The Crimson Campaign

She sat down next to the lockbox and flipped open the lid. Taking a book in one hand, she began to leaf through it slowly. She recognized the duke’s penmanship on each page. There were what appeared to be diary entries and then, later on, columns and figures. Once in a while there would be a name, underlined. None of it made any sense to her.

She put the book back. The next one was much the same, and again with the third. Bo would have to sort these out and find what he was looking for, but he seemed happy to have these. She picked up his gloves. Strange that he would leave them here.

Nila listened for the sound of his footfalls in the house or on the drive. Nothing.

She stared at the gloves by the light of the candle. This was one of the pairs she’d mended. She could tell by the coffee stain next to one of the runes. On an impulse, she slid the glove over her hand.

She’d expected a shock. Perhaps something that would hurt her. There were stories about Privilegeds who warded everything they owned so that other people couldn’t use them. But nothing happened when she put the glove on. She slid the other over her left hand.

They were too big for her by quite a bit. Why had Bo been so eager for her to put them on? She didn’t remember ever having to put on gloves when the Privileged dowsers had visited her orphanage when she was young.

Nila held her hand away from her face and shied away, closing her eyes. She snapped her fingers.

Again, nothing.

“I really thought that would work.”

Nila nearly leapt out of her skin. She tore the gloves off her hands and threw them on the floor.

Bo stood in the doorway, watching her.

“What?” Nila said, getting to her feet. “You thought what would work?”

Bo strolled into the room. How had he gotten back upstairs without making any sound? “You don’t have the glow in the Else,” Bo said, “but people who haven’t before tapped their potential rarely do. I thought there was something about you. Perhaps a Knack, or maybe even sorcery. I’ve been waiting almost two weeks for you to finally try on a pair of Privileged’s gloves.”

Nila smoothed the front of her dress and turned up her nose. Trickery! “Well, I’m not a Privileged,” she said. “Get that out of your head.”

Bo crossed the room quickly. She took a half step back, and suddenly she felt the sting of his palm across her cheek.

Fury rose up inside her. He had slapped her! Unprovoked. She drew back her fist.

“Wait!” Bo said.

Nila wasn’t sure why she’d stopped.

“Look.”

Nila looked at her hand, the one cocked back in a fist, ready to beat Bo to a pulp. It was wreathed in blue flame. She could feel the heat of the flame on her face but not on her hand. She gave a shout and leapt back, shaking the hand until the flame went out. What had happened? How had she done that?

“Sorry about the slap,” Bo said, his eyes both gleeful and wary at the same time. “I needed to elicit an emotional reaction from you.”

“You could have just kissed me,” Nila snapped.

“Oh? I’ll keep that in mind next time.” Bo rubbed his chin. “It appears, young lady, that you are a Privileged. You can tap into the Else. What’s more — and this is really interesting — you weren’t wearing gloves just then.”

CHAPTER 37

Tamas and Vlora slipped into Alvation under the cover of night.

The river was easy enough to cross — slippery and treacherous, and cold as Novi’s frosted toes, being runoff from the mountains — but no more than thigh-deep.

As they made their way past the mills and into the tenement district, Tamas realized he’d never heard streets so quiet in the middle of the night. If he closed his eyes, he might imagine himself out on the plateau but for the infrequent step of boots on cobbles from patrolling Kez and the occasional bark of a dog. There was no one about but the patrols. He didn’t even hear the familiar slosh of chamber pots being emptied out of windows.

Nikslaus had the city under martial law, and from the look of the bodies hanging from the bell tower in the city center, he was serious about punishing infractions.

Tamas took note of the powder that Vlora had sensed. There did seem to be quite a lot of it scattered throughout the city, and not just in munition caches. They had enough to supply twenty brigades — which seemed strange, because there weren’t any Deliv soldiers around and it was far more than the Kez could carry.

As they passed through the market district, there was a sudden shout nearby. Tamas stopped to listen, and a moment later the crack of muskets filled the air.

Tamas motioned for Vlora to follow and sprinted toward the sound. It couldn’t have been more than two or three streets over. He climbed a nearby market building and headed quietly toward the edge.

The street below was a war zone.

Bodies littered the cobbles, no more than lumps in the darkness, lying in pools of their own blood.