Broken Veil (Harbinger #5)(58)

“I sense a storm coming,” Sera said, giving her a thoughtful look. “Her plan isn’t working. That’s why we’re both down here.”

Joanna frowned and turned away.

“You were supposed to take her place. But she made Gimmerton Sough plummet to the earth. It’s shattered into rubble by now. What does that mean for you? It means you are expendable.”

“If you don’t stop talking,” Joanna said, an angry glint in her eye, “I just may poison you again to make you be quiet.”

Sera fell silent. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense—those dark emotions were preying on Joanna’s mind, and Sera had just stirred them up like a hive of bees. It didn’t take a kystrel to realize that.

Then it came to her, a bolt of intelligence, a memory that made sense of everything. The Mysteries had given her the nudge she needed.

“I know who she is,” Sera whispered, her heart beating fast.

“What are you talking about now?” Joanna asked.

During their years together at Muirwood, Cettie and Sera had become very close. They’d shared stories from their childhoods with one another. Sera had told Cettie of the day her father had saved her from falling out of a tree—the last time she’d felt loved by him. Cettie had told her of her life in the Fells, a wretched existence Fitzroy had saved her from. Over the years, they’d shared everything with each other. Cettie had once told her, in confidence, about Lord Fitzroy’s lost love. The story itself wasn’t much of a secret. It was fodder for gossip among the elite. But Cettie knew something most of the others did not. She knew the woman’s name.

Christina.

My precious Tyna has returned home! She could hear Trimble’s voice in her mind. Look how fancy you are!

Trimble was roughly the same age as Christina, though the streaks of gray and leathery skin made him look older. He knew her because they’d once been chained together in this very lockroom.

Fitzroy had searched for Christina for years. He’d searched the Fells, never to find her. Of course not, because she had been sequestered underground in the worst of places. She wouldn’t have known he was searching for her. A woman who’d served at Fog Willows, and charmed the heir to the estate, had been reduced to scraping human refuse. What a bitter fate. Because of Mrs. Pullman?

No wonder she’d wished for revenge.

Yes, the pieces were fitting together snugly.

“The look on your face,” Joanna said, interrupting the flow of thoughts. “I don’t like it.”

Sera turned and looked at her. “I know who she is,” Sera said. “Tyna.” Then another realization struck her. “Mr. Skrelling almost learned the truth about her, didn’t he? He found out Corinne was Cettie’s mother, but if he’d asked the Cruciger orb different questions, he might have learned she was just an imposter. Like you.”

“We’re all imposters,” Joanna said smugly. “Including you. Your mother had an affair with an officer from the Ministry of War. I should call you Sera Pratt.”

Doubt stabbed inside Sera’s heart. She’d feared the truth about her parentage ever since Lady Corinne had cast doubt on it when she was a child. But Joanna’s words didn’t feel right. It didn’t match the certainty of the convictions she’d felt earlier.

“That was investigated and proven false,” Sera said.

“But how do you know?” Joanna asked, her voice throbbing with mischief.

“This isn’t about me,” Sera said, shaking her head. “I didn’t choose to be empress. The position was bestowed on me. I have touched the Command Leering, and it has obeyed me. I don’t think it would have if my blood were tainted.”

“Are you so sure?”

“I am, actually,” Sera said. “Your words are only intended to make me doubt myself. But doubt and belief cannot coexist. One must drive out the other.”

“A fancy speech, Your Highness,” Joanna said. “You’re just unwilling to accept the truth.”

“And what do you know of truth?” Sera shot back. “You are living a lie. You aren’t Joanna Patchett. You’ve only been trained to impersonate her. To know her mannerisms, her way of speaking. You use magic to disguise your face. Who are you really? A servant who lost her place? An urchin who was starving and dreamed of a better life?”

Something in Sera’s accusations must have struck home because Joanna flinched, her smug look fading.

A spell of quiet passed between them.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be poor,” the young woman said in a strained voice, full of vengeance, full of despair.

Sera stared at her, gauging her emotions. They were genuine, she decided, not wrought by a magical amulet.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Sera said. “But be honest with me. If someone takes my place, pretending to be empress, do you think the inequality will change? It won’t. Did Christina use the wealth she accrued from Pavenham Sky to free other children bound in chains? No. She garnered more and more power. Not to heal the wounds. But to murder. You’ve seen yourself what I have tried to do as empress. It hasn’t been enough. It won’t be enough until there are no longer any starving children, until there are no longer any more desperate individuals who sell themselves or their offspring in deeds of servitude.”