Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(123)

After a while, the boy disappeared, like so many of the others. Then one day, the Whispers came and I was gone.

Even now, I can hear the rattle of the dice, like great echoes in my thoughts. A trick of the mind. All of it was a trick, wasn’t it? Simple. Easy. Unfair.

I see that girl unwrapping sweets in the library, staring at the fire that killed her parents. I see that girl, and I wish I could hold her and tell her that she couldn’t have known. That no one taught her better, that no one was there to protect her.

When I open my eyes, Sayida and I are bathed in a white light. White like that Robári’s eyes—the one they made into a weapon to use against us. And I know that no matter what they think I might be capable of, I have to tell everyone what I know about this weapon, about what they’ve done to Cebrián.

“Thank you,” I tell Sayida, looking deeply into her warm dark eyes. “There’s something I have to do.”

Hand in hand, we go back into the house and call a meeting in the main room. The Whispers gather around me again. Margo and Elder Filipa watch me carefully.

I tell them everything I know. How they experimented on Moria like Lucia and she is likely lost. About the weapon, the Robári, and what the justice has done to him.

“We have to get Cebrián back. I don’t know if we can reverse what’s been done to him, but at least we can get him away from the new justice, whoever that might be. Take away their precious weapon before they learn how to make more of them. Before he was killed, Illan said there were volunteers for the mission. I’m asking you now to trust me.”

Elder Filipa holds a hand up to silence me, and all of my hope that they’d listen evaporates. “You’ve done well, Renata.”

I lean in, because I don’t think I’ve heard her correctly. Filipa never smiles, but her mouth quirks. “Thank you.”

“You’re the reason why we can keep the Whispers alive. Are you ready to do what comes next?”

Ever since I understood my past and what I was responsible for, I’ve wanted to figure out a way to fix it. Dez told me that I did belong, and that no one thought of me differently. But he was wrong. This is how I get a clean slate.

“I am,” I say.

Filipa looks to Margo, then to me. “Tonight you will lead a group of three to retrieve this poor soul before the king can do any more damage. We have to save him. Amina, Tomás, you will accompany Renata.”

“I won’t fail you,” I say, taking Filipa’s hand. Even though she flinches, she does not let go.

Her eyes are cold, and I tell myself that this is because of everything that has happened. Everything we’ve lost. She narrows her gaze. “Make sure that you don’t.”





Chapter 30


The others rummage through the house until we find clothes that make us appear like nobles. I wear a simple tunic dress over trousers and leather boots. Once ready, the four of us take the Tresoros carriage along the rocky path that lines the eastern coast of Sól y Perla.

Margo and I sit on one side of the carriage, Amina and Tomás opposite us. It is strange to be part of a unit again, albeit a group of Whispers I’m not as used to. I draw back the curtain to watch Soledad loom in the distance. It is built in the old Moria style, all pointed arches with large winged beasts perched along the rooftops. It’s high up on a hill where a cliff cuts cleanly down to a roiling, restless sea.

“Did you know that the first documented references to angels were in the Song of Our Lady of Shadows?” Amina remarks. As Elder Octavio’s apprentice, she read as many texts as she could on the history of the Moria and Puerto Leones. Whatever hadn’t been burned by the king, at least. “About a hundred years ago, King Fernando’s grandfather changed them into demons, and turned angels into those fat childlike creatures the justices like to paint on their ceilings.”

Margo reaches over me and closes the curtain. “Enough. This is our first mission as a unit. We have to remain calm.”

“We are calm,” Amina says, tying and retying the knot of her hair. “As calm as we can be rushing into a prison no one has ever escaped.”

I tug on my tunic, restless. “Go over the plan once more.”

“Tomás will stay with the carriage,” Amina says. “While Margo and I clear a path to the south entrance.”

“I’ll take the north side,” I say.

“We meet in the center courtyard. From there, Gabriel said there’s a stairwell with a metal sun that marks the door to the high tower where the justices keep maximum-security prisoners.”

“Simple enough,” Amina says.

Margo shoots her a glare that could petrify. I know Margo, and I can tell she wants to remind the young Illusionári that she hasn’t seen the number of hours in the field that we have, hasn’t seen firsthand the way even the most straightforward of plans can go terribly awry, but now is not the time, and despite Margo’s courage, she’s sweating as much as the rest of us.

I won’t fail you.

Make sure that you don’t.

It’s taken a full day’s ride to reach Soledad.

I peek out the window. For a prison, there aren’t as many guards as I thought there’d be. We are still outnumbered, but we are not ordinary soldiers. We are Moria.