Page 7 of The Dawn Chorus

I tried not to remember the way Kraz Sargas had looked once I was finished with him. A fistful of poppy anemone and a bullet to the face had not exactly left him at his best.

‘Who’s going to replace him?’ I asked.

‘There is another blood-heir, but she is abroad. A new male will be elected in due course. There must be a male and a female, just as there must be a male and a female blood-sovereign.’

‘Right.’ I paused. ‘If not me, who are you sending to the House?’

‘Michael.’

My chest tightened. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ I said. ‘Michael is worthless, in their view.’

‘Aside from you, Michael is the only human I trust. He has undertaken dangerous tasks for me before. This one,’ he said, ‘is to collect the cure for the performers.’

He had been working behind the scenes. I was too quick to assume the worst of him.

‘There is a cure, then,’ I said.

‘Yes. There was an outbreak of the same infection once before.’

‘Surely Nashira will distribute it at some point. She won’t want all her voyants dead.’

‘The performers are sustenance to her. She will not care if some of them die. Death in the Rookery will sow fear, and it is fear that upholds her rule. She will then have the opportunity to appear benevolent by distributing medicine at a time she deems suitable.’

‘So we have to get there first. Before we lose half our soldiers.’

‘Indeed.’ He rose. ‘Fear not, Paige. You and your friends will soon be well.’

As he turned away, I caught his sleeve.

‘We can’t stop training,’ I said. ‘I’m nowhere close to being able to win against her.’

‘We will continue to train. Tomorrow.’

He poured a cup of water and placed it beside me. With nothing to distract me from the wildfire in my blood, I rested my head on a folded arm and watched him walk back to his desk.

Something had changed since he had healed Liss. The same night Nashira had come to the tower and struck him, and I had followed him to the chapel to find him playing the organ. That night had rewritten my understanding of this place. When I looked at him now, curiosity outweighed mistrust.

He was not what I had once thought him to be. Not my friend, but no longer a foe. All I knew was that he loathed Nashira as much as I did, which meant that, for now, we were on the same side.

And he had said he trusted me.

‘I have to ask what you’re doing,’ I said. ‘Writing your last will in case this all goes wrong?’

‘Sagacious as that would be, I have nothing to bequeath to anyone. This tower – and everything in it – belongs to the blood-sovereign.’ He kept writing. ‘Just as I do.’

Because he was her betrothed only in name. Because he was nothing but her war trophy.

‘Well,’ I said, softer, ‘what is it, then?’

‘A journal. A chronicle, more precisely. I record the daily events of the colony.’

‘That sounds like a laugh a minute.’ I managed a sip of water. ‘Do all Rephaim keep journals?’

‘We are not a monolith. I could not remark on what other Rephaim do to pass the time.’

‘Can I read it?’

He dipped his pen in ink. ‘Is it not ill-mannered to ask to read a private journal, Paige?’