“My point is,” I said, “Chrysalis may be willing to try to protect the entire kingdom, but there’s no guarantee he’ll be successful. He’s too powerful to sacrifice without assurance of success.”
“Plus, he’s human now,” Melanie said. “He’s a person, not a tool.”
“He murdered the last person who believed in him like that.” James kept his tone even, but his eyes were hard. “He’s not human. He’s a human-shaped wraith creature, alive only because Wilhelmina commanded. So don’t be so quick to defend him.”
She frowned and went back to her study of the map of Aecor. “What of the barrier?”
“We must assume it’s gone. Tobiah said—” James cleared his throat and touched the notebook he’d used to write to Tobiah. “He said they’d started to put up some of the barrier, but obviously it didn’t hold.”
“Maybe it wasn’t big enough, or there wasn’t enough magic. Maybe the wraith beasts weren’t enough, and it needed to be real, human magic.” I sighed. “There are a hundred things we can’t know.”
“We have the construction plans, right?” Melanie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What if we tried to make one? Aecor is smaller than the Indigo Kingdom. We could set up the barrier along the coast. Maybe ring the entire peninsula if it looks like it’s going to work.”
“What about Laurel-by-the-Sea?” I pointed at our northern neighbors. “James, do we know their status?”
He shook his head. “They’ve closed their borders. But a ringed barrier wouldn’t prevent them from coming here if they didn’t have defenses. How much of a population can Aecor support?”
I didn’t know. “It might not matter. Chrysalis doesn’t believe a barrier will do anything more than delay the inevitable. That was Liadia’s experience, and what we were hoping for with Tobiah’s”—I managed not to choke on his name—“committee. But we believed we’d have more time. Time to research, experiment, and build, and then the wraith would hit the barrier.”
Then we’d have a year to live unless we miraculously found a solution.
Our parents and grandparents had left us this world that was spiraling out of control. All their efforts hadn’t been enough to save it. How could we hope to make a difference?
“We don’t have time to build a barrier,” James said. “Even with the construction plans, we don’t have the resources.”
And even if we had enough flashers in Aecor to supply the magic, I doubted they would step forward. I wouldn’t have.
“What do you propose?” Melanie asked.
“My king and cousin is dead.” James’s chest expanded with a ragged breath as he faced me, expression grave. “Two months ago, he forbade me from returning to the Indigo Kingdom, but now, Wilhelmina, you are my queen. Allow me to journey into the new wraithland with a team of volunteers and retrieve any parts of the barrier I can find. I’ll bring it back to you.”
“You’d be risking your life.”
“It’s nothing less than you or Tobiah would do. Besides, I have no intentions of dying. Best case, I return with barrier pieces to help protect Aecor for a time. Worst, I return with information about the wraithland and where the borders are.”
“Worst case, I never see you again.”
“I’m reasonably certain I can’t die.” James hazarded a smile, but we both knew he was thinking about the mystery of his healing. Now he’d never know what happened. “Maybe I can find refugees as well.”
Maybe he could find his cousin, he meant.
I turned my eyes to the fire, watching flames jump up and around the blackening logs. “This is the only plan we have?”
“The only one that doesn’t involve giving up.” James leaned forward and touched my arm. “Let me do this. I know I can.”
The idea of sending James into the wraithland was appalling, not just because the wraithland was a nightmare come to life, but because I needed him here. But he was the best choice for this mission, and if there was even the slimmest chance that Tobiah and the Ospreys had survived, James would be the one to find them.
“Prince Colin won’t permit it.”
“I know how we’ll deal with Prince Colin.”
I nodded. “I won’t stop you, then. We need any parts of the barrier you can recover. In the morning, I’ll work with Paige and her new assistants to see if there’s any way to convert one of the unused factories into something like Tobiah’s barrier facility. We may not be able to construct an entire barrier here, but we can do something.”
We spent the remainder of the night discussing who would go with James, and what routes they’d take into Skyvale. When we’d finished our tea and they started for the door, I hugged both of them. Melanie for the friends we’d lost. And James for the hope he still carried.
“Remember, this won’t be a rescue mission,” I whispered. “I don’t want you to stay in the wraithland any longer than it takes to fetch the barrier.”
“I know,” he said, and they left.
Alone, I opened the entangled notebook James had left on his chair.
Page by page, I read through the letters Tobiah and I had written each other, and the last string of notes and pleas I’d left.
I opened a jar of ink and dipped a pen.
How long have you been gone, Tobiah? Since we last talked? Was it that night? That hour?
I’ve only just had confirmation that Skyvale has fallen and even though part of me suspected this whole time, I hoped. I hoped. But if you’d survived an attack on Skyvale, you’d have reached me by now.
The last time we wrote, I wanted to tell you something, but I didn’t. Maybe there’s no point anymore. But. But Tobiah, I miss you.
I miss you and I wish you were here.
Love,
Wilhelmina
Tears swam in my eyes as I cleaned the pen and then placed my hands on the notebook. “Go to sleep,” I whispered. “Be a normal notebook again. Nothing more.”
THIRTY-SIX
MY EYES WERE gummy in the morning, aching with the loss of Tobiah and the Ospreys and an entire kingdom I’d been raised to hate, but grown to love.
In spite of the grief, there was work to do, and I needed to appear strong. Truly, I was stronger; keeping the notebooks active had been draining me, and without them I had a chance of enduring the day.
Today was an important day. Historic, maybe.
Tomorrow would be bigger.
I sat still as Danie smoothed powder under my eyes to conceal the evidence of my late, restless night. She found a soft, dove gray dress and waited while I changed behind the partition.
“Will there be anything else, Your Majesty?” she asked, once she’d finished braiding my hair.
“That’s all.” I smiled as warmly as possible. “When you admire Sergeant Wallace today, maybe you should try speaking to him, too.”
Her throat and cheeks flushed. “Oh, I couldn’t. He’s much too good for me.”
“Never say that.” I stepped forward and squeezed her arm as I would have Melanie’s or Paige’s, and Danie tensed. Though she touched me all the time to do my hair or apply cosmetics or help me dress, she was always quick and efficient, never casual. I was a flasher queen, commander of the wraith boy: I was terrifying.
When I backed away, Danie forced her shoulders down. “Maybe I’ll try. Good day, Your Majesty.” She was out of the room in seconds. That probably counted as fleeing.
I grabbed my black notebook and papers, and headed out the door a moment later.
“What did you do to Danie?” Paige asked. “She looked somewhere between alarmed and ill when she came running out.”
Behind us, Melanie fished a coin from her pocket and gave it to James; he’d won the bet.
I sighed as we headed to the council room. “I’m trying to be friendly to the staff. To show them I care.”
Paige grimaced as I told her about my attempt to encourage Danie. “Just be nice. Let her do her job and be nice to her. Remember, you’re not spying on the staf
f and you don’t want to give that impression.”
“I’ll try.” My heart pounded as we reached the council chamber.
Oscar and Ronald were already there, as well as a handful of nobles from other parts of the kingdom.
Everyone stood when I entered.
Jasper and Cora Calloway, the count and countess from Northland, had been kind to me, and supportive. Across from them were Harrison and Desiree Symonds from Trinity, the first destination for most refugees. They had twin daughters—Summer and Juniper—who raced through the halls of Sandcliff Castle, playing like the wraith didn’t concern them.
Prince Colin was there, too, his arms pulled over his chest in a defensive posture.
Melanie took her place at the table while the rest of my guard watched from the wall. Red uniforms nearly outnumbered the blue here.
“Thank you for joining me this morning.” I looked around the table, meeting everyone’s eyes for a heartbeat. “We’ve always known the Indigo Kingdom couldn’t stand between Aecor and the wraith forever. But none of us thought this day would come so soon.”
There was nodding all around.
“After yesterday’s devastating news, I promised a plan to keep Aecor safe. My closest advisers and I spent last night working out the details.
“We still think a barrier similar to the one Liadia constructed is our best chance. As such, Captain Rayner will lead a team into the wraithland to gather whatever remains of the barrier King Tobiah built. Meanwhile, we will build our own facility. Flashers who volunteer their magic for the new barrier will be compensated. I will be first to pour my magic into the barrier that will protect our kingdom. Paige, please see that the plans are drawn up.”
She nodded and wrote a note to herself.
“A waste of resources,” Harrison Symonds said.
I turned my glare on him. “The only other option is giving up, and I’m not willing to do that. Not when there’s still hope.”
“Is there still hope?” Lord Symonds rose and leaned forward, his hands flat on the table. His wife touched his arm and shook her head, but he ignored her. “Most of the continent has fallen to the wraith. A hundred years of wiser minds than yours have worked to contain or stop the wraith. The barrier in Liadia failed after only a year—”
“Then what do you propose?” My fingernails dug into my palms. “Should we sit here and wait to die? Tell thousands of people out there that we’ve given up? If you thought the riots were bad before—”
“I suppose you would know about the common people?”
“I know enough to tell you this: people are scared. In Skyvale, it was this constant, low-grade terror. Knowing the wraith was coming, knowing they could do nothing about it.”
“They could have stopped using magic,” Prince Colin said. “They could have turned in the flashers among them.”
“Some did.” My chest ached. “They told the police and left signals for Black Knife. But mostly, they wanted to be able to trust their king and queen. Their princes. They wanted to believe in the people whose responsibility it was to care for them. They wanted to trust that their leaders would find a way to keep them safe from the wraith. And now you want me to tell my people that we’ve given up.”
“Just two men.” Melanie’s words jerked me back into the present. The Grays, the Calloways, Lady Symonds, and even the guards—they were all staring at Prince Colin, Harrison, and me. Melanie’s tone remained level. “Not we.”
I shook my head. “No matter what I said, it would be we. No one would care about the difference. Besides, if I allowed that kind of announcement to be made, it would mean I’d given up, too. And I won’t do that.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Prince Colin strode toward me, just a hair too close for politeness. “You’re a queen in name only. I remain overlord.”
I stood, tipping my chair back, and closed the gap between us, suddenly in his space. “Wrong again. As you said, the Indigo Kingdom is gone. Your king is dead. You’re the heir to a falling kingdom, and your claim to the title of overlord is empty. That leaves you with two choices: leave Aecor, or admit you are now a refugee. In accordance with the Wraith Alliance, you are welcome to stay here as a ward of the independent kingdom of Aecor.”
The council room was silent, save Lord Symonds’s “I humbly respect my queen’s wishes.”
I wanted to see their faces, but there was no way I was turning away from Prince Colin. “Paige, prepare for my coronation. Tomorrow is the ten-year anniversary of the One-Night War, the anniversary of Aecor losing its king and queen. At noon, I will take the crown, and Aecor will have a queen once more.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“No. This is outrageous.” Prince Colin’s neck turned red. “This isn’t how the Wraith Alliance works.”
“Actually, it is.” James grabbed a folder from the center of the council table. “The Wraith Alliance states that if any kingdom and its sovereign should fall to the wraith, wards would be returned to their home kingdoms and be under rule of the rightful king or queen. The rightful Queen of Aecor is Wilhelmina.” He pulled a stack of papers from the folder: the revised Wraith Alliance. “It’s all here, if you’d like to refamiliarize yourself with it.”
Prince Colin snatched the document and skimmed through to the parts concerning wardship. “This is outrageous. I have been ruling Aecor Territory for ten years. I am the overlord—”
“Not anymore.” I made my words hard. “I won’t continue this conversation. If you continue to resist, you will be in violation of the Wraith Alliance, which your king signed in good faith that all his subjects—you included—would obey.”
From the corner of my eyes, I caught amused and amazed looks.
Prince Colin slammed the document on the table just as an explosion sounded in the northwest. Shocks rippled through the ground and floor of the castle.
People shouted, and guards rushed to protect their charges. I raced for the nearest window, ignoring James’s orders for me to find safety, and threw open the shutters to let in a rush of early spring air.
A pillar of deep gray smoke rose above Snowhaven Bridge.
Others weren’t far behind me. They gasped and swore. Someone started to pray.
“James, send rescue teams to the bridge. Everyone we can spare.”
“Right away.” His steps were clipped as he hurried from the room, calling a handful of others to join him.
“Oh, saints.” Melanie came to stand beside me, and together we watched the plume rise into the pale blue sky. “People are jumping.”
Small, flailing bodies dropped into the water. Even from this distance, we could hear the shrieking of metal as suspension wires loosened and the bridge couldn’t hold itself up. The deck was splitting apart, dripping toward the bay.
“They’re trying to swim to shore.” I leaned on the windowsill. “We need to get those people out of the water before the deck falls in. The suction will drown them. Boats. We need boats.”
I started for the hall to tell James, but Melanie grabbed my arm, pulling me back. “Rescue boats are already on the way. Look.” She turned her attention outside again. “James trained everyone well.”
She was right: a dozen boats sliced through the water.
“Who would do this?” Desiree Symonds pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. “Saints help them.”
“Lien. Of course it was Patrick Lien.” Prince Colin was still in the room, witnessing the whole thing from my father’s chair at the council table. “Who hates the Indigo Kingdom? Who resents their coming here? And who wants Wilhelmina to be queen?”
Melanie shifted her weight toward me. Her fingers grazed mine before she took my hand. “He said he had a plan to keep Indigo Kingdom refugees from crossing into Aecor, once you were safely home. But he didn’t tell me how. Like I said, he was very careful about who knew what, and how much. He didn’t want to have to change his plans if someone was captured.”
I frowned and watched as the first boats r
eached the bridge. Heavy cables dangled into the water, and the deck had slid down even farther, but the rescue was in progress. Horseback soldiers and medical wagons approached from the road.
“But I’ve been here over three months. Why would he wait until now?” What had changed between yesterday and today? “Skyvale.”
Melanie nodded. “The city fell, and the Indigo Kingdom is in shambles. It’s the Red Militia’s way of shutting the door on their faces when they need us most.”
“The Red Militia will pay for this.” The former crown prince quit the room, leaving Melanie and me to watch the rescue for several more minutes. The deck finally slid into the water, creating a deep suction. Boats strained against it. People vanished beneath the waves and didn’t surface again.
“All those people.” I pressed my hands to my chest as bodies began washing to shore. Some were alive. Some were not. “Can we repair it? It’s just one section.” One section of an enormous, ancient bridge.
Melanie rubbed her temples. “I’m not sure. Maybe we can do something to get the rest of the refugees across, but it would be temporary.”
“Once the injured are cleared and the dead removed, I want someone to ensure there are people working on the bridge. Get boats to the other side, with ropes and ladders—anything people can use to climb down. Their possessions might have to wait, but at least they’ll have their lives.”
“I’ll assign someone immediately.”
“Good.” I faced my friend and lowered my voice, because beyond her, the rest of the nobles and their guards were staring out their own windows. “Once you have someone on that, I want you to come with me. We’re going to visit Claire.”
“Do you think she’s responsible?”
“We’re going to find out.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
IT WAS THE middle of the day when I warned James that Melanie and I were going out. We disguised ourselves as boys, armed ourselves, and headed toward the lowcity.
News of my impending coronation had already spread outside the castle, along with gossip fueled by the bridge explosion. The subjects mixed together like spilled inks, darkening the rumors I’d have to address later.