Page 23 of No Greater Sorrow

“I’m going to go to Italy,” Aleja said.

“Fucking yeah you are,” Violet said. “I get to come, right? Even though I’m going to drink too much wine and flirt with every pretty girl and force you to go outside when I know you want to spend the entire day shuffling around a museum?”

“Of course. Who else is going to carry my snacks? What about you?”

Violet sighed and pulled away. Aleja’s jacket had left a crease on her cheek. “Sleep for forty-eight hours. After that, buy a new camera. Then, I think I’ll go check out the Green Country of the fey. I hear their forests have minds of their own.”

“Only you could think that’s a good thing.”

The healers gave Violet another dose of the pain tonic, and Aleja scrawled a note, in case she woke up.Running an errand with my kind-of ex(?)-husband(?). Please trust the healers. I’ll be back before you know it.Everything is going to be okay.

Nicolas’s tent was at the camp’s center with a pole stuck into the ground before it, bearing the black flag with the red serpent. A few soldiers looked up as she passed; some must have been here long enough to remember her old self. She wondered if her presence disturbed them. Their Lady of Wrath had faced their leader’s punishment, been stripped of her power, and might die before ever seeing a battlefield.

“Hey,” Nicolas said, as she entered. The tent’s interior was warm with his body heat. He’d clearly drawn the charcoal sketches scattered across the table. They included maps, images of Thrones and Authorities with small annotations Aleja was too far away to read, and even a portrait of a Principality wearing an unusual mask with a multitude of wings. The Messenger.

Although Nicolas’s wings were glamoured away, Aleja imagined she could see a faint tremulous outline surrounding him. He wore a set of black pants and an equally dark shirt, with a silver snake brooch pinned to his collar. He very annoyingly looked like some brooding Byronic hero.

“I might be underdressed for the world of the dead,” she said, gesturing at the simple linen pants and tunic left for her in the medical tent that scrunched up awkwardly beneath her leather chest piece. The fabric was scratchy, smelling faintly of herbs and alcohol.

“Nonsense. It’s the latest in wartime couture, I hear.”

“The insects in the Hiding Place are ridiculously bold. I think there’s a mothcurrentlyeating my pants.”

“Lucky bastard.”

She bit her lower lip to keep herself from chiding him for flirting. If they were going to be stuck together for the next few hours, it was better to keep things civil. “How do we get to this world of the dead?”

“The same way the Dark Saints travel in and out of the Hiding Place. It’ll be easier to show you than explain,” he said, holding out a hand. Despite the camp’s pervasive dustiness, his black nails were glossy.

“Won’t I have to learn how to do this myself soon?” she asked.

“Yes, but like all Otherlander magic, it’s intuitive. You’ll learn best by experiencing it, just like your fire magic. Even Taddeas could only help you learn to focus and aim, remember?”

“So, when are we?—”

The tent darkened and Aleja felt like someone had kicked her legs out from under her. As with the last few times she’d traveled out of the Hiding Place, there was a moment of disorientation where she couldn’t tell where she was, other than through brushstroke-like streaks of color.

When Nicolas let go of her hand, she found herself in the sort of place she’d only seen in her textbooks, resembling the famous turn-of-the-century art salons. The ceiling was impossibly high, and the room’s walls continued up until fading into blurred shadows. Nearly every inch of wall space was covered in paintings, all of them landscapes. Some were framed with elaborate gold filagree, others in simple black wood that reflected an unknown light source.

“This is the world of the dead?” she asked.

“No. It’s a crossroads. It takes its form from the traveler’s mind—I suspect a combination of yours and mine this time. It hasn’t looked like this since we used to come here together.”

She turned to hide the involuntary flinch at the mention of her last life and examined the paintings to her right. One was of a moss-covered forest with contorted trees and a large ship’s anchor jutting out of the ground. It took a second for her to realize that it was not just so expertly painted that the trees seemed to sway in a light breeze. It wasmoving.

“Are these worlds?” she asked, the realization dawning.

“Yes. That’s the Green Country of the fey. Look around, and you’ll find one to the human realm as well, but your world is so connected to the Hiding Place that coming here usually isn’t necessary.”

“I didn’t think there’d be so many of them,” she said. A lighthouse on a tall rock, surrounded by a violent ocean. A meadow in which some large beast grazed. She had to crane her neck to look at the paintings higher on the walls and noticed a tall ladder to her left also disappearing into the darkness.

“Many of these worlds are unoccupied,” Nicolas told her. “It was the Second who created the Hiding Place, and he taught the process to some of his students. It’s as incredibly difficult as you might imagine, but a few of them managed it.”

She looked back at him, noticing the distance in his eyes. “The Second is so keen on teaching witches his magic, but he’s saddled the Knowing One and his Dark Saints with endless rules, and what he put me through was… barbaric.”

“I can’t pretend to understand his reasons. But he’s kept us safe for this long.” His hand moved, as if he intended to touch his chest, but then thought the better of it. “Let’s find the Third’s realm. Look for a painting of a wide river bathed in blue light. It’ll be low to the floor.”

Welcoming the distraction, Aleja crouched to search the first row of paintings, but Nicolas spoke again. “I’m sorry for whatever it is you had to go through in your Trial.”

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