Ruin and Rising (The Grisha Trilogy)(79)

“She is pretty moody,” said Harshaw. He tapped his temple. “Not totally there, if you know what I mean.”

They were kidding, but they might also have been right. You were meant to be my balance. What I felt for Mal was messy and stubborn and might leave me heartbroken in the end, but it was also human.

Nadia reached out and nudged Mal’s hand. “At least consider the plan. And if it all goes wrong—”

“Alina gets a new bracelet,” finished Zoya.

I scowled. “How about I slice you open and see how your bones fit?”

Zoya fluffed her hair. “I bet they’re just as gorgeous as the rest of me.”

I gave Tamar’s plate another turn, trying to imagine what this kind of maneuver might require. I wished I had Nikolai’s mind for strategy. One thing I was sure of. “It will take more than an explosion to kill the Darkling. He survived the Fold and the destruction of the chapel.”

“Then what?” asked Harshaw.

“It has to be me,” I said. “If we can separate him from his shadow soldiers, I can use the Cut.” The Darkling was powerful, but I doubted even he could bounce back from being torn in half. And though I had no claim to Morozova’s name, I was the Sun Summoner. I’d hoped for a grand destiny, but I would settle for a clean kill.

Zoya released a brief, giddy laugh. “This actually might work.”

“It’s worth thinking about,” I said to Mal. “The Darkling will expect an attack, but he won’t expect this.”

Mal was silent for a long moment. “All right,” he said. “But if it does go wrong … we all agree what has to happen.”

He looked around the table. One by one they nodded. Tolya’s face was stoic. Genya dropped her gaze. Finally, only I remained.

“I want your word, Alina.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’ll do it.” The words tasted like iron on my tongue.

“Good,” he said. He grabbed my hand. “Now, let’s show Misha how bad dancing’s done.”

“Kill you, dance with you. Any other requests?”

“Not at the moment,” he said, pulling me close. “But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

I tucked my head against Mal’s shoulder and breathed in his scent. I knew I shouldn’t let myself believe in this possibility. We didn’t have an army. We didn’t have the resources of a king. We only had this ragged crew. I will strip away all that you know, all that you love. If he could, I knew the Darkling would use these people against me, but it had never occurred to him that they might be more than liabilities. Maybe he’d underestimated them, and maybe he’d underestimated me too.

It was stupid. It was dangerous. But Ana Kuya used to tell me that hope was tricky like water. Somehow it always found a way in.

* * *

WE STAYED UP LATE that night, talking through the logistics of the plan. The realities of the Fold complicated everything—where and how we would enter, whether or not it was even possible for me to cloak myself, let alone the others, how to isolate the Darkling and get the students clear. We had no blasting powders, so we’d have to make our own. I also wanted to ensure that the others had some way out of the Fold if anything happened to me.

We left early the next morning and crossed back through Dva Stolba to retrieve the Bittern from the quarry. It was strange to see it sitting where we’d left it, tucked safely away like a pigeon in the eaves.

“Saints,” said Adrik as we clambered into the hulls. “Is that my blood?”

The stain was nearly as big as he was. We’d all been so tired and beaten after our long escape from the Spinning Wheel that no one had even thought to deal with it.

“You made the mess,” said Zoya. “You clean it up.”

“Need two hands to swab,” Adrik retorted, taking a place at the sails instead.

Adrik seemed to relish Zoya’s taunts over Nadia’s constant fussing. I’d been relieved to learn that he could still summon, though it would take some time for him to be able to control strong currents with just one arm. Baghra could teach him. The thought came at me before I remembered that was no longer possible. I could almost hear her voice in my head: Should I cut off your other arm? Then you’d have something to whine about. Do it again and do it better. What would she have made of all of this? What would she have made of Mal? I pushed the thought away. We’d never know, and there was no time for mourning.

Once we were in the air, the Squallers set a gentle pace and I used the time to practice bending the light as I camouflaged the ship from below.

The journey took only a few hours, and we landed in a marshy pasture west of Caryeva. The town was the site of the summer horse sales every year. It wasn’t known for anything but its racing track and its breeding stables, and even without the war, this late in the year, it would have been all but deserted.

The missive to the Apparat had proposed that we meet at the racecourse. Tamar and Harshaw would scout the track on foot to make sure we weren’t walking into a trap. If anything felt wrong, they’d circle back to meet us, and we’d decide what to do from there. I didn’t think the Apparat would turn us over to the Darkling, but there was also the possibility that he’d struck some kind of new bargain with the Shu Han or Fjerda.

We were a day early, and the pasture was the perfect place to practice cloaking moving targets. Misha insisted on being first.