Page 83 of To Dance with Death

“When Moranya retires, yes.” Still, that fury, even as we move from the sanctuary into a dark corridor. “Fortunately, she is habitual, and therefore predictable. Unfortunately, that means she will spend the next twelve or so hours in her atelier.”

I finally found Moranya, and yet I can’t get back to her. Time is running out. I push down my panic, examining his words. There’s a clue there, if only I can make sense of it. My vision wavers.

“Her atelier,” I say. “That’s the room with all the broken glass, I take it?” I try to fit the pieces together—the atelier, the ritual. Shards everywhere. They fit together about as well as all that broken glass.

Anton doesn’t answer me, though I cling to his arm, unable to see more than a foot in front of me. He, for his part, seems to know the place by heart. Up a stairwell, we emerge into another chapel—this one brighter and more modern, with polished marble floors and benches set aglow in an array of fractured colors spilling in from the stained-glass ovals in the ceiling above. The rest of the space is lined with narrow, clear windows that show the city beyond.

“Perhaps…we don’t have to hide,” I offer. Now that I know where she is, I can finally confront her. “Let me talk to her, Anton—”

“Absolutely not,” he cuts in.

“But—”

“She isnotto be interrupted.”

“This ritual,” I say. “What is it?”

“Vasalie,” he says. “We are waiting. That is that.”

Aggravation tightens my throat, but I breathe out, attempting to quell my panic.

“It’s afternoon, by the look of it. No one will be here until dawntomorrow morning,” Anton says, plopping onto a pew, kicking up his feet to rest on the back of another. “We can hide out here.”

“Hide?” I lift my brows.

His head is resting on the bench, tilted up toward the ceiling.

“You are afraid of being seen,” I gather. “You’re afraid someone might recognize you, and you worry what they’ll say. That they’ll reject you rather than welcome your return.”

“I have not returned.”

“But they won’t know that. Am I wrong, Sire?”

“So I don’t wish to gallivant around the kingdom that was taken from me. Can you blame me?”

I knew he was hurt. I knew he cared. But I thought he had buried all that, let it go. Yet here and now, I realize just how much he aches for his people. For his place in Miridran.

A loose thread—and one I might be able to pick at. Maybe this is exactly what we need. For him to be here, see his city again. He isn’t going to let us return to Moranya, so I’m going to have to make the most of this. Take advantage of it.

There must be some way I can turn this to my favor. And the moment we get back, I’ll confront Moranya now that I know where she is—perhaps after loosening his lips even more.

I’m starting to think riling him might prove more effective.

“No,” I admit, idling by one of the windows. “But I have a hard time believing you are the king I heard so many tales about. That king was one of poetry and fire. He was fearless and clever. Devious, dangerous, witty, andfartoo proud. It is a shame to see him gone.”

“I am what they made me.”

“We are who we make ourselves,” I say, and that sends a glare slicing back toward me. I don’t care. “You were never one to let anyone else dictate your future. You were a thing oflegends.”

Because his reputation, mostly, had been a carefully crafted front. A debauched king with a Glory Court at his beck and call. But really, he had been rescuing those who needed help.

“And now,” I say, “you are ashadow.”

At that, he rises and stalks toward me. “A shadow? I beg to differ, Vasalie. I am anending.I rule the dead. I alter fates,” he says, hovering over me now—so close his breath warms the tip of my nose. My back hits the stone ledge of the window. “And when those who betrayed me pass into my world, I will set them to suffer in the lowest echelons while I laze about in my palace with my chalice and my scepter. Say what you will, but my pride remainsintact.”

But I don’t believe him. He didn’t cast Sundar into the Sands. This is yet another front.

I jut my chin, leveling it with his. “You let others warm your bed, and yet you feel lonely when you wake. You drink until you forget the ambition you try so hard to smother. You entertain souls who care little for you, and you for them. The days pass with little meaning. Admit it, Majesty. Deep down, you arebored.”