Red Hands all turned to stare at her at once, some of them blinking as if they’d forgotten her existence entirely. “She rules swiftly and intensely, but never recklessly. I have followed her court for years now. If she says she wants to mend the bridge between us, she means it. None of her actions in the past two years have contradicted this desire to mend our relations, or at the very least form a military alliance. She has been working toward this for a long time.”
“Then it should please you to hear that the queen made another request,” her father said. His eyes were unreadable. “It seems she is quite interested in meeting you.”
Inexplicably, Crier felt her cheeks heating up. Before she could even begin to process that, the council had moved on to their final order of business.
Councilmember Reyka had disappeared.
Crier was so consumed in her thoughts about Junn—the Mad Queen, the Bone Eater, the ruthless one, wanted to meet with Crier—that it took her a second to take in this new bit of information.
“Reyka?” she blurted out, amid the mumblings of shock from the other Hands. Reyka, her mentor, her friend, if an Automa could use such a word—Reyka, who’d never responded when Crier had sent her political essays to her. Could this be why? Had she been gone for weeks and no one knew?
Questions were flying from the mouths of the other Hands, but Hesod seemed to have no other answers to give. Reyka was just . . . gone. Not dead, no ransom, and no sign of disturbance, at least as far as they knew—just gone. She had vanished in the night. There was no way of knowing where she was, or why she had left, or when (if) she was coming back.
“Perhaps she’s finally joined the humans,” said Councilmember Shen. “That’s where she belongs, is it not? Always arguing on behalf of the humans, always so concerned about humankind. I would not be surprised if she renounced her own Kind, took up a servant’s uniform, and went to work in the fields.”
Faint laughter around the room. Crier felt a wave of nervousness. Would they say the same about her? Had any of them read her essay on the redistribution of representation? When she’d written it, it had felt like theory. Righteous, but harmless. Only now did it occur to her that it might have sounded threatening to the other Hands. It might have sounded as if she was arguing because she cared about humankind.
Which she did.
Like Reyka.
“Perhaps she has joined them, but not by choice,” said Kinok, and the laughter faded out. “It would not be the first time that one of our Kind has been kidnapped by human rebels. They will do anything to bring us down, to weaken us.” He paused. “Then again, perhaps Councilmember Shen is right. It was odd for Councilmember Reyka to be so . . . passionate about humans, was it not?”
He said it like a joke, and the Hands took it as one, smirking to each other.
Only Crier was left frozen, horrified. Passionate.
Suddenly, where once she’d seen a potential partner, an advocate, she now saw Kinok for what he was. A schemer. He’d pretended to be her ally, it’s you and me, Lady Crier, but an ally wouldn’t do something like this. Right? Crier knew she was naive, but she wasn’t stupid. An ally wouldn’t use her darkest secret against her like this, just for his own amusement. An ally wouldn’t mock Councilmember Reyka, who wasn’t even there to defend herself. No. Crier couldn’t—wouldn’t—trust Kinok. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the gleaming compass he dangled in his hands, like a trophy of some kind. Everyone else kept looking at it, too—furtive little glances, some curious, some wary, some almost . . . envious.
“Unfortunately,” said Hesod, once again cutting through the noise, “until Reyka decides to resurface, the council is left with an unoccupied seat.”
And Crier’s heart threw itself into her throat.
Is this why he finally agreed to let me attend a meeting? she couldn’t help but think, and then immediately felt ashamed of herself. Reyka was missing, possibly in danger. This was no time to be thinking of her own political aspirations.
“In the current political climate, it seems wise to fill this seat as soon as possible, even under the assumption that Reyka will return,” Hesod continued. “I already have my candidate for our newest Hand, but it will be put to a vote.”