Jac sat on the damp stone floor of the cellblock getting Z’s gorgeous red peplos nice and filthy. Things seemed to have quieted some out in the city—either the fight was over, or it had moved further toward the forum. Jac’s eyes were locked on Belle, who knelt before the cell door and spoke soft words of comfort to the broken child who grieved her freedom on the other side of the bars. But the scene was out of focus. Instead, Jac watched a different scene playing out in her mind’s eye. She watched herself in that mail coop back in Ace, swinging pathetically at a bird. Humiliating herself. Then, standing before Ubika and half the Luvathan Guard, lifting her hammer and humiliating herself again. She watched as the guards escorted her out of the cellblock. And she let them. Because she couldn’t do anything else.
And though Jac hadn’t been there to see it herself, she could imagine the scene that had followed. A faceless guard yanking the kid’s arm through the bars and holding it there while they gave the girl’s freedom the slow, aching death of a thousand tiny wounds on the end of that needle, dripping magical ink that marked a person’s soul as much as it did their body. Jac hadn’t even tried to stop it.
Belle had. She had argued with the head of the guard until the last moment, she’d tried to rush out to go find Z, hoping she would call Johnson off, and when all of that had been unsuccessful, she’d snuck back into the cellblock to comfort the kid, did the best she could to soothe an unsoothable sting. And Jac had done nothing because she was, as she always had been, powerless. Right now she didn’t even have the strength to convince herself otherwise.
The mark on Jac’s arm, still hidden beneath a powerful glamour, burned. Itched. Throbbed like she was back there, staring at Cuppedia’s round, pink cheeks, her porcelain skin and obscenely long lashes. Her black hair that shone like oil. Her painted lips stuck in a pout of concentration as she sewed a red thread into Jac’s skin, stitching out a heart gored through the middle by an arrow. On the other end of the thread, Cuppedia’s own delicate arm—each time she had to spool out more thread, the white skin on her arm where the thread originated jumped and tugged. That was what made Cuppedia’s magic so powerful, so ingenious. She used her own spun blood.
Then as now, Jac had done nothing.
No, that wasn’t right. Jac wished she had done nothing back then. She wished she had never met the little human doll who was Cuppedia, wished she had never been seduced by Cuppedia’s praise of Jac’s power and her promises of yet more. She wished she had never asked for the mark that bonded her to that frill-clad witch.
Belle looked back at Jac, big green eyes peering over the thick, frazzled braid over her shoulder. An array of different feelings burst all over Jac’s body—something hot across her face, something twisted in her belly, something sharp inside her head. But all of them eclipsed by the anger that curled her lip and clenched her fists and made her snap, “What?”
The instant the harsh sound slipped her lips, she locked her jaw with enough force that she was sure Belle heard her teeth clack. She hadn’t meant to say that. She couldn’t be angry with Belle. But she was. Just look at how much shit Belle had gotten them into. Running off to Urden to find the Traitor Prince, getting abducted by him. Making Jac sprint all fucking night through a forest of beasts to find her. Ducking into that back room of the mail coop after some little nightbeast—but of course Belle had dodged that hawk easily. It was Jac who had been humiliated by it. And again, running off to find Ubika, skipping up to him without a care in the world. Belle took for granted that Jac would be right there to protect her—so much so she never stopped to tell Jac what the fuck she was thinking, and certainly never thought that maybe Jac might need—
Take that back.
A new image appeared in Jac’s mind, of Belle on Ubika’s back, her knife at his throat. There’s no one I’d name Stronger than her.
A shock ran through Jac, jolting her back to the present. How pathetic she was.
Jac forced her feet under her and stood, dusting dirt off her ass. Finally, she met Belle’s green gaze, and Belle reached for her immediately. Jac stepped forward to take her hand, winding her callused fingers through Belle’s baby-soft ones.
Belle turned back to the kid, Pait, and whispered, “Can you run?”
The cloaked lump on the ground that was Pait stiffened. “Run?”
Mother Light, what was this girl planning now? Jac tried to shake off the last of her self-pity—whatever harebrained scheme Belle was concocting had to be better than sitting here on her ass feeling sorry for herself.
“Yeah,” Belle said in an overly-casual tone. “Hypothetically. If, say, this door were to find itself falling off its hinges. You must be worn—I know from experience that getting chased down by … by him is a wearying task. Can your feet still carry you, quickly, to the forum?
Pait lifted her face—the pale patches of skin down the center of her brown face had taken on purplish bruises. “Why the hell would I run to the forum? Hypothetically?”
“Because of the hypothetical house you would find there—one where the Guard would never think to look for a little escaped prisoner, where she could wait safely until someone could smuggle her out of the city.”
The spark that had lit the girl for a moment faded. She shook her head. “I’ve got nowhere to go outside the city, hypothetically or otherwise.”
Suddenly, the ground rumbled. Dust and bits of stone rained down on them, and there was an enormous, drawn out crash in the near distance. The fight was certainly not over, and it was much, much closer this time.
Belle smiled, then pointed up, indicating the ruckus outside. “Actually, you do. Hypothetically. Somewhere out of the crown’s reach.”
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Pait stared at Belle. Blinked. “The fuck are you talking about?”
It just made Belle’s smile grow into a grin. “That ‘giant asshole’ you were running from. He’s got a place named Safe and Beautiful.”
“No,” Pait said immediately. “No fucking way.”
“Well,” Belle said casually, “my eyes see only two paths ahead of you. His place down the left path, free and warm—or, at the end of that right path, a life in one of the queen’s prison camps.”
Pait made a face like she was sucking on a lemon. “Tough choice.”
Belle laughed softly, and used Jac’s hand to pull herself to a standing position. “Let me know what you decide. I advise you do so quick, or the choice’ll make itself for you.”
The kid hesitated, reddish brows wrinkled as she looked at Belle. “You could get me out of here?”
Big, green, sparkling eyes looked up at Jac. “She can. If we time it right.”
There was a commotion on the other side of the cellblock’s door, raised voices and lots of clattering armor.
Jac pulled her hand from Belle’s and reached for Puissance—but she hesitated. If she gripped that handle, lifted the hammer into her hands, would she feel it buzzing with magic? Or would it feel like cold, dead metal? Could she handle losing her magic for the third time in the span of so few days?
It was the burning of Belle’s gaze on Jac’s back that drove her to finally snatch the hammer up into her grip. “Stay here,” Jac ordered, and strode toward the door, relishing the way Puissance was practically vibrating.
Jac didn’t even have to press her ear to the door to hear clearly.
“Commander, they are destroying the city.”
“Then kill them!” Sir Johnson snapped.
“We’re trying! The entire Guard, from every quadrant, is out in force, but any guard that gets close to them finds only the Dark Mother waiting instead. Scores are dead, and the Selachian just shifted again.”
“So name your suggestion clearly, Lieutenant, or get out there and join your men.”
“They leveled the barricade, and they’ll do the same to the gate once they get here. I suggest we open it so they don’t have to.”
Sir Johnson was silent, and for a moment Jac thought he was going to agree.
“I had no idea what a coward you are,” Johnson said with quiet disgust.
Once again, the ground shook and the stones that made up the walls around them seemed to rattle against each other, as if to emphasize the Lieutenant’s point.
“Sir,” the Lieutenant sounded desperate, “he’s an Earthbreaker and these walls are mostly stone. He will get through that gate. Opening the door for him guarantees we can slam it behind him. If we don’t, he’ll bring the whole thing down, leaving Luvatha open to every nightbeast in miles!”
“And what will Queen Arantxa say,” Johnson asked in that same low tone, “when she discovers we let the Traitor Prince stroll right out of our grasp?”
“With all respect, Commander,” the Lieutenant said, “the safety of the citizens holds more weight with me than the respect of the queen.”
There was a sudden slap and a clang. Then silence.
Until Johnson said, “Disgusting. The gate stays down. And if the sun rises while you’re still living, Lieutenant, I’m throwing you in the cell next to that street mutt. Do you—?”
BOOM!
The stones really did rattle this time, and behind Jac, Pait screamed. Jac rushed back to Belle just as the wall across from the cells buckled inward, and the door Jac had just been standing next to exploded backwards.
On the other side of the door that was no longer a door, the Lieutenant stood staring at the lower half of their Commander, because that was all that stuck out from beneath the chunk of ceiling that had caved in. Armored legs and a growing pool of blood.
The Lieutenant shook themself, whirled, and shouted, “BY ORDER OF YOUR NEW COMMANDER, OPEN THE GATE!”
Belle had her bag off her neck, clutched protectively in her arms. The bowed-in wall behind her groaned, and chunk-by-chunk began to crumble toward Belle. Instantly, Jac swung her hammer, smashing the wall back out and sending chunks flying away from them.
Jac’s lungs sucked in a gasp with sudden hunger, like they hadn’t filled themselves since the moment she’d faced off against Kure. And that hum, that feeling of pure power surged through her once more.
Tone bright, Belle grinned at Jac and said, “I’d name this the right time.”
She was right. Jac could crack this cage and blame it on the damage done by Daivad’s fight. She could actually do something. Actually help.
“Back from the door, kid,” Jac said.
Pait scuttled back into the far corner of her cell, and Jac looked at Belle, waiting for the go ahead. Belle’s eyes glazed over as she searched the magic in their immediate area to ensure no one could see or hear what they were doing. The moment she nodded, Jac swung.
The iron bars of the cell crumpled and the door came off its hinges. Pait, still as deep in the corner as she could get, kept wide eyes locked on Puissance, even as Jac switched her grip to drop its head down. Belle stepped up and waved Pait forward. It took a moment, but Pait extracted herself from the corner before rushing out of the cell and into Jac’s arms.
Jac’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but she returned Pait’s hug. She looked down at the auburn top of Pait’s head and smiled. At least she hadn’t done nothing.
Belle was beaming, but there was still an urgency in her tone. “There’ll be guards everywhere, but their focus is on that giant asshole. Can you get to the forum?”
“Yeah,” Pait said as she straightened and gave Jac a scared smile. Then she threw her arms around Belle next.
Belle squeezed Pait as she gave her directions to Z’s house, her eyes still scanning the magic around them to make sure no one was approaching, that it was safe for Pait to run. “Once you get to the gate, tell the attendant ‘bubble sandwich’ and they’ll let you into the courtyard. That’ll keep you out of the gaze of the Guard until we can arrive. We’ll meet you there as soon as we can, and get you free of the city.”
There was a crash in the distance—beyond the gates now. It would seem Daivad had managed to take the fight out of the city. Pait straightened and looked over her shoulder like she might be able to see Daivad through the wall.
“You sure he’ll win?”
“He better,” Belle said, as if to herself.
“I’ll make sure he does,” Jac added, lifting Puissance onto her shoulder and earning a flinch from Pait. “At least, I’ll make sure Ubika loses.”