I can’t hear Asha’s voice as she speaks her vows. Even with my fae hearing, her voice doesn’t carry like Azrael’s and the vizier’s.
But I can still see her shaking, still catch the glimmer of the tears streaming down her unmasked cheek.
When the ceremony ends, the crowd applauds, and Azrael cups Asha’s face in his hands, drawing her in for a kiss.
Her entire body tenses, and I die on the inside.
Azrael presents his queen to the people, and they erupt into cheers.
There’s no fire left within me.
Nothing to burn.
I’m flickered out, left to fade.
There’s nothing but emptiness where there used to be rage.
They say that fire is consuming, and I’m all used up.
“Kiran,” Fin says, his tone desperate, but I can hardly hear him.
“Kiran,” he says again, this time louder, and the chains bolting his arms to the steel chair rattle in emphasis.
I will my neck to crane to look at him. Anything to get the image out of my mind, the one stuck on a loop, the one where Azrael takes Asha back to his bedroom.
“Kiran. I’m sorry,” says Fin, and for the first time I realize my brother’s face is wet with tears. “I’m so, so sorry,” he whispers.
And then we both cry.
There’s still nothing inside me, nothing but the imagined sound of Asha’s quiet whimpers replaying in my mind, when the guard outside our cell makes a surprised sound.
Fin snaps his neck to the side. Mine takes longer to remember to look, but when I do, I can’t help but notice both our guards are gone.
In their place is a female, one I’d recognize anywhere.
Her milkweed skin glows an even more sickly color in the reflection of the greenish lanterns. She stands there, limbs trembling, on the other side of the cell, but her eggshell eyes have a determined look about them.
Tavi. Asha’s lady’s maid. Azrael’s twin.
Tavi wraps her fingers around the bars of our cell.
And the bars disappear.
“You have magic,” says Fin, and though there’s no question in his tone, I can hear the implication from a fae who was born without it.
Tavi nods her head, touching Fin’s shackles until they disappear.
“We didn’t know of this,” I say, and it comes out more accusatory than I mean for it to.
“Mama said it would get me killed one day. That I must never use it. So I haven’t. Not for years,” she explains, working on my restraints next.
Magic has a strange way about it. For those who have both human and fae heritage, it’s spotty on whether the child presents with any semblance of magic, which explains why Piper and Tavi have it and Az doesn’t.
We hope.
“You made those guards disappear,” I say.
She looks up at me, her eggshell eyes assessing. “I didn’t kill them. Everything I make disappear shows back up somewhere.”
“Please tell me you sent those guards far, far away,” says Fin.
Tavi’s shaking again. “I tried. Like I said, I haven’t had much practice.”
It’s the same reason I never got much practice with manipulating the emotions of others. Tavi’s adopted mother was a cook in the palace and likely had an intuition about what my father would have used Tavi for had he known about her unique abilities.
The last restraint disappears, and I lurch from my chair, but Tavi grabs me by the wrist.
“I know a passage out of the palace. You’ll go undetected.”
Fin and I glance at one another, and I know the determination in his eyes is mirrored on my face.
“Not without Asha,” we say together.
Tavi’s face falls. “There will be no getting to her. Not with how my brother has her guarded. I’ve heard whispers your Flame is no more?” She looks at me for confirmation. I suppose my hesitant swallow is enough, because she continues. “If you try to get to her now, you will fail. You’ll need more than just the two of you to save her.”
I look down at the tiny, trembling female before me and lay my hand gently on her shoulder. “Who says there’s just two of us?”
We make our way through the palace, slipping through the shadows, Tavi leading the way.
