“We have no thorn wood,” said Zoya. “It crumbled to ash when the Saints died and the boundaries of the Fold fell.”
“But we might acquire one,” said the Darkling.
“I see. From whom?”
“Monks.”
She threw up her hands. “Why is it always monks?”
“There was fruit taken from the thorn wood when it was still young. Its seeds were preserved by the Order of Sankt Feliks.”
“And where are they?”
Now the Darkling looked less certain. “I don’t know exactly. I’ve never had need of them. But I can tell you how to find them.”
“I smell a bargain in the works,” Nikolai said, rubbing his hands together. “What will this knowledge cost us?”
The Darkling’s eyes glittered, gray quartz beneath a false sun. “Bring me Alina Starkov and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
All the humor left Nikolai’s face. “What do you want with Alina?”
“A chance to apologize. A chance to see what became of the girl who drove a knife into my heart.”
Zoya shook her head. “I don’t believe a word that leaves your mouth.”
The Darkling shrugged. “I might not either. But you know my terms.”
“And if we don’t agree to them?” she asked.
“Then the Fold will keep expanding and swallow the world. The young king will fall and I will sing myself to sleep in my prison cell.”
Zoya stood. “I don’t like any of this. He’s up to something. And even if we find the monastery and the seeds, what would we do with them? We would need an extraordinarily powerful Fabrikator to bring forth the thorn wood the way that Elizaveta did.”
The Darkling smiled. “Does this mean you have not mastered all Juris set out to teach you?”
Zoya felt the dam containing her rage give way. She lunged toward the Darkling as Nikolai seized her arms to hold her back. “You do not speak his name. Say his name again and I’ll cut the tongue from your mouth and wear it as a brooch.”
“Don’t,” Nikolai said, his grip strong, his voice low. “He’s not worth your anger.”
The Darkling watched her as he had when she was a pupil, as if there was something only he could see inside her. As if it amused him. “They all die, Zoya. They all will. Everyone you love.”
“Is that right?” said Nikolai. “How tragic. Can you be still, Zoya?”
Zoya shook Nikolai off. “For now.”
“How she struggles,” the Darkling said, his voice thick with mirth. “Like an insect pinned by her own power.”
“Poetic,” said Nikolai. “You have something in your beard.”
To Zoya’s confusion, the Darkling raised his hand to his smooth chin, then dropped it as if he’d been burned. His gaze lit with something very like hate.
Now it was Nikolai who was smiling. “That’s what I thought,” said the king. “Yuri Vedenen is still there, somewhere inside you. Is that why your powers haven’t returned?”
The Darkling watched the king with narrowed eyes. “Such a clever fellow.”
“That’s why you want us to raise the thorn wood and perform the obisbaya. You could care less what damage the Fold does. You want to purge yourself of Yuri and become host to my demon. You want a way back to your power.”
“I’ve told you what I want. Bring me Alina Starkov. That is the bargain.”
“No,” said Zoya.
The Darkling turned his back on them and looked out over the lights glittering in the city spread below. “Then I can live as a weakling and you can watch the world die.”
10
NINA
NINA WAS AT HANNE’S SIDE in seconds. The prince’s eyes were bulging, his whole body convulsing as his slender chest heaved. Worse was the sound that came from him, a deep, painful rattle. Nina saw Hanne’s hand reach out, even as she sank to her knees beside them. It rested on his chest—as if she couldn’t help herself—and almost instantly the prince’s coughing eased.
“Take my hand,” Nina whispered furiously. “Pray. Loudly.”
She seized the prince’s bony fingers so that they formed a circle of three and chanted with Hanne in staccato Fjerdan, a prayer to Djel, the Wellspring. “As the waters scour the riverbed, let them cleanse me too. As the waters scour the riverbed, let them cleanse me too.”
Prince Rasmus stared at them. His coughing ceased and his breaths came in great gasps, as Hanne’s healing gift soothed his inflamed lungs and opened the airways.