Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(111)

“I need bandages,” Margo says frantically. Her shaking fingers are bloody as she wraps them around Sayida’s wounds. Esteban stands at the door keeping watch.

“How did they find you out?” I ask him, peeling bits of glove satin from my skin.

Esteban peers out the door, satisfied when he sees a lack of guards. He digs into his pockets for a slender flask and twists it open. “They ambushed us. After Margo was captured, we hid in a tavern cellar. A kitchen servant saw us and called the guards. They thought we were thieves at first, but I was wearing my metals to try to reach other Ventári. We were brought to Méndez and he used his Ventári on us.” He laughs at the irony. “On me.”

“You should’ve left without me,” Margo grumbles.

The most surprising yet is Sayida, who finds the strength to smile even as she trembles. “And miss this reunion?”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t faster,” I say, smoothing back her matted hair.

“No time for blame, Ren.” Sayida sits up and winces as she cradles her arms against her chest. “Méndez was not lying. They know how to get through the pass and into our base.”

“We go to the elders,” Margo says at the same time I say, “We go to Soledad.”

We stare at each other for a long moment, then Esteban puts his hands up. “First we need to get out of here.”

“I need more cloth to make a sling,” Margo says. She looks around the room and hesitates at Méndez’s Hollow sitting unrestrained, unmoving, unresponsive in a chair. She unties his cravat and bandages it around Sayida’s arms. “There. Now what do we do with him?”

“I’ve never seen a Hollow before,” Esteban says, and I don’t miss the fear in his voice. He stands in front of Méndez. This man who caused so much pain, this man who took me from my family, who acted like my savior. This man who ruined my life is a living ghost.

“It’s almost too good for him, isn’t it?” says Esteban.

Who am I to decide that?

“We have to get out of here before the guards come to check on us,” Margo says, pillaging Méndez’s knives. She decides on a simple dagger with an ivory handle. That one goes in her boot. The smaller one has a diamond shape with a star on the iron hilt. She keeps that one in her hand.

I shut my eyes against the onslaught of the Gray cracking open. There are so many memories crowding my mind that I can’t figure out which are mine anymore. But I know that there’s something important. Something I should remember. Something about the weapon. The smell of salt air, the roar of crashing waves . . .

“Will you be okay?” Sayida asks me.

“I’m trying to sort out my memories from his. He’s seen the weapon.”

“Let’s get out of here first,” Margo says. “Before your mind splits open.”

She’s right, I need to get myself together long enough to escape. I examine my hands. My skin is red; the grooves of the metal leave bruised ripples on my skin. I remove the torn gloves.

“Keep the rubies. We can bribe the taxmen on the way back to ángeles,” Esteban says.

I guide the Hollow Méndez to his feet. I stare into his stormy eyes. Unfocused. Empty. Lina will never, his voice whispers.

“Ren?”

I lift the hood of his robes low over his eyes. “Let’s go.”



As I watch Méndez walk in front of me, I swear to myself that I will atone for everything. I promise the Lady. For now, I give the Hollow a jostle between the shoulders and he keeps moving.

“It’s like steering a wagon,” Esteban mutters a few paces back.

Sayida hisses for silence, but even that echoes.

I have to hold Méndez around the arm to help him along. I’ve never made a Hollow willingly. When I was a child in the palace, I didn’t see them afterward. Méndez was careful enough not to let me after the first time. I let out a shaky breath as I guide him.

I tell myself that he’s killed hundreds, possibly thousands, in these dungeons. That he would have killed me. Sayida. My friends. Then why does seeing him like this make the vines around my heart twist just a little tighter? Maybe when I take everything from them, they take a little piece of me.

“Ren,” Sayida says. “This is a dead end.”

As if summoned by the fact that we have nowhere else to go, the sound of someone approaching echoes against the stones.

“There has to be a way out,” I say. “I saw it. Dez once came here and—”

“And he never escaped.” Margo takes out her stolen knives. “It’s too late. We fight our way out.”

A figure appears at the bottom of the stairwell. We’re stuck. Then I realize who it is. “Margo, don’t!”

Leo pulls his hood back, his green eyes catlike in the torchlight. His familiar smile is a welcome sight as he says, “Anywhere but the face.”

“You,” Margo says, lowering her stolen knife. She notices the cape, same as the one we saw earlier. “You brought us the food.”

“I did secure—” he begins to say, but stops as I throw my arms around his neck. He stumbles back, caught off guard, though I’m just as surprised as he is. It was an instinctive reaction, one I had been waiting a lifetime to give. He tries to chuckle, like this is just another ordinary day in the palace and we’re getting ready for supper or to spend the day with the lavanderas, but it isn’t. It will never be again.