let out a scream and charged for the hall in a swirl of silk, near crashing into Fie. A breath later, two Hawk soldiers burst into the room. “Your Majesty, what—”
Rhusana had torn the screen aside. The fire didn’t need Fie’s help anymore, slinking down the hall toward the queen’s silhouette.
“PUT IT OUT!” she roared.
The Hawks ran out, mumbling something about water, as Tavin got to his feet. He stared at the blaze, at the undeniably Phoenix-gold tongues of flame. What Fie could see of the chamber was burning like the sun. There was no chance that any of Rhusana’s collection would survive.
“I said put it out!” Rhusana howled, and Fie realized she meant for Tavin to bring the fire to heel.
But he only eyed the inferno, grim, and shook his head. “It’s too much,” he said. “I can’t stop it now.”
Fie couldn’t say if he glanced around the room behind him once more, or if it was only a trick of the dancing firelight.
Fie backed through the door with her steel and her teeth and a soft part of her heart that refused to die. The queen’s screams of rage followed her all the way down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE BLOODLESS WAR
“Welcome back,” Khoda said stiffly, tacking parchment to a wall as Fie let herself into the servants’ sick room. “Would you like to tell me why the royal quarters are burning?”
She didn’t have to ask how he knew; alarms had sounded all over the palace, summoning servants and priests from their beds to help douse the blaze. The funny thing, she’d realized, was that the palace was meant for an abundance of royalty who could snuff out fire with a whim. No one had ever worried about the royal quarters being little better than a tinderbox.
“Someone must have knocked over a lamp.” Fie dropped the bag of teeth on the floor. “And look what fell out.”
But the Black Swan was not impressed. “You were supposed to meet us back here. Instead you did what, exactly? Arson with a side of improvisational dentistry?”
“She got her Phoenix teeth back.” Jasimir stood from the pallet he’d been tucking into a corner of the room. He offered her a weary smile. “You had me worried, though.”
Already there was something about his company that made the whole dreadful endeavor feel less like staring down a hurricane. Barf had immediately claimed the middle of Jasimir’s blankets, and the room felt more whole with him there. It was no longer an uneasy alliance between her and Khoda but … something closer to a band.
“Nice to see you out of a prison,” Fie returned. “And I got more than teeth. Rhusana had…” She wavered a moment, the old queen’s name sticking in her mouth. “She’d turned Queen Jasindra’s room into her, well, workroom, I reckon.”
A muscle jumped in Jasimir’s jaw. “My mother’s room?”
Fie grimaced in sympathy. “Aye. She was keeping all her stolen hair there, like a collection. There were all these long strands about the room, too, and papers with names and hairs on them, and some were just wads of hair of everyone in a town, and it was one of the foulest things I’ve ever seen, and I burn plague-dead for a living. So I’ll give you two guesses what part of the royal quarters is burning right now.”
Jasimir closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank her,” Khoda snapped. “Are you serious? You found evidence the queen is a witch, that she’s manipulating people, and you just—you set it on fire?”
“She had Jas’s name on one of those papers!” Fie fired back.
Jasimir planted his hands on his hips. “Fie reclaimed one of her most valuable resources and cut Rhusana off from most, if not all, of hers. Any general will tell you that’s how you win a war.”
Khoda stared at them both. Then he stalked over to his own pallet and dropped onto his back, hiding his face in his hands. “Brightest Eye preserve me, I’m going to strangle them both.”
Jasimir drew himself up, mouth tightening. “I was under the impression that the entire point of this endeavor is to overthrow Rhusana as quickly as possible so I can start fixing this mess. Fie just put us a lot closer to that, so what, precisely, is your problem?”
“My problem is that this isn’t a war.” Khoda sat up again, scowling. “Winning a war requires an army that you don’t have. You