“She still looks pretty rough,” said Alucard. “No offense, Bard.”

“None taken,” she said hoarsely. She looked up into their faces—Kell pale, Holland grim, Alucard tense—and knew it must have been a near thing.

Leaning on Kell, she got to her feet.

Ten Copper Thieves lay sprawled on the alley floor. Lila’s hands shook as she took in the scene, and then kicked the nearest corpse as hard as she could. Again and again and again, until Kell took her by the arms and pulled her in, the breath leaving her lungs in broken gasps, even though her chest was healed.

“I miscounted,” she said into his shoulder. “I thought there were six….”

Kell brushed the tears from her cheek. She hadn’t realized she was crying.

“You were only at sea for four months,” he said. “How many enemies did you make?”

Lila laughed, a small, jagged hiccup of a laugh, as he pulled her closer.

They stood there like that for a long moment, while Alucard and Holland walked among the dead, freeing Lila’s knives from chests and legs and throats.

“And what have we learned from this, Bard?” asked the captain, wiping a blade on a corpse’s chest.

Lila looked down at the bodies of the men she’d once spared aboard the Copper Thief.

“Dead men can’t hold grudges.”

* * *

They made their way back to the ship in silence, Kell’s arm around her waist, though she no longer needed him for support. Holland walked in front with Alucard, and Lila kept her eyes on the back of his head.

He hadn’t had to do it.

He could have let her bleed out in the street.

He could have stood and watched her die.

That’s what she would have done.

She told herself that’s what she would have done.

It isn’t enough, she thought. It doesn’t make up for Barron, for Kell, for me. I haven’t forgotten.

“Tac,” said Jasta as they made their way up the dock. “What happened to you?”

“Rosenal,” said Lila blandly.

“Tell me we’re ready to sail,” said Kell.

Holland said nothing, but made his way straight toward the hold. Lila watched him go.

I still don’t trust you, she thought.

As if he could feel the weight of her gaze, Holland glanced back over his shoulder.

You do not know me, his gaze seemed to say.

You do not know me at all.

III

“I’ve been thinking about the boy,” said Vor.

They were sitting at a low table in the king’s room, he and Holland, playing a round of Ost. It was a game of strategy and risk, and it was Vortalis’s favorite way to unwind, but no one would play him anymore—the guards were tired of losing the game, and their money—so Holland always ended up across the board.

“Which boy?” he asked, rolling the chips in his palm.

“The messenger.”

It had been two years since that visit, two long years spent trying to rebuild a broken city, to carve a shelter in the storm. Trying—and failing. Holland kept his voice even. “What of him?”

“Do you still have the coin?” asked Vor, even though they both knew he did. It sat in his pocket always, the metal worn from use. They did not speak of Holland’s absences, of the times he disappeared, only to return smelling too sweetly of flowers instead of ash and stone. Holland never stayed, of course. And he was never gone long. He hated those visits, hated seeing what his world could have been, and yet he couldn’t keep himself from going, from seeing, from knowing what was on the other side of the door. He couldn’t look away.

“Why?” he asked now.

“I think it’s time to send a letter.”

“Why now?”

“Don’t play the fool,” said Vor, letting his chips fall to the table. “It doesn’t suit you. We both know the stores are thinning and the days grow shorter. I make laws, and people break them, I make order and they turn it into chaos.” He ran a hand through his hair, fingers snagging on the ring of steel. His usual poise faltered. With a snarl he flung the crown across the room. “No matter what I do, the hope is rotting, and I can hear the whispers starting in the streets. New blood, they call. As if that will fix what is broken, as if shedding enough will bring the magic in this world to heel.”

“And you would fix this with a letter?” demanded Holland.

“I would fix it any way I can,” countered Vor. “Perhaps their world was once like ours, Holland. Perhaps they know a way to help.”

“They’re the ones who sealed us off, who live in splendor while we rot, and you would go begging—”

“I would do anything if I thought it would truly help my world,” snapped Vortalis, “and so would you. That is why you’re here beside me. Not because you are my sword, not because you are my shield, not because you are my friend. You are here with me because we will both do whatever we can to keep our world alive.”

Holland looked hard at the king then, hard, took in the grey threading his dark hair, the permanent furrow between his brows. He was still charming, still magnetic, still smiled when something delighted him, but the act now drew deep lines in his skin, and Holland knew the spells across Vor’s hands weren’t enough to bind the magic anymore.

Holland set a chip on the board, as though they were still playing. “I thought I was here to keep your head on your shoulders.”