Shadow and Bone (11 page)

“I’m not sure I like it.”

“No one does,” he admitted. “But we all make a good show of it.”

“The King seemed pleased,” I offered.

“The King is a child.”

My mouth fell open in shock and I looked around nervously, afraid someone had overheard. These people seemed to speak treason as easily as breathing. Genya didn’t look remotely disturbed by the Darkling’s words.

The Darkling must have noticed my discomfort, because he said, “But today, you’ve made him a very happy child.”

“Who was that bearded man with the King?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

“The Apparat?”

“Is he a priest?”

“Of a sort. Some say he’s a fanatic. Others say he’s a fraud.”

“And you?”

“I say he has his uses.” The Darkling turned to Genya. “I think we’ve asked enough of Alina for today,” he said. “Take her back to her chambers and have her fitted for her
kefta
. She will start instruction tomorrow.”

Genya gave a little bow and laid her hand on my arm to lead me away. I was overcome by excitement and relief. My power (
my
power, it still didn’t seem real) had shown up again and kept me from making a fool of myself. I’d made it through my introduction to the King and my audience with the Queen. And I was going to be given a Grisha’s
kefta
.

“Genya,” the Darkling called after us, “the
kefta
will be black.”

Genya drew a startled breath. I looked at her stunned face and then at the Darkling, who was already turning to go.

“Wait!” I called before I could stop myself. The Darkling halted and turned those slate-colored eyes on me. “I … If it would be all right, I’d prefer to have blue robes, Summoners’ blue.”

“Alina!” exclaimed Genya, clearly horrified.

But the Darkling held up a hand to silence her. “Why?” he asked, his expression unreadable.

“I already feel like I don’t belong here. I think it might be easier if I weren’t … singled out.”

“Are you so anxious to be like everyone else?”

My chin lifted. He clearly didn’t approve, but I wasn’t going to back down. “I just don’t want to be more conspicuous than I already am.”

The Darkling looked at me for a long moment. I wasn’t sure if he was thinking over what I’d said or trying to intimidate me, but I gritted my teeth and returned his gaze.

Abruptly, he nodded. “As you wish,” he said. “Your
kefta
will be blue.” And without another word, he turned his back on us and disappeared down the hall.

Genya stared at me, aghast.

“What?” I asked defensively.

“Alina,” Genya said slowly, “no other Grisha has ever been permitted to wear a Darkling’s colors.”

“Do you think he’s angry?”

“That’s hardly the point! It would have been a mark of your standing, of the Darkling’s esteem. It would have placed you high above all others.”

“Well, I don’t want to be high above all others.”

Genya threw up her hands in exasperation and took me by the elbow, leading me back through the palace to the main entrance. Two liveried servants opened the large golden doors for us. With a jolt, I realized that they were wearing white and gold, the same colors as Genya’s
kefta,
a servant’s colors. No wonder she thought I was crazy for refusing the Darkling’s offer. And maybe she was right.

The thought stayed with me through the long walk back across the grounds to the Little Palace. Dusk was falling, and servants were lighting the lamps that lined the gravel path. By the time we climbed the stairs to my room, my stomach was in knots.

I sat down by the window, staring out at the grounds. While I brooded, Genya rang for a servant, whom she sent to find a seamstress and order up a dinner tray. But before she sent the girl away, she turned to me. “Maybe you’d prefer to wait and dine with the Grisha later tonight?” she asked.

I shook my head. I was far too tired and overwhelmed to even think about being around another crowd of people. “But would you stay?” I asked her.

She hesitated.

“You don’t have to, of course,” I said quickly. “I’m sure you’ll want to eat with everyone else.”

“Not at all. Dinner for two then,” she said imperiously, and the servant raced off. Genya closed the door and walked to the little dressing table, where she started straightening the items on its surface: a comb, a brush, a pen and pot of ink. I didn’t recognize any of them, but someone must have had them brought to my room for me.

With her back still to me, Genya said, “Alina, you should understand that, when you start your training tomorrow … well, Corporalki don’t eat with Summoners. Summoners don’t dine with Fabrikators, and—”

I felt instantly defensive. “Look, if you don’t want to stay for dinner, I promise not to cry into my soup.”

“No!” she exclaimed. “It’s not that at all! I’m just trying to explain the way things work.”

“Forget it.”

Genya blew out a frustrated breath. “You don’t understand. It’s a great honor to be asked to dine with you, but the other Grisha might not approve.”

“Why?”

Genya sighed and sat down on one of the carved chairs. “Because I’m the Queen’s pet. Because they don’t consider what I do valuable. A lot of reasons.”

I considered what the other reasons might be and if they had something to do with the King. I thought of the liveried servants standing at every doorway in the Grand Palace, all of them dressed in white and gold. What must it be like for Genya, isolated from her own kind but not a true member of the court?

“It’s funny,” I said after a while. “I always thought that being beautiful would make life so much easier.”

“Oh it does,” Genya said, and laughed. I couldn’t help but laugh, too.

We were interrupted by a knock on the door, and the seamstress soon had us occupied with fittings and measurements. When she had finished and was gathering up her muslin and pins, Genya whispered, “It isn’t too late, you know. You could still—”

But I cut her off. “Blue,” I said firmly, though my stomach clenched again.

The seamstress left, and we turned our attention to dinner. The food was less alien than I’d expected, the kind of food we’d eaten on feast days at Keramzin: sweet pea porridge, quail roasted in honey, and fresh figs. I found I was hungrier than I’d ever been and had to resist picking up my plate to lick it.

Genya maintained a steady stream of chatter during dinner, mostly about Grisha gossip. I didn’t know any of the people she was talking about, but I was grateful not to have to make conversation, so I nodded and smiled when necessary. When the last servants left, taking our dinner dishes with them, I couldn’t suppress a yawn, and Genya rose.

“I’ll come get you for breakfast in the morning. It will take a while for you to learn your way around. The Little Palace can be a bit of a maze.” Then her perfect lips turned up in a mischievous smile. “You should try to rest. Tomorrow you meet Baghra.”

“Baghra?”

Genya grinned wickedly. “Oh yes. She’s an absolute treat.”

Before I could ask what she meant, she gave me a little wave and slipped out the door. I bit my lip. Exactly what was in store for me tomorrow?

As the door closed behind Genya, I felt fatigue creep over me. The thrill of knowing that my power might actually be real, the excitement of meeting the King and Queen, the strange marvels of the Grand Palace and the Little Palace had kept my exhaustion at bay, but now it returned—and, with it, a huge, echoing feeling of loneliness.

I undressed, hung my uniform neatly on a peg behind the star-speckled screen, and placed my shiny new boots beneath it. I rubbed the brushed wool of the coat between my fingers, hoping to find some sense of familiarity, but the fabric felt wrong, too stiff, too new. I suddenly missed my dirty old coat.

I changed into a nightdress of soft white cotton and rinsed my face. As I patted it dry, I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass above the basin. Maybe it was the lamplight, but I thought I looked even better than when Genya had first finished her work on me. After a moment, I realized I was just gawking at myself in the mirror and had to smile. For a girl who hated looking at herself, I was at risk of becoming vain.

I climbed onto the high bed, slid beneath the heavy silks and furs, and blew out the lamp. Distantly, I heard a door closing, voices calling their goodnights, the sounds of the Little Palace going to sleep. I stared into the darkness. I’d never had a room to myself before. In Keramzin, I’d slept in an old portrait hall that had been converted into a dormitory, surrounded by countless other girls. In the army, I’d slept in the barracks or tents with the other Surveyors. My new room felt huge and empty. In the silence, all the events of the day rushed in on me, and tears pricked my eyes.

Maybe I would wake tomorrow and find that it had all been a dream, that Alexei was still alive and Mal was unhurt, that no one had tried to kill me, that I’d never met the King and Queen or seen the Apparat, or felt the Darkling’s hand on the nape of my neck. Maybe I would wake to smell the campfires burning, safe in my own clothes, on my little cot, and I could tell Mal all about this strange and terrifying, but very beautiful, dream.

I rubbed my thumb over the scar in my palm and heard Mal’s voice saying, “We’ll be okay, Alina. We always are.”

“I hope so, Mal,” I whispered into my pillow and let my tears carry me to sleep.

CHAPTER 8

A
FTER A RESTLESS NIGHT, I woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep. I’d forgotten to close the curtains when I went to bed, and sunlight was streaming through the windows. I thought about getting up to close them and trying to go back to sleep, but I just didn’t have the energy. I wasn’t sure if it was worry and fear that had kept me tossing and turning, or the unfamiliar luxury of sleeping in a real bed after so many months spent on wobbly canvas cots or with nothing but a bedroll between me and the hard ground.

I stretched and reached out to run a finger over the intricately carved birds and flowers on the bedpost. High above me, the canopy of the bed opened to reveal a ceiling painted in bold colors, an elaborate pattern of leaves and flowers and birds in flight. As I was staring up at it, counting the leaves of a juniper wreath and beginning to doze off again, a soft knock came at the door. I threw off the heavy covers and slid my feet into the little fur-lined slippers set out by the bed.

When I opened the door, a servant was waiting with a stack of clothing, a pair of boots, and a dark blue
kefta
draped over her arm. I barely had time to thank her before she bobbed a curtsy and disappeared.

I closed the door and set the boots and clothing down on the bed. The new
kefta
I hung carefully over the dressing screen.

For a while, I just looked at it. I’d spent my life in clothes passed down from older orphans, and then in the standard-issue uniform of the First Army. I’d certainly never had anything made for me. And I’d never dreamed that I would wear a Grisha’s
kefta
.

I washed my face and combed my hair. I wasn’t sure when Genya would be arriving, so I didn’t know if I had time for a bath. I was desperate for a glass of tea, but I didn’t have the courage to ring for a servant. Finally, there was nothing left for me to do.

I started with the pile of clothes on the bed: close-fitting breeches of a fabric I’d never encountered that seemed to fit and move like a second skin, a long blouse of thin cotton that tied with a dark blue sash, and boots. But to call them boots didn’t seem right. I’d owned boots. These were something else entirely, made of the softest black leather and fitted perfectly to my calves. They were strange clothes, similar to what peasant men and farmers wore. But the fabrics were finer and more expensive than any peasant could ever hope to afford.

When I was dressed, I eyed the
kefta.
Was I really going to put that on? Was I really going to be a Grisha? It didn’t seem possible.

It’s just a coat
, I chided myself.

I took a deep breath, pulled the
kefta
off the screen, and slipped it on. It was lighter than it looked, and like the other clothes, it fit perfectly. I fastened the little hidden buttons in the front and stepped back to try to look at myself in the mirror above the basin. The
kefta
was deepest midnight blue and fell nearly to my feet. The sleeves were wide, and though it was a lot like a coat, it was so elegant I felt as if I were wearing a gown. Then I noticed the embroidery at the cuffs. Like all Grisha, the Etherealki indicated their designation within their order by color of embroidery: pale blue for Tidemakers, red for Inferni, and silver for Squallers. My cuffs were embroidered in gold. I ran my finger over the gleaming threads, feeling a sharp twinge of anxiety, and nearly jumped when a knock sounded at the door.

“Very nice,” said Genya when I opened the door. “But you would have looked better in black.”

I did the graceful thing and stuck my tongue out at her, then hurried to follow as she swept down the hallway and descended the stairs. Genya led me to the same domed room where we had gathered the previous afternoon for the processional. It wasn’t nearly as crowded today, but there was still a lively buzz of conversation. In the corners, Grisha clustered around samovars and lounged on divans, warming themselves by elaborately tiled ovens. Others breakfasted at the four long tables arranged in a square at the room’s center. Again, a hush seemed to fall as we entered, but this time people at least pretended to carry on their conversations as we passed.

Two girls in Summoners’ robes swooped down on us. I recognized Marie from her argument with Sergei before the processional.

“Alina!” she said. “We weren’t properly introduced yesterday. I’m Marie, and this is Nadia.” She gestured to the apple-cheeked girl beside her, who smiled toothily at me. Marie looped her arm through mine, deliberately turning her back on Genya. “Come sit with us!”

I frowned and opened my mouth to protest, but Genya simply shook her head and said, “Go on. You belong with the Etherealki. I’ll fetch you after breakfast to give you a tour.”