Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(34)

Remember. Trust me. Dez had planned this all along. The anger that coiled in my gut is gone, unwinds into worry. So much could go wrong.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask. “You didn’t trust me before, so why now?”

“I know the”—Illan’s face is impassive, searching for the right word— “bond you and Dez have always shared. I tell you now simply because I do not want you doing anything reckless to compromise this. No one but my son and the elders know of our plan. Dez will use the code to break out, steal away into the palace, and retrieve the weapon.”

For a moment, I allow myself to remember the cells beneath the palace of Andalucía, though my memory of them is hazy with the murk of childhood fear. I never liked it when Justice Méndez brought me down there to see the prisoners. Still, I recall that outside each was a metallic cylinder as thick as a scroll. Standard code locks have four keys that turn like gears inside a clock. Méndez had a custom-made lock of ten keys, and changed it often, just in case I was able to memorize it. But I wasn’t concerned with escaping. Not then.

“What’s the code?” I squint my eyes as if it’ll make all of this come together.

“Rest, Renata. I expect Dez back at camp by nightfall tomorrow while the executioner is still sharpening his sword. For now, we need everyone assisting in the safe passage of those leaving for Luzou.” Illan’s eyes are faraway and he absentmindedly rubs the silver head of the fox on his cane with his thumb. “And with the weapon destroyed, we buy ourselves another day to live and keep fighting.”

It’s a dangerous game Illan and Dez are playing, but if anyone can pull this off, it’s Dez. When we were twelve, he was caught by a tax farmer near the mountains. I ran to get help, but by the time we came back to him he’d already picked his way out of the locks. I recall the fervor with which he fought Prince Castian at Riomar. I know he’ll return to me. Dez can get out of anything.

“You don’t need me to give you information on the palace, then?”

Illan’s face darkens with what I recognize as a fleeting memory. Regret. “Once Dez has carried out his mission, we will need to get back inside the palace walls to rescue the prisoners in the dungeons.”

Slowly, I nod. “I’ll do what I can.”

After Illan leaves, my stomach still hurts, but when Sayida returns, she assures me the feeling is just the dregs of the poison leaving me. Yet, as I watch the sky darken from the blue of the Castinian Sea to that of a bruised plum, I’m not so sure she’s right. I can’t shake the terrible feeling that twists in my gut.

Andrés. I say his name in my mind. Then his voice: Don’t tell anyone.

Again, I face another sleepless night, my mind a flurry of thoughts fighting for dominance: Dez. Illan’s plan. The twisting dials of a cylinder lock. Four letters that click into place. Four letters that get scrambled every night by a new guard.

A strange feeling tightens in my belly.

Nerves, I tell myself.

In the darkness, I search my mind for signs of hope—in Sayida’s comfort, in the promise in Dez’s kisses. In the way Esteban saved my life. After a while, hope finally ignites, tiny and distant, but alive and buzzing like a firefly within my heart. I hold on to that tiny light. It comes and goes, but it’s something.

Four letters. Dez knew them. He would have had to memorize them.

I push and pull my covers, too hot, then too cold in the unsettling night.

The Gray gathers in my mind like storm clouds. My temples ache. I struggle to push them back. To think of anything else. The most recent memories of Dez help. His full mouth trailing kisses along my neck. His eyes like fire in the moonlight. A promise made in the dark. How I watched him sleep and struggle until I took Dez’s nightmares, with the grazing of my fingertips on his temple.

But they weren’t nightmares, only a string of memories, a tumble of images that didn’t make sense together. And yet, perhaps they do.

Four words.

Dez chasing the hound.

Dez eating the orange.

Dez watching the flag.

Dez searching for me.

My mind turns like metallic gears. Like the keys of a cylinder lock. Four letters.

Hound. Orange. Flag. Ren.

A mnemonic device for remembering a code: H. O. F. R.

I bolt upright, my head throbbing, my vision spinning. . . .

A mnemonic device that I now know, but that Dez no longer does. Because I took the memory as he slept.

Because I allowed myself to touch him. Because I truly thought in that moment that if I loved him, it meant I couldn’t hurt him.

Dez doesn’t have the code to set himself free.

I do.

I should have known better. My power only destroys, nothing else. I will always hurt those I love the most. Never love a Robári. You will lose yourself. That’s what they say, and they might be right.

I push aside the blankets, frantic. Around me, the camp is quiet with sleep.

Panic floods my veins—never have I felt like this. My muscles tremble so hard I have to stand still, so very still, in order not to shake. I temper my breaths. In. Out. Inoutinoutinout. I fight with my mind to rationalize what could be happening. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps the memories I pulled were meant for something else.

But another voice whispers inside me, curling its truth around my chest and squeezing so hard I can’t breathe.