The Mirror King Read online

  DEDICATION

  For my sister, Sarah.

  Close to my heart, no matter the distance between us.

  MAP

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Map

  Part One: The Inundated City One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Part Two: The Dragon Crown Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Part Three: The Vermilion Throne Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Part Four: The Radiant Heirs Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Books by Jodi Meadows

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PART ONE

  THE INUNDATED CITY

  ONE

  THE PRINCE’S BLOOD was on my hands.

  Screams from the courtyard below pounded through my ears, through my head, but I was blind to all but Tobiah’s motionless form. He was so still. So pale. His skin was like paper. The guards cut away his clothes, revealing the black bolt protruding from his gut. Blood splashed like angry ink, pooling around him.

  “Tobiah.” The whisper splintered from inside me. My hands were on his face. His head rested on my knees.

  “Trust Wilhelmina,” he’d told his guards. “Protect her.”

  And then, “I don’t want to fight.”

  “But that’s all we ever do.” My fingers curled over the contours of his cheek. His skin felt icy, but maybe it was my imagination.

  Only half aware of the cacophony below, and guards shooting toward the assassin on a nearby rooftop, I bent until my cheek brushed Tobiah’s nose. I held my breath and listened for his.

  Gasp.

  Rattle.

  Sigh.

  It was weak, and I could almost hear the blood flooding his lungs in a crimson tide. Flecks of wetness dotted my cheek, but I didn’t move.

  Gasp.

  Rattle.

  Sigh.

  I’d learned a little about injuries from tutors the Ospreys had hired, and from the boys who were interested in medicine. Though I’d always been more concerned with causing damage, I knew about herbs and binding wounds and how quickly people could slip into shock—even those who hadn’t been hurt.

  But with every one of Tobiah’s weak exhales, everything I’d been taught flew from my mind. Wet little puffs of knowledge, flying away with his gasps and rattles and sighs.

  Except for one fact: Crown Prince Tobiah was unlikely to survive this injury.

  Gasp.

  Rattle.

  Sigh.

  If he didn’t get real help, he would die.

  Only I could find it for him.

  The world came crashing back in a rush of screams and shouting. The twang and whack of crossbows punctuated the voices.

  “What is she doing?” Blood stained the guard’s hands as he pressed a cloth onto the prince’s wound. The men surrounding him looked up, toward me.

  “Get the princess out of here,” James barked. He was a familiar face: the crown prince’s bodyguard and cousin, and my friend. I should be able to trust him. “Get her inside.”

  “No!” I clung to the prince’s shoulders as someone grabbed around my middle, and another darted in to cushion the prince’s head as I was dragged away. “No! Don’t touch me!”

  Even half standing, I could barely see the rooftop where the shooter had stood with his crossbow, and the boy made of wraith not far from him, following the last command I’d given him: pursue Patrick.

  A soldier’s fingers dug into my ribs as I struggled. “No!” I elbowed him, and through a gap in the wall of men, I caught sight of the wraith boy returning: a flash of white against the blue sky and brown buildings.

  “Wilhelmina!” he cried.

  Guards shouted and one took my arms. “Come on!”

  But I couldn’t move under the weight of their hands, because a memory stole over me, paralyzing.

  Hands on my arms. And legs. And chest.

  Less than a week ago, I’d been wearing black trousers and boots, rather than one of the exquisite gowns expected of a proper lady. I’d been caught, accused of being the vigilante known as Black Knife, accused of assassinating King Terrell in his sleep, and accused of impersonating a foreign duchess.

  Dawn had just been brushing the sky, and the Indigo Order surrounded me. James had been there. Someone had cuffed me, and then the others came.

  Touching.

  Groping.

  Reaching for places they had no right, until James called them off.

  They’d claimed they were searching for weapons, but my skin still bore the yellow marks of fading bruises.

  The phantom sensations that had haunted me since were real now.

  I had to escape.

  With a feral scream, I yanked myself away from the guard and landed hard on my knees. Pain flared, but I forgot all about it as the chaos below intensified, and an enormous white horror leapt over the edge of the balcony, knocking aside the men as though they were dolls.

  The wraith boy’s body had elongated, his face stretched until his mouth was wide and gaping, and his pale eyes were oval and enormous. “Release my queen.” His voice boomed like thunder as he shrank and strode across the balcony, stepping around the fallen prince at the last moment. “Do not touch her.”

  Ten guards backed away from me, leaving me to kneel by Tobiah’s head.

  The guards who’d been knocked over stood now, their weapons aimed at the wraith boy. Others still scanned the rooftops for the assassin, while many focused on the prince, bleeding to death in front of my eyes.

  The wraith boy reached for one of the guards who’d grabbed me.

  “Stop!”

  The wraith boy froze in a half lurch, waiting for my permission to move again. The guards hesitated.

  I fought to steady myself, grabbing my gown into bunches. “He thought I was in danger. Focus on Tobiah. He needs help.”

  “She’s right.” James shouted orders, and guards moved in to assist, giving the statue-still wraith boy a wide berth.

  Carefully, they pushed the limp prince into a sitting position. Blood saturated his jacket and shirt as they peeled off his clothes and tossed them aside. Blood-soaked wool hit the stone with a splat.

  The crossbow tip protruded from his back, slick and shining with blood. A hooked barb made the bolt impossible to remove without causing more damage.

  If he was even still alive.

  “Knife!” shouted a guard. “Cut off the tip.”

  The screaming below had softened, now that the assassin was gone and guards had emerged to control the crowd. The roofs across the courtyard were filled with soldiers h
unting for the shooter.

  One of the men lowered his knife to begin cutting the shaft just below the barb, but his hand shook with nerves. The life of his future king rested in those trembling fingers.

  Breathlessly, I leaned forward and batted him aside. “Wake up,” I said, touching the bolt. The magic made my thoughts fuzz, but I hardly noticed. “Do this carefully and gently: break just below the tip and remove yourself from the prince. Leave no pieces inside him. Cause no additional harm.”

  “Is she using magic?” someone whispered. Soldiers drew back, as if being too close to me would contaminate them, but they held their prince as the crossbow bolt followed my instructions.

  The wood snapped and the tip clanked against the floor. One of the men dropped a cloth over it and snatched it up, as though containing a wild animal.

  Slowly, the shaft pulled itself from the wound; whatever sound it made was covered by the gasping of soldiers nearby, and the noise of people being corralled in the courtyard below.

  “Flasher,” someone muttered. “It’s true.”

  In my peripheral vision, I caught the wraith boy’s rapt attention, his eyes unnaturally wide as he watched the crossbow bolt drop onto the prince’s lap. Tobiah’s hands rested limply on the stone floor, drenched in his own blood.

  Please. Please.

  As soon as the bolt was out, men pressed bandages to the wound, and I reached around to tap the offending object. “Go to sleep.”

  It was inanimate again.

  “Now,” said James. “Get His Highness into his quarters. Send for a physician. Have the entire city searched.” He turned to me. “Was that Patrick Lien?”

  My stomach knotted. Patrick had always intended to be the liberator of Aecor, our conquered homeland. But while we had the same goals, his methods made him the enemy now. “Yes. Trying again, after he failed the other night.”

  James passed a hand over his stomach, the ghosts of pain and confusion flickering across his face. “All right. I’ll need a description. A drawing, if you can manage.”

  Around us, guards constructed a stretcher to transport Tobiah. This didn’t feel real.

  “I can.” My head buzzed with magic and horror, but there was so much to do. “I can send him to search for Patrick.” I nodded toward the wraith boy, still caught in that half lurch. “You can stand now,” I told him.

  He shot me a quizzical look as he straightened and assumed normal proportions. He was blindingly white, still wearing Tobiah’s Indigo Order jacket from the night of the Inundation, though the cloth was torn and dirty.

  James glanced from me to the wraith boy. “He’s under your control?”

  “He is.” Saints, I hoped he was.

  The captain gave a curt nod. “Tobiah trusts you. I do, too. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to send him into the city.”

  The wraith boy, perhaps sensing my reluctant agreement, grew smaller, more placid. His indigo jacket hung down to his knees as he lowered his eyes.

  My blood-soaked gown dragged heavily as I stepped toward James, keeping my voice low. “There’s no way Tobiah can survive that wound.”

  Neither of us said what we both must have been thinking: James had survived an almost identical injury.

  He kept his voice soft. “What do you propose?”

  It felt like betrayal, giving up someone else’s secret, but he would understand. He would be protected. “I have a friend who can heal.”

  James’s eyebrows shot up. “Magically?”

  I nodded.

  The captain shoved his fingers through his hair, leaving streaks of Tobiah’s blood. “The other day, did you bring your friend to me?”

  “No.”

  He pressed his mouth into a line. “What are the chances of us both mysteriously healing?”

  “Are you willing to take the risk?”

  “Definitely not,” he said. “Where is your friend? I’ll have him sent for immediately.”

  “I should look for him. The Ospreys won’t trust a messenger.”

  “No.” James watched as the men transferred Tobiah to the stretcher and moved him inside. “No, that’s not a good idea. Not with the people calling you the wraith queen, or after what you did during the Inundation. It’s too much. They’d panic. We can’t risk it.”

  It was a risk I was willing to take if it meant saving Tobiah’s life. But James held all the power here, so I just nodded. “I’ll write a message. I’ll draw Patrick’s face, and I’ll tell you anything you need to know. I want him caught, too.”

  “And what about your pale friend?” James’s jaw flexed as he settled his glare on the wraith-white figure, now no bigger or differently shaped than any other seventeen-year-old boy. “I can’t allow him to roam the palace, but I doubt a cell would hold him.”

  “I’ll put him somewhere safe.”

  “Will you be all right?” James reached for my arm, but stopped short of contact. The wraith boy might see it as a threat.

  I touched his arm instead. “When Patrick is in the deepest dungeon, the wraith vanishes, and all of my friends are safe: then I will be all right.”

  TWO

  BY THE TIME the clock tower chimed seventeen, I’d sent messengers to the Peacock Inn and half a dozen other Osprey hideouts in the city. The messages contained orders for all four of my Ospreys to come to the palace immediately; the other four were with Patrick, including my best friend, Melanie.

  Saints, I hoped they were safe. Even the ones who’d left me.

  Especially the ones who’d left me, because Patrick wasn’t always concerned about whether they survived the missions he assigned. We’d lost so many friends through his leadership, and I’d never challenged it. Not until it was too late.

  Now, I sat at a table in Crown Prince Tobiah’s parlor, finishing the last strokes of a sketch of Patrick’s face: close-cropped hair, a hard scowl, and a scar above one eyebrow. Even from paper, he commanded attention.

  “That’s the last one for you.” James took a chair next to me and met my eyes. “We have scribes and messengers copying your drawings for the police and bounty notices. You don’t need to make more. That isn’t your job.”

  “What is my job? Pacing the palace and hoping Patrick slips up? Because that’s the only way he’ll be caught.”

  James’s mouth pulled into a frown. “The queen regent is offering five thousand crowns for Patrick’s capture.”

  “You’ve just persuaded me to go find him myself.”

  His smile was tolerant, like I’d made a joke. “It’s been suggested that you offer a reward, as well.”

  “Even if I knew what the Aecorian treasury looked like, I don’t have access to it. Strip Prince Colin of his overlord title and we’ll continue that conversation.”

  “Would that I could.”

  He’d been awake for only hours, and was recently injured himself. He didn’t need my derision on top of everything else. I made my tone gentler. “How is Tobiah?”

  “Same.” James lowered his eyes. “The physicians are with him. They said the bolt came out cleanly, which will help the healing process. But they told me not to expect miracles.”

  We fell quiet, neither of us willing to bring up James’s miraculous healing this morning. Why shouldn’t we expect miracles from Tobiah, too? But the questions were there, hanging between us. We’d have to talk about it sometime.

  Anyway, where was Connor? What about “come immediately” lacked urgency?

  “What about him?” James tilted his head toward the wraith boy standing in the corner, where he’d been the whole time I worked. He was hunched over like a scolded hound, waiting for attention.

  “He can’t do anything.” After the shooting, he’d refused to leave my side. I could have ordered him somewhere else, but where? “Wraith is destruction, not healing.”

  At my words, the wraith boy turned his head, and a thin smile sliced across his face, widening until he showed teeth and gums.

  I shivered as he turned back to the
corner. James paled and angled himself away from the wraith boy.

  “And you?” I touched the back of his hand. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” James drew a deep breath. “I should have saved him.”

  “But you—”

  He shook his head. “I should have seen Patrick. I should have been watching the rooftops more closely. Tobiah rushes into what he thinks is best and forgets to look out for danger. He can be reckless.”

  I closed my eyes, recalling the black-clad boy with a sword sheathed at his back. Easily, I could picture the way he leapt off rooftops and ran toward the crash and growl of danger. Glowmen, wraith beasts, or ordinary criminals: it didn’t matter what it was or who was involved; he would intervene to rescue victims and drag perpetrators to the nearest police station. “I remember.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” James said. “To look after Tobiah. So that he can be who he is without worrying about danger.”

  It seemed to me James was being too hard on himself. Tobiah wasn’t easy to look after, given his vigilante habit. James wouldn’t be reassured, though. His sense of duty wouldn’t allow it.

  “Why don’t you wash up?” He motioned to the bloodstains on my gown. “There’s nothing else you can do until your friend arrives.”

  “I hate feeling powerless.” I wiped clean my pen and closed the bottle of ink. “I hate not being able to help.”

  James’s jaw clenched as he glanced toward the prince’s closed door. If anyone understood, he did. “Sergeant Ferris will escort you to your quarters.” He looked at one of the indigo-jacketed men in the sitting room. “Sergeant, attend Princess Wilhelmina.”

  I stood and lifted an eyebrow. “Who is being guarded?”

  “You, Your Highness.” James rose to his feet again, too. “Patrick risked you today. What if his aim had been off? What if the wind had picked up? The queen regent and Lady Meredith are being guarded closely, as well.”

  As closely as I? They were probably permitted knives at meals. “Very well.”

  James leaned close. “Now that you’ve identified yourself, you’ll simply have to get used to a bodyguard following you at all hours. Do you think Tobiah enjoys my constant company? It is the duty of a member of the royal family to stay alive.”