“And work on counting,” he added.
“I know how to count,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “But I want you to always be doing it in the back of your head, like keeping time with music.”
“Why?”
“Just trust me,” he said.
I wanted to, but it was hard to muster it for a man who for all intents and purposes was still a stranger to me, one who played both sides of the fence, always looking for an advantage.
“Right now, I trust you as far as I can throw you,” I said. “Nonmagically speaking.”
He held his hands up.
“I’m going,” he said. “I’m going. You’ll see. I’ll show you I can fix this.”
“Just go.” I locked my eyes on his, refusing to look away. Eventually, he turned, made his way out onto the terrace, and disappeared over the edge of the building down the fire escape.
I collapsed against the wings, exhausted, leaning on the form that held them in place.
Knowing why Stanis was acting the way he was . . . it was the most promising bit of news I had, really. Caleb was close to reverse engineering Kimiya thanks to the week or so we had been comparing notes. I had no doubt we’d figure it out soon, but that was only the first step on our road to building an army to counter the Servants of Ruthenia. I still needed to unlock the arcane secrets of actually raising that army. The freelance alchemist had said he would help, but could I take Caleb at his word?
No, but I could work with and learn from him while also taking precautions to make sure I had a plan that extended beyond whatever he himself was concocting.
My thoughts were clouded as far as trust was concerned, more so due in part to what had been the pleasant sensation of Caleb’s lips on mine.
I needed to clear my head, going for the stairs at the back of the building that led up to the roof. I pushed through the upper door, hoping that the night skyline might help me focus even if the familiar form of Stanis was not there waiting for me as it used to be not so long ago.
The spot where Stanis had once stood before waking every night was empty, as it had been these last few months, but the rest of the roof caused me to stop in my tracks, my breath catching in my throat.
Stanis wasn’t there . . . but plenty of other statues were.
The inert forms of dozens of works—some on pedestals, some looking like they had been torn directly from the faces of buildings—covered the entirety of the roof. One thing stood out about them—they all bore the distinctive style of my great-great-grandfather’s hand in their carving.
I should have known better than to have allowed myself a little happiness earlier, or even take a moment of pleasure from the kiss. Given my luck lately, letting my guard down for even a second should have been the perfect indicator that, of course, my life was surely going to get worse, and here I was with proof positive that something else strange was up.
Work on the wings. Caleb’s voice sounded in my head.
I intended to, heading back down to the studio below. Carving was only a small part of the work. As I planned out my project, I set the back of my mind to Caleb’s second task.
I began to count.
Fourteen
Stanis
As I hung harnessed to the chains dangling from the cargo hold of the freighter, my inner voice demanded vengeance against Devon for the pain he had been inflicting on me for the last half hour. Blow after blow struck me, and my inner voice—my true self—wanted nothing more than to tear the deformed stone creature apart, but the dominant voice that held sway over me now allowed Devon’s continuing punishment.
Kejetan stood watching. For the first twenty of the passing minutes, I thought perhaps Devon had simply been following my father’s orders. For the rest of the time, however, it had moved beyond just a simple task for Devon, marked by the brutal enjoyment on his jagged stone face.
Kejetan dropped one of his thick stone hands on Devon’s shoulder, causing a pause in the assault on me.
“Stanis, you have gathered what I asked for—Alexander Belarus’s greatest stone creations—have you not?” he asked.
“I have,” I responded, my two voices both allowing me to answer. There was no harm in stating the obvious course of my actions over the past week.
“And yet you still can neither find nor bring me the secrets of the Spellmason,” he added.
My true voice held the dominant one silent by hiding the truth from it. How much longer I could keep secret the Spellmason master tome Alexandra carried was the ongoing struggle for me. As I had instructed her in our one meeting, as long as Alexandra kept it physically hidden from me and did not reveal its whereabouts, I could continue to keep the dominant voice from acting out against her.
I only prayed Kejetan or his alchemist did not alter the phrasing of the orders they had set upon me, but for now both voices continued their silence on the matter, which, despite the immense amount of pain I was in at the moment, pleased me. The hint of a smile rose to my stone lips.
Devon shook Kejetan’s hand off his shoulder and lunged at me.
“What allegiance do you owe my former sister?” he asked, barely able to associate himself with any of his old ties to his humanity. His arms renewed their furious motion as he resumed his attack on my battered body.
“What is it that makes her or the rest of the humans so special that you deny the Servants of Ruthenia the same form as yours?”
I did not need to answer with either voice. The voice that dominated me answered to only one creature, and that stone monster stood idly by, watching as Devon slammed his fists into me again and again.
As I hung there, attempting to ignore the pain, my mind drifted to what I thought was the point of hallucination and beyond. The far wall behind the two jagged stone men in front of me shimmered, a section of the metal there transforming. The area was vaguely human-shaped and moving, every step closer to us becoming more and more clear until I recognized the form of the blond human who had tortured me.
His face looked concerned this time, but when Devon and Kejetan turned to him, his face transformed, rivaling that of a man who had not a care in the world.
He looked to Devon, whose right arm was pulled back in midswing.
“Easy there, Scrappy,” the human said, gesturing to my hanging form as I swayed on my chains with the motion of the ship. “You know, it might be more of a fair fight if you took him down off those spikes.”
“I did not summon you,” Kejetan said, his words dark.
“Yeah, I know,” the human said, moving closer to me, looking my form over. “Let’s just say I felt a disturbance in the Force.”
“The Force?” I asked before anyone else could.
The human looked into my eyes and gave me a smile before lightly slapping his hand onto my cheek. “Never mind,” he said.
My inner voice willed me to bite the hand from his wrist, but the more dominant one did not allow me to harm him, no doubt because he was the one who had forced me into this servitude.
The alchemist dropped his hand away and turned to Kejetan.
“Let’s just say I have a heavy investment in my reputation out there,” he said. “And I’d hate to see you or Rocky here damage my work before I can iron out all the kinks in it.”
“I do not understand,” Kejetan said. “But be quick in rectifying that. My patience grows thin.”
“I’ve told you before that this isn’t an exact science,” the human said. “While I’m tweaking the alchemy here, I need you two to keep him in one piece.”
“For someone so worried about his reputation,” Devon said, “one would think you’d be a little quicker on the results.”