Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(127)

I’ve been fighting this weight that clings to my heart my whole life. What if it isn’t in my heart at all? What if it’s in my mind? Every single memory I’ve collected is a stone stacking up on top of me, pressing me to death. There have always been too many voices, crammed, and shouting, and trying to claw their way out of my mind. What if I stopped fighting them? What if all of those memories were simply—gone?

I look into the silver eyes in front of me, like liquid alman stone. But when I stare at Cebrián, I see my future. I’m never getting out of here. No one has ever escaped Soledad. But I have another way out.

“Take my magics,” I say.

His head snaps up. He watches me like I’ve crawled from under a rock. A creature he can crush. “Why?”

Because I don’t want to become like you. Because if you make me a Hollow, I will never be a weapon again. Because there is nowhere for me to go from here.

I think of Leo’s smile and Sayida singing us to sleep. Dez searching for my lips in the dark. Davida signing, Good heart. Protect us all. I can’t even protect myself, let alone the world. I shut my eyes, and hot tears spill down my cheeks.

“Because I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

He twitches, a muscle spasm that shakes him like a hanging skeleton. It passes after a moment, and he’s present once again and nods, staring hungrily at me.

I hold out my hand and repress the shiver that courses through me when his clammy skin closes around mine. Pain stabs at my temples and my heart beats wildly. I have seen death in different forms, and I never thought that this is how my story would end. I remember holding Lozar in my arms and feeling his pulse race. Méndez whispering my name in the end. I can’t cry out for anyone because the ones I love are gone from me.

So I say nothing and take a deep, steadying breath. The cold Cebrián radiates seems to go right down to his bones. The sting of his power surges up my arm, like sparks of lightning traveling slowly across my skin. I brace for a pain that never comes. Instead, our powers rebound. Cebrián’s last memory slams into my consciousness, brighter than any of my own, like looking inside the prisms of an alman stone.



The prince returns in the middle of the night. He’s in a foul mood. Cebrián wonders if he is still upset over getting stabbed. But the prince sits in the room and reads the same papers as if he can find new answers for a question he never asked out loud. As Cebrián begins to drift off to sleep, the glint of metal catches his eyes. There is no sound, but the dice roll onto the table. They vanish. When the prince opens his hand, the dice fall out again, perfect sixes. When Cebrián blinks awake, the prince is no longer there.



Cebrián screams. He pushes me back and expels me from his mind painfully. “What did you do to me?”

I gasp, still in the grip of the memory. No. I won’t believe it. I can’t.

“Get out of my head!” I shout at Cebrián.

The Gray rises all around me, and I sink deeper into the past, trying to recall the boy’s face, but there is only shadow. I close my eyes, concentrate, push past the suffocation and delve deeper, further than I’ve ever gone—into my own past.



The Whispers are setting the capital on fire.

The door opens, and footsteps make their way across the room. There is the hiss of a match igniting, the burn of sulfur, and then his face appears behind smoke.

A young boy.

The one who did the little magic tricks for me. Our secret.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. There’s a bruise on his cheek, a deep cut above his brow.

“What happened to you?” I touch his cut with my finger.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter,” he says, trying to keep his voice strong. “I’ll get you out.”

He takes my hand in his and starts to tug.

I pull back. “Where are we going? What’s happening?”

He takes a deep breath, that familiar divot between his brows. “The Moria are revolting. It’s not safe for you here. Please, Nati. Please, you have to go.”

“I don’t want to go. There’s fire outside. I want to stay here with you.”

“Don’t cry, Nati. You’ll be fine.” He takes out a small key from his pocket.

“No!” I withdraw my hand. “Justice Méndez says I’m not supposed to—”

“You can’t go out there with Robári gloves,” he says.

“I want to stay,” I whimper as he unlocks my gloves. “Don’t make me leave. I’ll help—”

He grips my shoulders. His face becomes blurry until I blink. “You don’t belong here. You never did. You don’t know what my father is like.”

I let him guide me through the dark room with nothing but a candle in his fist and a small blade at his side. He draws back a tapestry, my favorite one of the Pirate Brothers Palacio on their ship. There, a brick is slightly darker than the others, and with the brush of his finger, the bookshelf gives way to a secret hiding place.

A secret room.

I gasp and take a step back.

“Come, Nati. We don’t have much time. Don’t you trust me?” His face is golden with firelight.

I grip his hand because when I am with him, I feel safe.

“I trust you, Cas.”