Grace and Fury (Grace and Fury #1)(54)

“It is not weak to want to fight back!” Serina shouted. Until she’d come here, she’d never questioned Viridia’s laws. Even when she’d first arrived, she’d accepted the fights. They were awful and terrifying and inhumane… but they were the way things worked here. They were the reality they were all forced to endure. Just like the reality of the Graces. Just like the reality of Viridia’s laws.

Women were forbidden to read.

Women were forbidden to choose their husbands, their jobs, their futures.

Forbidden to dive for pearls or sell goods at market to help their families.

Forbidden to cut their hair unless a man told them to.

Forbidden to think for themselves.

Forbidden to choose.

But why?

“My mother raised me to never trust other women because we would always be in competition. But it’s not true. Look at how we take care of each other here.” She found Tremor in the group of women. “We heal each other.” She looked at Jacana. “We share food.” She thought of Petrel. “We die for each other.” Tears were building behind her eyes.

“Serina—” Oracle warned.

But Serina couldn’t stop. A wave was building in her chest, and if she didn’t speak, it would destroy her. “Why do we let them do this to us?” she asked, and she was thinking of more than the guard’s barbaric fights. “Why do we let them break us? Starve us? Punish us for being ourselves? Is it because we think we’re sweet, delicate flowers and we let them?” Her voice rose. “I don’t think we’ve ever been what they want. That’s why we’re here in the first place.” She remembered what Oracle had said when she’d arrived, and suddenly, the words meant even more now, because Serina believed them.

“We are not flowers,” she said firmly. “Like you said, Oracle, we are concrete and barbed wire. We are iron.” Serina stared at the women surrounding her. “We are smart, and we are dangerous. The guards know that. They know we have the power to overthrow them, if we’d just work together. We need to stop killing each other and fight them.”

No one said anything, but Ember’s eyes blazed. A couple of the women had stepped closer to hear. Serina found Jacana again. Her friend’s eyes were wide, her bony hands clenched into fists at her sides. If they worked together, if they just—

“Get out.” Oracle’s words cut through the silence like a blade.

They pierced Serina to the core. “But, Oracle—”

“You submitted,” Oracle growled. “You were weak and you betrayed your crew. The punishment for submission is banishment. You are on your own, Grace. Mount Ruin will have you now.”

No one objected.

It was her second death sentence, Serina realized—the Superior had never expected her to survive Mount Ruin, and now, without food, shelter, or water, she wouldn’t. Serina pressed her injured arm into her stomach and noticed that somehow she’d held on to the knife. With a last glance at Jacana, at Oracle, she turned toward the tunnel. Women stepped aside to give her space.

Serina couldn’t be sorry. She knew she was right. She’d die for it, maybe, but dying on her own terms was better than living as a murderer. Her sister would be proud.

Nomi wasn’t the only rebel now.





TWENTY-EIGHT



NOMI


IT WAS ONLY Nomi’s second time outside the palazzo. The fresh air beyond the palace grounds should have been liberating. Instead, it sat in her lungs, as heavy and thick as oil. Cassia chattered excitedly as the boat cut across the canal to Bellaqua’s grand piazza, where the Heir awaited them. Maris looked like she wanted to tell the other girl to be quiet. But Nomi could only stare silently across the water and try to keep her expression neutral.

The note was again in her bodice.

Asa’s description of his contact ran through her mind on an endless loop: His name is Trevi. He wears a blue waistcoat. He works a stall of knives. He won’t get close to the carriages.

She still had no idea how she was going to manage to sneak away and find him. If he sold ribbons or fabric, she could feign interest in his wares. But knives? Why would a Grace examine a stall of knives?

And this was just the first hurdle of their plan. Assuming Luca passed the letter to Renzo with haste, as she’d requested, and Renzo made it back to Bellaqua before the Heir’s birthday, there were still several more steps to their plan, each with their own risks and uncertainty.

First, she would have to write another letter with explicit instructions on what to do the night of the ball. Asa would have to find a way to deliver it. She would tell Renzo to make the assassination attempt look threatening but without, in any way, putting the Superior in actual danger. He would have to simulate a struggle with Asa, who would come to his father’s aid. In the process, Renzo had to reveal Malachi as the man who hired him. Then he would need to escape the palace.

Second, Nomi would have to plant evidence in Malachi’s chambers: a letter from the assassin accepting the job.

And finally, on the day of the party, Asa would have to persuade his father to retire to an antechamber during the festivities, to facilitate the simulated attack.

If all of that happened as planned, Asa would immediately point the finger at Malachi, and subsequently find the additional evidence—the letter—in his room.