Page 154 of The Thirteenth Child
Something was wrong, I realized.
The Divided Ones were moving slowly, almost as if the air around them was too thick, holding them back.
They looked…sluggish.
“Good evening, Félicité,” I called, noticing she’d said nothing since their arrival.
The room was quiet, too quiet by far. Usually the Divided Ones were always speaking, always talking over mortals, taking control of conversations, bickering with one another. But now…
“I’m afraid my sister can’t hear you at present,” Calamité warned me, abandoning Euphemia. “None of them can. It’s just little oldme.”
I looked to the goddess’s side. Since they had no pupils, it was always difficult to tell exactly where the gods were looking, but her gaze did seem to be especially unfocused now. Calamité shifted, his steps slow and measured, and I realized he was dragging Félicité’s side of their body with him. She controlled nothing. She wasn’t moving at all.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing iswrong,” Calamité drawled, tilting their head so he might better look in my direction. “Perhaps everything is finally right.”
“What did you do?” I gaped, unable to look away from Félicité’s slack muscles. She looked like a cut flower left without water, wilted and shrinking in on herself.
“What didwedo,” Margaux interjected, sounding proud, and a sliver of dread sliced deep within me.
“You don’t really think I’d spend millennia stuffed inside the same body as all my siblings and not find a way to secure a touch of independence? You’ve no idea how chafed I feel in here. So many gods, so little space.” He shuddered, but only his side of their frame moved.
“Do they know?”
He laughed, stiltedly wandering about the chamber, picking upsmall trinkets and toys, examining them with interest before discarding them. Margaux watched, her mouth wide, smiling rapturously.
“Of course not. I once spent an entire afternoon along the canals of Boizenbrück, whispering treachery and plots into the ears of passersby, and a week later, as the citizens rose up and fomented revolution, I acted as surprised as the lot of them. Not a single one suspects a thing.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “You can’t possibly believe that Félicité won’t catch on to this. She notices everything.”
Calamité’s eye flashed. “Do not forget to whom you speak, mortal. Just because I’m friendly to a thirteenth child does not mean we are friends. It does not make us equals. I am the lord of chaos, the great numen of turmoil. The earth and all its mayhem pay me homage, cast offerings of reverence at my feet. I hear praise in every cry of insurrection. My blood stirs at turbulence and panic and disorder. My acolytes sanctify me with their schemes, they venerate me with their gifts of sedition.” His eye flickered over Margaux with cool appraisal. “Or they try their best to.” He sighed testily. “What am I doing here, exactly? I specifically told you I didn’t want to be summoned until the denouement.”
Margaux’s smile faltered before she gestured about the room, as if showing off a prize, grand and precious. “And here we are.”
“This? This is your final act?” His tone was saturated with evident skepticism. “Where is all the fighting? No one is screaming, and not a single drop of blood has been spilt. The queen’s bastard is alive, and if I’m not mistaken, Hazel still has both her candles.” He cocked his head, horror growing across his features as he strained to listen to the noises filtering in from the rest of the palace. “There’s a soiree downstairs. A party! Mortals are celebrating, happy and wholeand why did you bring me here?”
Calamité’s frame loomed large, scraping the gilt from the ceiling as his anger burst forth. His spine hunched to fit the space, bringing his splintered face unbearably close to my own. Waves of rage as tangible as fire radiated from his half of the body.
I felt the instinctual urge to drop low and beg for forgiveness, but I pushed the notion aside and stood tall. This was not my godfather, and for once, such ruthless anger was not directed at me.
Margaux, to her credit, only pressed her lips together, frustrated yet unalarmed.
“The plans did have to change a bit.” She cast a look of scorn toward me. “But that doesn’t mean we failed. We’re just…adapting. You did say it was a good plan,” she reminded him. “You commended it.”
“You should have stuck to the original version,” Calamité said, heat blazing from him once more. “Kill the queen, start the Shivers, let the king die, and watch as the world burns.”
My mouth fell open, but before I could respond, from the far side of the chamber came a gasp, and our heads all snapped toward its source.
There, inconceivably, was Leopold, his jaw slack with horror, his eyes wide as he tried to take in everything happening. At his back was an open door, paneled to look like every other wall in the room. A perfectly hidden passageway.
Calamité beamed, relishing this new twist. “Your Royal Highness, good evening! Come, come in! What a most unexpected yet pleasant surprise!”
“What is going on?” Leopold turned to me, looking dazed. “Bellatrice says she’s running away, and I heard Euphemia wasn’t feeling well and there are guards outside her door, so I used the secret way in, and now there’s…” He gestured toward the Divided Ones.“Hazel?” He looked so painfully lost. I took a step toward him, unsure of how to explain any of this, but his gaze darted back to Calamité. “What are you doing here? The Divided Ones have no reason to be—”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t ask to be summoned,” Calamité interrupted, his half of their mouth grinning. “Poor little dimwitted prince. Your father opened your home to quite a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“Hazel would never have…” Leopold paused, then whirled toward Margaux, putting everything together. “You. What did youdo?”
