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A writer such as you, with words like iron and salt, could change the very course of time if you only had the right support.
It didn’t matter how many years passed or what lay ahead for her. What the war would or would not bring. Iris would never find herself lost to what could have been.
But most of all, Roman had been shocked that his father looked relieved to see him.
“He must be quite pleased with you, letting you come home for a spell.” Roman ground his teeth together. Yes, he had done plenty for Dacre. All those words he had typed for him. All that propaganda. It made him feel sick. “Keep it that way.” Mr. Kitt spoke in a hushed tone. “At least, for a little while longer.”
interesting...
He could wake in the deepest region of Dacre’s realm, as far from the moon and sun as divinity could shackle him. He could wake and not know his name, forgetting every word he had ever written. But he would never forget the scent of Iris’s skin, the sound of her voice. The way she had looked at him. The confidence of her hands.
There is no magic above or below that will ever steal this from me again.
“Mum?” Iris whispered, leaning over the bar. “Why do I hear this song every time we meet in a dream?”
“I don’t think Enva was ever buried,” Iris dared to say, to which Aster quirked her red-stained lips to the side. “I think she struck a deal with the king, and she sang the other four to sleep while she remained hidden in Oath.”
Smart girl!
“You think Dacre planned to kill Luz, then?” Iris surmised. “But it didn’t happen because…” “Someone already killed him,” Roman concluded. “Which makes me suspect Alva and Mir are also dead in their graves. Or wouldn’t they have woken by now, alongside Dacre?” “Who would have killed them?” Roman was quiet, but he reached out to trace the moonlight on Iris’s face. “I think it was Enva.”
“If Enva’s harp could coax him to sleep with ‘Alzane’s Lullaby’ … why not a violin? Why not a cello? Why not any stringed instrument? Maybe that is the true reason why the chancellor outlawed everything with strings. Not out of fear of Enva recruiting us to war, but because we ourselves could tame a god with our music if we only knew how to reach the realm below.”
“I think houses that are built atop these passages can withstand Dacre’s bombs. His own magic, working against him. They will be the safest places to take shelter, should another attack happen.”
Yes!! I had the same thought in the last book.
His typewriter remained on the war table in the transformed parlor, as if Dacre had decided it was his. Everything in the estate, actually, seemed to be his now, and Roman’s father had let him take that ownership without batting an eye. Even the books that had been on Roman’s shelves, Dacre had confiscated to leaf through. All morning, Roman had watched as Dacre tore some pages out, tossing them to burn in the fire. Pages of myths that could never be reclaimed. Pages that Dacre didn’t like because their ink limned his true nature.
Book burning... The classic sign of a dictator
Shane held up a stack of paper. Worn and crinkled and full of typed words. He threw the letters down; they spread across the rug. White as apple blossoms, as bone, as the first snowfall. Shane’s voice was pitched low, but his accusation burned through the air. “I know you’re the mole, correspondent.”
nooo!
But Roman wrote his confession. Silent and grim, he surrendered it to Shane.
One breath. Two. Three. He felt his composure crack. He didn’t make out what the chancellor said—the words melted together—but Roman finally dragged his attention away from Iris when the atmosphere turned cold and quiet. When a smattering of applause covered up a few gasps of alarm, and Roman saw that Dacre had now taken the stage. Roman had missed the handoff.
Roman broke the seal and slipped out a small square of paper. A blast alone won’t do. You must sever the head.
“You’ll thank me later.” “My wife!” Roman hissed. “My wife is in that crowd!” That revelation made Bruce pause. But whatever he planned to do—whether it be to go back for Iris or to propel Roman onward—Roman would never know.
Roman had suspected his father was playing both sides of the field—with Dacre, and with the Graveyard. Of course he would, because he wanted to emerge on the winning side, no matter the outcome. But now Roman knew for certain. Mr. Kitt was in too deep.
But then he noticed something else, lying on the table. A bloodstained iron key, strung on a chain. The key that had been around Captain Landis’s neck.
Iris didn’t remember being blown off her feet. But when she could blink the grit from her eyes, she realized the man in front of her had taken the brunt of the blast. The man whose name she didn’t even know had died as a shield for her, whether he had intended to or not.
Captain Landis I think
A middle-aged woman with long hair, dark as night with a few streaks of silver. Her skin was pale but radiant, and her face could have been one that Iris had seen many times before and forgotten save for her eyes. They were a startling shade of green.
Enva!!!
“The museum is more than just a home for artifacts. In many ways, it’s a refuge. And you were right to come here if you were in need.”
“This is an enchanted weapon. It was forged by an Underling divine and given to King Draven centuries ago when this land was ruled by one man, and he carried it with him in a battle against the gods. This blade has killed many divines in a time nearly forgotten.”
“It cuts through bone and flesh like a knife does butter, if only its wielder offers the blade and the hilt a taste of their blood first. A sacrifice, to weaken yourself and wound your own hand before striking.”
That was my domain, and yet I surrendered it when I exchanged a vow with Alzane, all because he feared my growing power. Since then, I have been beholden to Oath. I cannot leave the city, or else I would have met him in the west when he woke.” “Met who?” Iris whispered. “Dacre,”
“Oh, but that is the cost of it,” the woman gently interrupted, a wistful expression on her face. “I took the other three’s powers not because I was hungry for them, but because I didn’t want him to harvest such magic when he woke. But little did I know that doing so would weaken what was mine to begin with.”
A knot pulled tight in Iris’s chest. It almost hurt to draw air, to think of what the woman described. A world in a cage. A world culled of freedom and magic, a memory of what had been.
but the woman held firm before her, flowers blooming in her dark hair. Not a woman, but a goddess.
“You are capable of far more than you know. Why do you think I look at you now and marvel? Why do you think I draw close to your kind? I have sung many of you to eternal rest after death, and I have found that the music of a mortal life burns brighter than any magic my songs could stoke.”
You are capable of far more than you know. Once, not long ago, Iris wouldn’t have believed those words. But she felt the tides pull beneath her, as if she stood beneath a bloodred moon. She took the hilt in her hand.
“Tobias,” Helena greeted him. “Something wrong?” “I was given an urgent post.” “For the Tribune?” “For Iris, to be delivered here at first light,” he said, holding out an envelope.
so is he a double agent???
It was immeasurable. Infinite. The magic still gathered, and it called to her. And yet Iris refused to touch the keys.
“Roman? Set her hands upon the keys since Iris has forgotten how to type.”
If he touches me, I will sunder in two, she thought, fire in her blood. If he touches me, I will come undone.
But was she truly surrendering if she was staying alive? If she only gave him her hands? Iris lifted her eyes. She looked at Dacre’s neck, the cords of his throat that moved when he drank the last of the tea. “I’m ready,” she said.
Tobias embraced her in farewell, and Iris felt his words rumble in his chest as he said, “Don’t worry. We’ve gotten through quite a bit, and the last lap of a race is one of the hardest. But we’ll make it through this time.”
“She didn’t command me,” Iris said, but then wondered why she was feeling defensive. In some ways, she could see the draw of the Graveyard and their beliefs. Meddling with gods never seemed to benefit humans. There was always a catch.
“If you had touched me today, Kitt,” she whispered. “I don’t think I could’ve hidden it anymore. Who you are to me. Who I am to you.
Ahhhhh
“This is not our last moment,” she said, holding his stare. But she felt the weight of his statement as if it were fate.
His lips and his throat, until she felt like love was an axe that had cleaved her chest open. Her very heart beating in the air. “Write me a story where you keep me up late every night with your typing, and I hide messages in your pockets for you to find when you’re at work. Write me a story where we first met on a street corner, and I spilled coffee on your expensive trench coat, or when we crossed paths at our favorite bookshop, and I recommended poetry, and you recommended myths. Or that time when the deli got our sandwich orders wrong, or when we ended up sitting next to each other at the
...more
😭❤️😭❤️
“Write me a story where there is no ending, Kitt. Write to me and fill my empty spaces.”
This is a repeat of the earlier line!!!
It looked like both pleasure and pain, like he was drowning in her and her words. They were iron and salt, a blade and a remedy, and he was taking a final gasp of air.
“Funny you say that,” Forest said. “Because I have news for you as well.” Why did Iris’s heart twist? Why did she assume it was something bad?
Mr. Kitt was also present, but he looked the most haggard Roman had ever seen him, his clothes rumpled, his body slumped in a chair like he had lost all hope. It was the red-eyed despair of his father that made Roman’s heart falter. Something was wrong.
oh no.... he told Dacre about Iris didn't he?
Val’s gaze shifted to meet Dacre’s. “He followed her to the printer, as he told you.
oh no...
He finally noticed the papers spread before Dacre on the table. Roman’s handwriting, sprawled across the pages. His confession, which Shane had been holding. It’s over. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Roman glanced at the lieutenant. Shane appeared bored, his hands laced behind his back, his eyes heavy-lidded. But his nostrils flared when their gazes clashed.
I’ve played my part, and I’ve been outsmarted. But his chest stung when he thought of Iris. She was depending on him tomorrow.
Instead of letting us choose to love you for the good you could be, you have forced us to serve you by way of pain and terror. That is unforgivable, and a lesson you will have learned too late, when you lose this war against us.
“Oh, I would betray you a hundredfold,” he said, his voice rising. “I would betray you a thousandfold for her.
With my words, I vowed to never end his immortality, but he didn’t grant the same to me.
