wing folded out and stabbed through his back, coming out below his collar—the tips red with blood.
He would glance down at his chest, more surprised than in pain.
But he’d felt it.
I gave him a dramatic death scene, but I hadn’t bothered to watch.
Clouds gathered above Bluebird, blocking the moons I’d flown past to kill Sylvania. She’d nicked my dress with her blade, and I’d been so upset about my outfit that I’d shot her thirteen times. I remembered the way her blood gathered. The moment the light in her eyes dimmed.
They were hurt, but they’d gone home. They woke up. I knew they’d woken up.
But why would Grigfen have told the truth about the pain, but not about the players who’d died? I didn’t understand.
Her heels cut into my wrists, but I didn’t feel it. The shattered glass in my wings cut into my bare back, slowing dimming my health. But I didn’t feel any pain.
There was something different about me.
The sky shattered with a fresh glitch. There was something wrong with the game.
My breaths rasped. It was true.
Marcus.
Sylvania. I rocked my head back and forth. Catherine. Isabel. Sam.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know.
I screamed but nothing was louder than my thoughts. There was something wrong with the game. I killed them. I really killed them.
Bluebird held her blades to my neck.
“Stop,” I croaked with a throat too raw for me not to feel it. “Please stop. I won’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I … “The world was wide enough,” I whispered.
The pressure on my wrists lightened.
“What did you say?” Bluebird asked.
My hands were free. “I didn’t know.”
Behind Bluebird’s shoulders, a column of purple fell from the sky. Ryo.
I shot backward and my mangled wings lifted me to my feet. Stealth on. I flew past the players I’d killed, past the ruins of the stage I’d worked so hard to build.
I didn’t know.
I flit through the battle in the background. “Commander. Retreat!” I ordered to the Savak. My army exited the sky, and then it was just me and Ryo plummeting to the ground.
I pulled the anchor line with my surviving hand and spun it around him. He held a golden something to his chest and flinched backward as I approached.
I caught him around his ankles and dragged him up. He reached toward his hilt.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I didn’t know it was real. I didn’t know.”
For a second he stared at me. Then he bowed his head and released a shaky laugh.
And for the briefest of seconds his loyalty shifted the brightest red.
36
BLUEBIRD_OFDEATH
The world was wide enough.
That was the message. That was it. A weight lifted from my back, and a light brightened on my arms. I’d accomplished my mission, even though I wasn’t the one to give the message. McKenna gave it to me.
Why wasn’t my brain working like it was supposed to?
I searched the battlefront. Devani and Devout scanned the skies for an attack that had stopped as the queen had flown through it. Grigfen still knelt by the injured girl’s side, feeding her hibisi while her wound festered at her stomach.
That was poison if I ever saw it.
“I’m out,” Grigfen said. “No, no, no. I need more hibisi.”
I stepped forward.
Everstriders always carried a pouch of hibisi blossoms at their belt. I handed him the whole pouch off my belt and then I stood over him, my blades in hand, searching for the Savak queen to go visible.
“Thanks, love,” he said. “Dagney, you’re going to have to chew. Hang on for me. Ryo’s almost back.”
The ballroom was an empty war zone, the ground scorched and folded like Kneult paper cranes. Empty Historians paused mid-step, while their partners lay destroyed, their raven cloaks charred, the cloying smell of burnt feathers mixed with the copper scent of blood. A Whirligig orchestra still played on, those instruments untouched by the violence.
There was a hole in the sound where the orchestra was missing important instruments.
There. In the sky. She flew toward us carrying something. I squinted, and it was as if my senses sharpened and I could see the distance much closer. No, it wasn’t something. Someone.
“Prince Ryo,” I said, judging from his purple cloak.
Grigfen looked up. “Oh thank God.” She was zooming toward us at breakneck speed.
I gripped my sword tight. “She’s using him as a hostage. We should gather the Devout and Devani—”
Grigfen touched my leg. I froze, the skin where he’d touched tingling.