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Since I’m on my own, I have to leave the butterfly cage in the wagon. I bring just one of its residents with me and send the insect flying off toward my counterpart.
It lands near the man’s elbow. I brace myself for him to flinch like the last daimon did, but instead he simply peers at it. The glimmer of intrigue I’ve seen before lights in his eyes.
With a smile crossing my lips, I move across the square to reach out to him with my words as well.
I’ve just told a third compatriot in the square about the meeting place and watched her lope off with a breathless giggle when a soft pressure brushes my arm. I turn toward it, and Ivy’s scent wisps over me, sharp but sweet.
“You’ve been keeping busy,” she says in a low voice, her form swimming into sight in front of me. “We’re really doing this.”
Then she bobs up to kiss me, quick but so tender a flush warms my cheeks.
We are succeeding. We worked together and did what we’re both best at, and Ivy ensured we could keep going.
We’re bringing my people home.
I close my hand around her invisible one as I head back to the wagon to collect another butterfly. In the shadows behind the vehicle, I slip my own charm back on just for a few moments so we can embrace in our pocket of invisibility together—so I can revel in having her back despite my panic.
Ivy tucks her head against my neck. “Were you all right on your own?”
Her hand rests on my chest over my heart, and I feel the truth of the words before I say them. “I wasn’t really alone. You’re always with me, in here.”
I set my hand over hers, and she beams at me before rising to claim another kiss.
We finish our rounds in the second square and move on to another and then another. By the time the shadows start stretching long, I’ve helped more than thirty daimon shed the last lingering influence of scourge sorcery.
A few others have balked—swatting at the butterflies or pushing forward to search for the source with obvious hostility—but none quite as aggressively as our first failure. When it happens, we simply vanish and move on to another part of the city.
I’m starting to get a sense of who is under more tenuous hold and who is caught in a firmer grasp before we even test them, just from the vibration in the energy I pick up on. I’m studying yet another possibility, debating whether she’s worth risking a butterfly on, when an amplified voice rings through our current square.
“The regent Lothar calls Florian’s citizens to the Temple of the Crown! He has news that could mean life or death for all of you.”
Thirty-Three
Ivy
Rheave tucks his arm around my waist in the wagon, pulling me even closer than he did earlier on this journey. “Do you think Lothar knows what we’ve been doing?”
I can’t help pricking my ears to the warble of city noise beyond the vehicle, as if I might hear something to inform my answer. I get nothing but a blur of rattling wheels and jumbled voices.
I swallow thickly. “I don’t know. We have been at it for a few hours now. His people could have already noticed that a bunch of their captured daimon have left rather than following orders. But with the sorcery on them waning, that could have happened eventually without us interfering.”
The daimon-man makes a rough sound. Everywhere our bodies touch, his muscles are tensed. “Should we leave instead? While so many people are distracted by the announcement?”
I’ve already thought that question through more than once since we made our first hasty decision to have our driver direct the wagon toward the inner wards. The answer comes automatically now. “No. If it’s a matter of life or death… we need to know what’s going on. Especially if it has anything to do with Petra or our efforts to see her on the throne.”
Rheave nods, accepting my statement without argument. For just a second, I wish he would push back, insist that we get out of here, even though I’d have to stand firm.
I’m not sure I really want to. Something about the messenger’s call in the square has left a clammy sensation seeping into my skin.
But what I said is true. If Lothar is about to unleash some new horror, we have to know as soon as possible so we can protect ourselves. Even if the Black Talons have people listening in, we don’t know how long it’d take them to get a message to us.
The Order’s leader could be counting on us thinking that way, though. He could suspect that members of the resistance have infiltrated the city and want them to find out just how awful things could get for them next.
With that possibility in mind, I have the driver stop a couple of streets shy of the old city walls that border the inner wards. Rheave and I remove our charms, keeping them in our pockets where they’ll stay inactive.
We don’t want there to be any chance of the scourge sorcerers seeking out their magic.
I smear some grit from the side of the wagon across my face as if I’ve been doing grunt work in the outer wards all day without a bath. Rheave follows suit. Then we pull on our cloaks, tugging the hoods low over our heads.
