There were two doorways she could see besides the passage she’d taken. One had been boarded shut for good, but the other stood agape, planks sitting nearby with the nails still protruding. If that was Rhusana’s way out, then likely it would work best for Fie, too—or at least it was better than popping out into the hallway with no way to check for patrols first.
A thick mantle of dust had accumulated on the higher shelves of the room, but mostly everything was where it had been in the glamour. One low dresser had been revealed as a tidy stack of crates holding envelopes, inks, parchment; a station had been set up nearby with parchment squares, a glue pot, and a quill.
That was the worst part, Fie reckoned: the order of it all. She’d expected a monster. She had not expected one so organized.
More squares sat on the desk. Fie picked out names she recognized: Draga, Jasimir, Burzo, Kuvimir. She made herself get close enough to riffle through them all, telling herself it was just to make sure her own name was not among them. Then she checked the shelves and their rows of squares lined up like toy soldiers, ducking the long strands of what she presumed to be Rhusana’s hair.
She did not find a square with her name.
Nor did she find what she’d been looking for true. She checked every square, every name. None of them were Tavin.
She hadn’t expected it, she told herself, but the sinking twist in her chest called her a liar.
Expected, no. Hoped for, yes.
As she passed the shelf of jars, something caught her eye: a second row of jars tucked behind the row full of skin. Their contents looked more solid, weighty—
She drew one out, and her heart leapt into her throat. The jars were full of teeth, and not just any teeth. Fie dug out a handful and let them sift through her hands like grain, near choking down a laugh of pure relief.
Finally, finally, a boon.
They were Phoenix teeth. They were hers. It must have been Rhusana’s own killers who took them from Drudge and bore them here to make sure nothing so precious, so dangerous, ever fell into the hands of a Crow again.
“Ha,” Fie muttered to herself. “Guess again, you dog-faced hag.”
She stole one of the pillows from the bed, cut it open, pulled out the stuffing, and poured the Phoenix teeth in, jar after jar, until she’d emptied them all. Just the weight of it alone made her want to sing. She’d soft-footed her way around this miserable palace for fear of the terrible price of getting caught. Now, if it truly came down to it, she could burn her way free.
Fie hefted her teeth, about to swing the bag over her shoulder, and paused. Her eyes traced the web of gossamer hairs spun about the room.
Fortune had brought her this far. And it wasn’t just so she could take what was hers.
In the end, she left one thing: a single tooth, sitting on the bed in the middle of a heap of parchment squares cleared from every shelf. Fie had even made herself empty the skin jars into the pile.
As she padded quickly to the open doorway, gold fire spilled out from the molar. By the time she reached the end of the hall, the moonlight at her back had blushed rosy.
There was no canvas drape over this exit, but the faint orange glow showed a sliding screen. Fie called on her Sparrow witch-tooth again to wipe her from sight. No lantern-light filtered through the screen, but that didn’t mean the room was empty.
She eased the screen aside, and moonlight lit her way again, this time from a whorl of skylights that cut the shape of the sun into the domed golden ceiling. The chamber itself was practically a wheel of gold, sprays of carved and gilded plumage coiling from every arch, every bedpost, every column and only interrupted by graceful blades of carved golden fire. It didn’t feel like a bedroom. It felt like a shrine. And if it adjoined the dead queen’s chambers, Fie had a strong notion who that shrine was for.
But unlike the queen’s room, this one was occupied. A figure lay in an achingly familiar sprawl on the gold-draped bed.
The king had slept just fine in this temple to his own divinity, and now it seemed Tavin would too.
There was something awful about his sleeping face, something that froze her