Towers [BOOK ONE]

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I stood silently, unmoving. Letting it sink in, slowly, syllable by syllable, word by word.

"I think understanding is more confusing than not," I said at last.

Dessa gave me a sympathetic look. "That's what I said when he first told me."

"You're a spy?"

"Yes. I travel, just a few days at a time. Here and there across the kingdom—wherever the rebellion needs me to go. Wherever the information is. Wherever the secrets hide."

"What—what do you spy on? Who do you spy on? And why?"

"Anyone. Everyone. Everything." Caleb's expression remained impassive. "And you have my apologies, Princess, but the why of it is simple. I do it to end the towers."

She gave a humorless laugh. "You needn't apologize to me. If it were in my power, I'd release you here and now."

"The midbeast," I said slowly. Bit by bit, it was beginning to dawn on me. "You knew about it. You knew how to fight it." Another realization struck me. "You crossed the Sea of Sorrows alone. I couldn't believe it then, but now..." I squinted, overwhelmed. "You'd done it before."

He nodded once, his eyes grim.

"And the mountain folk. You acted as if you dealt with them all the time. And the Southerners, and the forest—" I pressed a hand over my mouth. It had been so obvious—right in front of me, blaringly bright, since as long as I could remember. "This isn't a new thing. You've been vanishing here and there for years without explanation. We never questioned it. We didn't even think."

"You weren't intended to."

"But we should have! We should have noticed!"

"You couldn't have noticed," Caleb argued. "You would all have been in danger if you had."

"Dessa knew."

"Yes! She did! And they took her!"

I quieted, my lips slightly parted. He was right.

We should have noticed. But we couldn't have. And we didn't.

"And now we're all here," I said, "we're all lost."

"Not lost," said Emmy. "We've got you."

"I am nothing!" I burst out, whirling around. "I can't do anything right! I left you all down here. Alone. I couldn't save Dessa and I still can't. I haven't ended the towers. I haven't ended anything. I am nothing."

"You're our blue jay," Caleb said simply. He put his arm around Dessa's shoulders, and they walked away, deeper into the gloom of the cell. "Farewell, Bird. Take care of yourself."

And at last the glow of the torch could follow them no further, and they dimmed away into the shadows, fading like ghosts in a winter mist.

~~~

"All right," said Melody, drawing herself up and managing a smile. "Channing, Lily, and Emma—Emmy, Emmy, sorry—I've asked the guards to prepare rooms for the three of you next to Bird's. I've also acquired places for you here at the castle. Lily, Emmy, you'll be working as maids. You'll report each day to Marianne; she looks over the maids and their tasks and sees to it that they all receive their pay. Channing, you're an errand boy—tending fireplaces, bringing meals, emptying chamber pots, delivering messages."

Channing nodded. Emmy bit her lip. Lily scowled.

"I don't like this," Lily said under her breath. "I don't like this at all."

"What? Working?"

"Working for her," Lily snapped. "It's her fault I was ever trapped in a tower in the first place. It's her fault I've lost my family, my home—everything."

"If it weren't for her," Channing said quietly, looking at the ground, "I'd never have met you." He lifted his eyes to meet Melody. "We'll do it. We'll do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to help Bird."

Melody smiled tiredly at him. "Thank you."

"Very well," I said, braiding a lock of my hair. "It's growing late, Mel. We'd best get to bed. When will their chambers be ready?"

"Oh...not until tomorrow, at least."

"Then they'll stay with me for the night." I began another braid. "We'll manage somehow."

Melody departed. I led my friends to my room, braiding more and more of my hair as we went along. The silence was tense and stifling. I scarcely dared to breathe.

We reached the door. "Here we are," I said thinly, trying a smile and swinging it open. "Everyone in. We'll, we'll make a bed on the floor or something. All of us."

They didn't say anything. I blinked hard and entered the room first, knowing they'd follow.

The window was open. A breeze ruffled the curtains. I hastily struck a match, avoiding my friends' stares as I lit the candles hung round the room. I shook the match out; it fell from my trembling hands. I didn't bother picking it up.

When I turned around, Lily was an inch away, eyes narrowed, face as hard as stone.

"This is where you've been staying all this time?" she hissed. "Lounging in an overstuffed bed, dining on fine food and flouncing around with princesses?"

I stared back with round eyes. Lily was truly terrifying when she was angry.

"We were frightened, Bird! We thought you were dead!" Her voice shook with fury. "And now we find you here pretending to be royalty and making friends with the very people you came here to challenge!"

"I tried," I said, barely able to get the words out. I swallowed a breath and felt strangled by it.

Her eyes burned. "Prove. It."

"I got you out, didn't I?" Tears stung me like ice in the corners of my eyes, but I held them back. "I managed that."

"How virtuous of you. We, your friends, the ones who traveled down the very backbone of the bloody kingdom with you, should feel honored that you finally deigned to free us from the miserable, stinking dungeon where you so conveniently left us." She looked around pointedly. "Where's your tiara? Or are we too unworthy to look upon it? And I'm sure you've got your own little maid, haven't you, to tidy the bed sheets and do your dishes for you. Why don't you ring a little bell and call for her?"

"Lily!" cried Emmy, stepping forward and yanking her away from me. "What is the matter with you? You have no idea what she's been through, and just because it wasn't the dungeons, doesn't mean she's been dancing on clouds and glitter for the past week or so."

Lily burst into tears.

My jaw dropped. Channing looked horrified. Emmy stepped back, thinking that it was her fault. "Oh...I...I didn't..."

"I'm sorry," Lily sobbed, hiding her face in her hands and running from the room.

We watched her go in shock.

Channing started towards the door. Emmy stopped him. "No. You can't."

"She was crying!"

"I know," Emmy said. "And someone should go after her. But not you." She looked to me. "Bird?"

My stomach twisted. "Did you see her? I'm positive she hates me, Em. Channing was right—if there's anyone she wants to see, it's him, not me."

"It has to be you," Emmy said simply, putting a slight but gentle pressure on each word. "It can't be anyone else. It never could."

"But why?"

"You can't heal without pain," Emmy said, her voice going quiet. She looked to the window. "That's how heartbreak works."

I followed her gaze. The moon lay just beyond, perfect and whole, a silver song within the sky. I closed my eyes for a moment, whispering a poem for courage, and then left.