Red Ruse

Chapter Nineteen

Evangeline

I lurch from the bars, head spinning. Perhaps I imagined it. Perhaps he's already dead, already buried in some unmarked Red grave. But Samos eyes are not known for playing tricks.

A hand raises towards me in the darkness, milk-white and shivering. Cal can't feel the cold, but he still knows fear, how it shakes the body and muddies the mind. I can't imagine spending my nights in a cell. Can't imagine falling so far from grace.

His voice is hoarse. "Evangeline."

My lip almost tears in my teeth. "Cal."

"You helmed the search for me." It isn't a question. "You killed a seventeen-year-old."

"A Red." I study my nails. "Under orders."

"It was supposed to be Mare." The words are sad, defeated. "She let him win her over, and another girl paid the price."

I tilt my head. "Strange." My hand feathers along the bars. "I don't know of this deal you speak of."

"He intended to kill us both." Cal stares at my hand, but doesn't take it. "Then Mare said she used to love him. I think–" He looks away. "I think that broke him."

I scoff. "What an idiot."

"He seemed desperate." His hands wring the bars. "He thinks I didn't love him."

Softness creeps into my voice. "You know that isn't true."

"Do they know I'm here?" His eyes dart, knuckles white. "No one seems to recognize me."

At last, my fingers close over his. "The smart ones do. And the smart ones keep their mouths shut."

Cal draws a breath, sharp and labored. "He can't bring himself to kill me."

"I wouldn't be so sure." I tighten my grip on his hand. "Maven is not your little brother, Cal. Not anymore."

A wince. "You don't know him like I do."

"I'm not sure you know him at all."

He scowls. "What are you here for?"

"Ara Iral." I taste the name like it will win me another crown. "The Panther. Our greatest spy. And a nuisance Elara had cause to neutralize."

His lips parted. "You think I know where she is?"

"Do you?"

He averts his eyes, staring at the bars. "Julian's here. Maven told me so himself."

I step back, letting go of his hand. "So he's been down here."

"He says he wants to kill me, but he needs to wait." It was hard to see, but his throat seemed to bob. "That Elara will kill me with the sword Father died by."

"The sword he died by." I caress the blades at my wrist. "You were holding it."

"I didn't want to."

"I know." I eye him one last time before I turn around. "None of us do, Calore."

The last name stings, and I know it, my Samos cruelty ringing hollow in my bones. Father taught my heart to be iron. Mother taught my fangs how to hiss. But Elane taught me to let light in my soul, to not confine myself to shadows of power and might.

I clutch my chest, growling. Musings will not bring me closer to the truth, nor will waiting for it to pass me by. I march, my cousins lining the walls as I pass. The metal bars have no doors, no locks, only rising and falling at our command. Samos holds the key to this prison. Samos holds the keys to Maven's power.

My teeth gnash. He can't get rid of me, no matter how he tries to supplant me with Barrow. She is useless, dirt on his shoe, only here by some promise she whispered in his ear. Desperate fool. Taking after his father in the worst of ways.

But I don't leave. Not yet. I halt at the foot of another cell, this one smaller and more cramped than the others. I didn't get a good look inside, too distracted by the gleam of what was ahead. But sure enough, Jacos paces inside, Skonos laying on the bed behind him. They make a poor sight, tattered and frail, and I force myself to look away. Their presence is no mystery. Their presence builds no allies.

My blades tremble, on the verge of falling. I should blame the stone, but I know it's my nerves, failing to harden in the face of Cal's sorrow. He doesn't deserve this. I don't deserve this, the gentle erosion of all I was raised for.

He calls them Newbloods. Mother's sneer echoes in my mind. I call them rats.

Lady Iral's cell is spacious, but still punishing, the stone thicker than the others I've passed. She lies on the floor, attempting sit ups, barely succeeding even with her rich training. Her eyes catch mine, legs tucking under her as she sits upright. "Lady Samos."

I fold my arms. "Lady Iral."

"You should've been queen by now." Her eyes trace over me, sharp. "It's what Cal would have done."

"He's dead."

"Hmm." Her hands curl against the ground before she stands. "You keep his secrets." She prowls, a stilted grace, fiercer than any other prisoner by far. "Maven won't keep yours."

I shrug as if it rolled off me. "I don't give him them."

"I saw Gwendolyn." Her gaze doesn't waver. "She patrols, sometimes, and tells the others of her rebellion. That it takes only one move to set them all free."

I still. "Why don't they report her?"

She laughs. "You think it would matter?"

It stings far more than it should. I turn back, prepared to leave, but something stops me. Something that curls around the bars and wants them to break.

I can't let myself fall to Maven and Barrow's scheming. I can't let myself abandon Cal to a fate that does not serve me. I can't let myself be overrun by this new tide of strange Reds.

Maybe that's why I pray my cousins do not fail me. Perhaps that's why I turn around to stare Lady Iral in the eye.

Perhaps that's why the gate to her cell starts to rise.