Chapter 49. After the Seal

Veilgrove eats noise and keeps it for later. The square emptied like a drained basin. Salt glimmered on lips and thresholds. Above, the cliffs leaned in to listen to the questions everyone was pretending not to ask.

We didn’t go to the quiet room this time. We went to the kitchen.

Orla decreed it, which is to say the decision happened and then everyone remembered how wise it had been to follow her.

The kitchen belonged to a woman named Jun with forearms like ropes and a way of cracking eggs that made you apologize for any disrespect you had ever subconsciously felt toward eggs. Pots steamed. Bread seethed. Leaf sat under the table and took food from anyone who would sneak it to him.

Kael sat, which he does badly on principle. Mavienne set his hand on the table and peeled the linen back like a truth. The puncture looked small, the way a mouth looks small when it’s not talking. The skin around it reddened into a star.

“Poison?” I asked.

“Ambition,”