“What do you think will happen to your followers,” mused Alucard, “now that you’re gone? Cut off the head, and the body quickly crumbles.”
Berras’s mouth twitched. “But I am not a head,” he said. “I am a hand.” His eyes darkened. “Do you know why we call ourselves the Hand?”
“Because you clutch at other people’s power?” ventured Alucard.
Berras grinned. It was cold, and hateful, and mocking. “Because even if you lose one,” he said, releasing the bar, “there is another.”
Alucard wasn’t sure if the words were a bluff, or truth, but they sat ill. Not that he would give Berras the satisfaction.
“So you weren’t the leader, then?” he asked. “Just a pawn? A tool being used by smarter people? A blunt weapon, to be wielded, and then got rid of? If that is true, why?”
“I already told you.”
“That’s right. To take the throne. To show me what a real Emery is. But the thing is, Berras, I don’t believe you. I think you did it because you are small, and petty, and cannot bear a world where I am stronger.”
His brother’s smile slid, becoming a feral, humorless grin. “Come into this cell and face me. Let’s see how strong you are with nothing but your fists.”
“Tempting, but I’ll pass.” He turned, and started for the stairs.
“How dare you turn your back on me, little brother.”
Alucard stopped. “Oh, I’ll come back,” he said. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere. But I have places to be. My husband is waiting for me. My daughter, too.” He looked up at the ceiling. Through it. “You see, it’s dinnertime. I want to know which animal Ren has tried to sneak under the table. She’s been very into rabbits lately, but really, there’s not a single living thing she does not love. She’s like Anisa that way.” He swallowed, their little sister’s name scraping his throat. “Before bed, she’ll need a bath, which is always an adventure, and Rhy and I will read her a story, and the queen will shine a lantern into every corner of her room, to show her that every shadow is nothing but a lack of light. You see why I must leave you? There is so much love up there.”
His eyes fell back to his brother.
“I sometimes wonder if you would have been so hateful, had we lived in a kinder house.” He shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”
Berras glared out between the bars. The anger rolled off him in waves. Once, they would have crashed over Alucard, too. Would have pinned him down, and drowned him. Now, he simply stepped back, out of its reach.
“Alucard,” growled Berras as he turned, and left.
“Alucard!” His brother’s voice clawed at the air, but came no closer as he climbed the stairs, out of the dungeon and the darkness, and up, up, up, to the light.
III
SOMEWHERE AT SEA
The Grey Barron sliced its way through the open water.
Its captain stood at the prow, black coat billowing like a pirate flag, her eyes—one brown, the other black—turned to the bare horizon.
Now and then Lila’s fingers drifted to the ring she wore on her right hand, one thumb running absently over the ship carved into its scorched black surface. The owner of its twin was back in London, but she knew that if she called Kell, he would come. And for the first time in seven years, he could cross the distance between them, no matter how great, and it would cost him nothing but a drop of blood and a whispered spell.
The night before she’d left, they’d lain in bed, and Lila had run her hand across his brow, and down his cheeks, trying to smooth each and every line the pain had carved in and out of Kell Maresh, until he had taken her wrist, and pinned her to the bed, Kay glinting like mischief in his eyes, as he convinced her not every change needed to be erased.
Now, Lila Bard rapped her fingers on the rail of her ship. Waves crashed up against the hull, spraying a cool mist that seemed to curl around her as she scanned the line where sea met sky, searching for the Ferase Stras.
After all, she had a parcel to deliver.
* * *
At the back of the ship, Tes folded her arms on the wooden rail, and watched the water ripple in the Barron’s wake. She’d sewn a pocket on the outside of her coat, and Vares poked out from the top flap, his small head bobbing, wings pinned down over her heart. Now and then, when the breeze picked up, the dead bird nipped his beak at the buttons and fluttered, as if he was flying.
She already missed London.
Missed her shop in the shal, and the dumplings she got from the market stall on Heras Vas, and Nero, to whom there’d been no chance to say goodbye. It had been two days since the crimson glow of the Isle vanished from the water beneath the ship, replaced by tendrils of ordinary light. More than a day since she’d seen land.