Page 53 of Vilest Things
“What have we been doing these past few daysexceptdiscussing things?”Calla replies. Still, she doesn’t sound unyielding. She strains her arm up, reaching for a folded game board on the shelf beside her. “Do you want to play?”
When she flips the board open, the surface shows a grid, ten by ten, each square numbered from one to a hundred. Its border is decorated with colorful depictions of the old gods, one midmotion while transforming into a cloud of dust, another sitting on a pillow and resembling a green-faced dog.
“?‘Chutes and ladders’?” Anton asks, recognizing the game. “What are we, twelve?”
The briefest smile crosses Calla’s lips. “I always liked this game back in the Palace of Heavens.” She unlatches the accompanying box and peers at its contents for a moment before offering it to Anton. “You remember how it works?”
“Of course.” Three tokens and two dice wait inside the box. He takes one of the tokens. “It’s hardly complicated. Land on a ladder and follow it up to the higher number. Land on a chute and follow it down to the lower number.”
“Did you know that some of the boards look different depending on which city makes it?” Calla reaches for a token too, then takes out the dice. “Er usually prints theirs with an equal number of chutes and ladders. San is known to generate boards with more chutes.”
Anton lifts a brow.
“We’ll play the old way,” Calla continues. “Ten rolls for each player.” She throws the dice. They both land on a three, so she moves her token along the first row and stops at the sixth square. The next one would have offered a ladder directly up to number thirty-four.
Anton holds his hand out for the dice. Where their skin makes contact upon Calla’s pass, his fingers whisper with recognition.
He rolls a seven. Slides right up the ladder. “It’s about Otta—”
“Naturally.” Calla takes the dice. Though her tone remains level, that single word is acidic.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Calla moves her token again. “It means exactly what I said.Naturally. It’s always Otta with you.”
“May I finish? I was going to say you can’t be so blatant about your suspicions. She’ll recalibrate until it’s harder to catch her.”
Calla’s gaze snaps to him. She didn’t expect this. “So you believe me?”
“Obviously not that she plotted the Dovetail attacks,” Anton hurries to correct. That’s absurd. Although he hates to give Mugo any satisfaction in being right, it’s true that Otta has had no time to put anything into effect since she woke up. If thereissome coalition effort attacking royal soldiers across the kingdom, it was planned in advance.
“Then what?” Calla demands. She’s paused with her next turn, clearly irritated.
“I don’t know,” Anton says honestly. “That’s what I want to find out. Do you remember that day August summoned you to the wall? When he wanted a word with me first?”
Calla takes her turn, eyeing the board as she moves her token.
“Yes,” she says. “The day Leida was caught red-handed.”
“He asked about Otta. It seemed bizarre to me. Seven years go by, and he was suddenly thinking of her. Not only that, but he was inquiring what she last said to me. As if he feared whether she might have revealed something.”
Anton takes a chute down. Calla’s next roll has her on a ladder up.
“The crown, I gather.”
“Maybe. Or maybe there were other secrets too. I think Otta knows far more than she’s willing to give up at present.”
One machine nearby abruptly jangles with chiming bells. Perhaps marking the hour, some distorted grandfather clock. Another ladder later, Anton has reached the middle of the board.
“You aren’t worried that biding your time will endanger you?”
“I am more worried that scaring her will change her course and prolong theresult further. I need to know what she’s trying to do. There must be a grand motive up her sleeve with all these gambits. Releasing this information. Asking you along on this delegation.”
In silent response, Calla rolls. Up. Down. Again. Her pointer finger is slow while she pushes her token around. They play a few rounds without speaking.
“Of course,” she finally mutters, “because it is so terrible for me to be here.”
“It’s unnecessary, certainly.”
