tight? What if I triggered the switch?
And now I had to actually strap the briefcase to my chest.
I was no longer feeling as confident about this plan. Closing my eyes, I called to mind that photograph—the image that had brought me here.
I was doing this for Alice.
I leaned forward and knocked on the stone wall for luck.
“Okay Raven King,” I whispered. “I can do this.”
I lifted the briefcase to my chest, then tucked it under my chin to keep it in place. I felt like my knees were about to go weak.
Oh fuck, oh fuck.
My mind flashed with images of the briefcase dropping, the explosives ripping through my body. My blood and bone mingling with the old Dovren stones, burying me under rubble. A moment of cascading fear stole my thoughts, and I nearly let the briefcase drop.
Get a grip, Lila.
This was for Alice, and all the future Alices that I could save.
With the case still tucked under my chin, I wrapped the leather belt around my waist. I threaded the briefcase through the loop, whispering the whole time about the Raven King. When I was able to press one of my hands against the case, I let out a long, shaky breath. Now I could keep it in place with something other than my chin. Not too tight, though—too tight meant death.
At last, I secured it through the loops, and belted it to me. I looked up at the wall looming above me. How many times had I scaled Dovren’s walls? Hundreds, at least. And yet with a bomb strapped to me, the wall seemed to stretch on forever, up into the night sky.
Best get on with it.
I clenched my jaw, and started to wedge my fingers between the rocks, hoisting myself up. I’d picked the most discreet tower wall, the northwestern corner. Here, I was completely in shadow.
With every breath, every heartbeat, I felt like I was only seconds away from accidentally slipping and slamming against the wall. As my thighs shifted, they jostled the briefcase. Careful, Lila.
And as I got closer to the top, a new problem occurred to me: hoisting myself over the top of the wall would be extremely difficult without banging the briefcase against the stone.
Memories flitted through my mind: Alice leading me up to a rooftop, where she pointed out the stars and told me their names. The nights when Mum worked late, and it was just Alice and me, and the endless stories of Albia’s past—some legends, some history, some our own inventions.
When Samael brought his blade down through her neck, he probably didn’t know a thing about her. Didn’t care. She’d always had a ruthless side, but she was loyal to those she loved. When we were kids, and two larger boys down the road threatened to drown me in the Dark River, she broke their arms. And when an old neighborhood pervert cornered me, she smashed him in the head with an iron pan. Then, she told his wife.
Samael didn’t care that she sang at the top of her lungs. He didn’t care that Alice used to laugh so hard she snorted, or that she could imitate Mr. Wentworth so well it once made me literally piss myself with laughter.
I’d always thought I would see her again. Even when I found her charm necklace in the room, the dried blood on the windows. Somehow I still felt like she was alive.
Because her death was unthinkable. And how could she have died without me feeling it, without me knowing? We’d always been two sides of the same coin. Alice in the light, a fierce center of attention. Me in her shadow—and happy to be there. And we were bound by the same love for this old city, the history under the ground.
She once told me she’d be a queen, and it occurred to me that even as an adult I’d kind of believed it. She was meant to be queen.
Samael just saw a mortal, the chaos of man. He was born to kill, and that was all that mattered to him.
Here, in this moment of quiet, it hurt me like I’d been the one cut. Her loss was like a severed limb.
My arms and legs started shaking again, but I was almost near the top.
The fear coursing through my nerves felt like a sort of poison, corroding me from the inside out. And with it, a piercing loneliness. Whatever happened next, I would be leaving behind the life I’d always known.
When