. “We ought to get ourselves away from here. El and me have been lurking for ages—I’ve slipped valerian to three guards in a row now, and we’re lucky they’re too embarrassed or too afraid to say anything about it when they doze off. Come on, we’ve only been waiting for you before we leave Banevale.”

  They were already leading Anya away from the Astraea estate, through the night-dark and empty streets of the beleaguered city. But at Janie’s last words, Anya stopped.

  “You were waiting for me?” she asked, not quite believing what she’d heard.

  “Really, Anya, we know Matthias told you that you’re family now,” Ella said, and even her gentle voice held a mild reproach. “Won’t you ever believe it? We don’t leave family in trouble.”

  “Not even the ones who seem to draw trouble to themselves,” Janie added with a smile. She held out a hand and Anya took it without hesitation. “Come on. We can keep you safer than anyone else in Albion, now you’re clear of the Elect and Nevis. You’ll be all right with us, Anya, we swear it.”

  It was almost unbearably tempting. Anya wanted nothing more than to accept their offer—to let herself be enveloped by the wanderers’ affection and goodwill and care, and knit herself into their company until she became as much a part of them as Matthias or Lee or one of the girls. She didn’t doubt Janie’s assurance, either. She would be safe with them. She’d be all right. She’d be looked after, as she’d never been before.

  And every day, her ghosts and her guilt would haunt her, no matter how long she lived. Anya would never really be free of Albion’s god and the long shadow he cast, not so long as he still slept on his mountain. Her fate had been bound to his the day Willem gave her hands in exchange for the lives of the daughters she hadn’t yet known she carried.

  I don’t want to go, Anya had said to Ilva, a lifetime ago. But I don’t want anyone else to go either.

 

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