Page 40 of The Incendiary

Mavic winked. “I have good intuition.”

Even Elias Winterton, scowling at me from the head table, couldn’t diminish my joy.

They dismissed us immediately after dinner. Trainees were allowed to pick their own cabins, and I was grateful when Mavic and Mina, along with some others, followed me to mine. No one chose the bed below me, but it was comforting enough that the twins took the bunks next to mine despite judgmental glares from our peers.

Restless whispers kept me awake. I tried but failed to make out what they said. My muscles ached from that cot in my cell, but after the whispers died down and the cabin slept, all I could think about was the cold.

“Are you awake?” I called to Shera.

I felt a stir down our connected mental pathway. Even with fortress walls separating us, her company was soothing in the dark night.

“I am now,” she answered groggily.

“Are you all right?”

“I miss you. And I know you… miss him.”

My cheeks heated. Resisting the truth of her words was futile, but I felt defensive all the same.

“I shouldn’t have woken you. Go back to sleep,” I told her.

She obeyed, but I remained restless. I sat up in bed and reached for my bag by my feet, knowing what hid at the bottom. His black sweater. The one he gave me in Tovick.

I pressed the soft fabric to my nose and inhaled, then held back a grateful cry when I breathed in a faint scent of cedar and leather.

It had been in the bottom of my bag for so long, I didn’t think it would still smell like him. I lifted it over my head and clung to it. Let it cloak me in impenetrable warmth.

Only then was I able to fall asleep.

I woke up with a start, fresh off images of the poison vial dangling around his neck.

That was all it was. Swinging in ominous silence, taunting me while I stood stuck in place, unable to speak, move, or breathe. I’d strained against the binds of unconsciousness, but I couldn’t do a damn thing.

“Ary?” Shera called out to me, her tired voice worried. “I just felt you wake… Are you all right?”

“Nightmare.”

“Of what? Was it him?” The unwelcome image of the poison around his neck flashed back through my memory. I shoved it away.

“I’m trying not to think about what happens if Molochai gives him my name.”

“He won’t hurt you. You know he won’t let it get that far.”

“I know.” I threw my blankets off my legs. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Shera was silent. She worried, too, though she’d known Gavin for only a short time.

“I don’t even know where to begin. A library, maybe. There must be some place here I can look.” I reluctantly shrugged out of his black sweater, tucked it safely beneath my pillow, and quietly climbed down the ladder of my bunk. The sun was barely rising, the rest of the cabin still asleep. “But I have to find a way to help him.”

TWELVE

ARYELLA

You can make an easy target out of someone who thinks they’ve already won.

—FROM THE BUTCHER OF NYRIDA’S LAST KNOWN LETTERS TO QUEEN ARYELLA I

I was the first cadet in the mess hall next to the main hall. I scarfed down breakfast, and by the time the others began to eat, I was already making my way to the center courtyard. The first day of training was to be held in the main hall, but when I tried to pull the door open, it was locked.