ravaged hearts

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE,

RAVAGED HEARTS | CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NOTHING AND NOTHING and nothing. The panic that she had tried so hard to clamp down was making its way back. Where the fuck was Marquell? His mansion wasn't that big, he had to be in here somewhere. And she'd find him. She wasn't failing this mission. She couldn't fail this mission, wouldn't let herself live with it.

  So she gritted her teeth and continued on searching. She doubted he'd have ditched the house altogether–high chances were he was hidden away somewhere. She'd have to head upstairs, where his office was. That was technically her destination anyways. But it would be guarded if he was a spy in the Banderin circle. That would be difficult to deal with. Would he send the guards away if he was meeting guests in there to ensure privacy? Or would he have them stay? She knew not nearly enough about Marquell personally to make such guesses.

  Her mistake. She was making many of them. That was a sign of disaster.

  Io pushed aside the cynicism and pessimism and continued on. This time she started up the stairs, trying her best to keep up her calm facade. Internally she was screaming. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Marquell was going to get away and this mission would fail and it was all going to be her fault. Her fault because she let her personal desires get in her way, allowed it to divide her attention and made her lose track of Marquell. Because she failed to be responsible for Louis and get his head in the game.

  Her very existence was a mistake, and she'd promised herself long ago that she would work until she had a purpose, a point, leave a mark in this cruel world. Mistakes were not the marks she wanted to leave. She wanted success. Missions that future generations of spies would look over and marvel at. She wanted to be great or nothing, and she would not settle for anything in between. She refused to.

  Failure was not in her blood.

  She did not need to be praised and sung as a hero by the entire world. She did not need to be painted as the golden girl who'd changed the tides for her country. She was not that girl, and she did not want to be gilded with falsehoods and worshipped for lies. She wanted to become legendary for being her.

  Not anyone else. But just her. Iolanthe Mi. The Swan of Sai.

  She would find Pedro Marquell. She would place him and his accomplices under her arrest. She would shut down the Banderin circle.

  With newfound courage she marched ahead, keeping her steps light as a feather to avoid discovery. Most properly trained ladies would not be stamping their feet anyways, instead striding with grace and dignity. Neither of which she really had, but she could pretend she did for long enough to pull it off.

  That's her entire life summed up anyways. Masks to the rest of the world in small bursts, trying to hide the cracks when they appeared. Then every night when she was alone, healing and gluing them back together to face the next day, a new problem, a different opponent, a never-ending cycle of being something she wasn't.

  (She was good at being everyone but herself. That was, unsurprisingly, a thought that struck despair and glumness into her.)

  She listened for sound—the sound of breathing, the sound of footsteps, the sound of speaking. And when she did, the soft murmurings of a woman and the quiet replies of a man, she followed the source of the sound.

  It was a turret, curtains half-covering the arch. But it showed enough for her heart to just stop. Many years later she'd tell herself that was the day she turned her heart into stone, into ice, finally learned the lesson everyone around her had been trying to teach her for years and years and years.