The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(121)

Tobiah lowered his mask. “And?”

My heart thumped, and I hated myself for giving away his secret. “I told him to use a black knife. It was my only idea. Now everyone is painting knives on their clothes, even civilians.”

His eyebrows lifted, and his scowl shifted into a grin. “That means there are thousands of Black Knives moving toward Colin’s and Patrick’s armies?”

“In a way.” He wasn’t angry?

No. He was laughing. It was a soft, weary laugh, but it warmed his face and eyes. “That’s wonderful, Wil.”

“Really?”

“I always wanted Black Knife to become a symbol of hope in Skyvale. I didn’t want others to take up vigilantism, which did happen on occasion, but I wanted to inspire people. I wanted them to know someone was watching over them. They didn’t have to know who it was, just that someone cared.” Wind caught his hair, and he smoothed it back. “I was glad when you took it up. It was a relief knowing Black Knife was still taking care of my city.”

Now that city was gone, but we still had a chance to save mine.

I pulled my mask over my face. “Time to go, Optimistic Knife.”

“As long as no one else takes that name.” He grinned as he put on his mask. But before we could start down the wall, an acrid-scented heat rolled in.

White wraithy mist poured over Tangler Bay and the Red Bay, smothering the southern tip of the highcity within seconds. A deafening crack sounded, like bones snapping, and hundreds of thousands of glass shards exploded into the air.

The cliff-side mirrors had done nothing to protect the city.

Nothing at all.

“No.” Tobiah swayed on his feet, and his breath puffed out his mask in small bursts. I took his shoulders to steady him, and he turned his face against my neck with an angry sob. “Not again.”

“It’s Chrysalis.” My words tasted like ash. “He’s returned.”





FORTY-FOUR


“CHRYSALIS.” TOBIAH SPAT the name like a curse, but his anger didn’t disguise the tremor in his voice. “Why is he out there? I thought he was secured—”

“He was, but Patrick tricked him. When he realized he’d done wrong, he decided to make it right.”

“With more wraith?” His breath rasped.

“He thinks he can protect me. He thinks he can control it.”

“Can he?”

“I don’t know.”

The bank of wraith mist coalesced into a thick band that twisted just above the city like a giant worm, stretching as far north as the castle curtain. I had to drop my head all the way back to see the end of the boiling mass. Heat and stink pushed off it in waves, nauseating.

Then it spread into the sky, blocking out the moon and stars for a moment that seemed like eternity. Tobiah’s arm squeezed tight around my waist, as the wraith shifted and plunged toward the southeast corner of the city.

Wraith splashed up and rained over everything in small, glowing flecks that lit the night.

“Oh, saints.” My voice sounded small under the screams that rose from the streets.

Panic erupted across the city as eerie white lights drifted through the hot sky, lighting the lowcity as bright as the wraithland, and for the first time, I could see evidence of the battle between Patrick and Prince Colin.

Columns of smoke towered over the lowcity beyond the factories—close to the gate where I’d guessed the fighting would be. That was where Chrysalis would be, too.

“Let’s go.” I released Tobiah, but his grip on my waist only tightened.

“It’s the Inundation all over again.”

“No.” I faced him and pulled him close enough to lean my forehead on his. “It’s going to be different this time. I’m going to find Chrysalis. I’m going to stop this.”

“I’ve already watched one city fall to the wraith.” Sweat made his mask stick to his skin. “If Aecor City falls—”

“Aecor City won’t fall. We won’t let it. Right? This is what Black Knife does.”

He dragged in a heavy breath and pulled back a fraction to focus on me, on my eyes behind the mask.

“There’s still a chance for Aecor City. We have to find Chrysalis and make him send away the wraith.”

“It will just come back.”

“We have a barrier. We’ll put it up before the wraith returns.”

He hesitated, like he wanted to argue that the barrier was only a stopgap, but at last he nodded. “We have a barrier.”

“Good.” I found my grappling hook. “Let’s go, Black Knife. We have a city to save.”

He moved toward the opposite corner of the balcony, his grapple and line in hand. “Together?” he called over the shouts from below.

“Always.”

I climbed over the rail, giving him a second to do the same, and as one we rappelled down the castle wall. People scattered out of our way, making a pair of perfect half circles below us.

“It’s Black Knife!” Someone pointed up at me.

“There are two!”

The news of Black Knife’s identity hadn’t spread out here, yet. And in the face of fighting and wraith, a foreign vigilante didn’t matter much. But as my boots thumped the ground, the panic shifted into excitement.