Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, Book 2)

The afternoon air had cooled into evening by the time Tobias drove Iris away from the Kitt estate. But the city felt unnaturally quiet for what was normally its busiest hour.

Iris noticed most of the streets were empty, litter gathering at the curbs like flotsam in a river. Stores had already closed for the day. Flowers had been set in windowsills for the chancellor, who was still fighting for his life at the hospital. No children played in the yards or in the park, and people strode along the sidewalks with their coats belted tight and their eyes wide with worry. Doors were locked against the world, as if the war couldn’t cross a threshold uninvited.

Iris knew better. She also knew Oath was shaken over Dacre’s arrival and the fallout from the assassination attempt. Innocent people had died, and fresh graves were being dug in the cemetery. They wouldn’t be the last, and the city felt like it was balancing on the edge of a knife, waiting to see which way it would fall.

Come tomorrow at noon, they would have their answer. She reached for the paper tucked into her pocket. A page inked with Dacre’s words.

The sun was sinking behind the buildings, casting the clouds overhead in gold, when Tobias parked in front of the print factory. This was a place that never slept, printing newspapers through the midnight hour so they were ready to be picked up by newsboys at dawn. Iris could only hope that she wasn’t too late to catch the Inkridden Tribune.

She slipped from the back seat, her legs shaky. “Thank you, Tobias. I can’t tell you how much your help meant to me today.”

He nodded, his arm hooked over the back of the seat. “Do you want me to wait here for you?”

Iris hesitated. Curfew was fast approaching, but this day was far from over. “Can you do one more thing for me?”

“Of course.”

“Could you drive to the Inkridden Tribune and bring Helena here? Tell her it’s extremely important.”

“I’m on it.” Tobias was already shifting the roadster into first gear. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Iris watched him speed away, tasting the exhaust from the car.

She hurried up the stairs to the factory entrance, feeling the sting in her right foot. She wondered if her wounds were bleeding, but didn’t have time to worry about it as she slipped through the heavy front doors.

“Excuse me?” Iris approached an older lady who sat behind a desk in the lobby. “I need to speak with Mr. Lawrence, the head printer.”

The lady scrutinized Iris through her thick spectacles. Her gray-blond hair was wound in a tight bun. She looked like she never broke rules.

“He’s busy in the composing room, overseeing the linotypes. But I can schedule you for an appointment tomorrow. He’s open from noon to one, and then from—”

“I’m afraid this is incredibly urgent,” Iris said with a forced smile. Try to be pleasant, she told herself, even as she felt like screaming. “I’m a reporter with the Inkridden Tribune, and I have an edit for tomorrow’s paper.”

“Edits aren’t accepted this late.”

“I know, ma’am. But this is an unusual exception. Please, I need to speak with him.”

“You’ll have to have an appointment, miss.”

Iris didn’t know what to do. She sighed in defeat, glancing at the glass wall to her left, where she could see into the composing room of the factory. Countless linotypes were at work; she could feel their steady humming in the floor. Iris walked closer to the window, watching as employees typed on the keypads before each machine. There was constant clicking and rattling as the linotypes created hot lead slugs to be used by the printing press on the second floor. It was fascinating to watch, even from a distance, and Iris wondered if one of the workers was currently typing out lines for the Inkridden Tribune’s paper. If so, Iris would have to convince Mr. Lawrence to scrap those lines of type and redo them.

She felt a wave of uncertainty until she glanced down at her hands, where she continued to hold Dacre’s words. The god had been insistent on her publishing his article on the front page of tomorrow’s Tribune. And Iris, who had clenched her jaw the entire time she had typed for him, knew she had no choice but to see such a command through. He hadn’t cared when she said the paper might have already gone to print.

Then you had better hurry, Iris E. Winnow, had been his smug reply. Like he had had known she would have to run from one side of town to the other, rattled and worried. Like he had known she would have to fight tooth and nail to get this edit done for him.

Iris unfolded the paper, skipping over Dacre’s introduction—all his flowery words that he used to reel people in—and she read the meat of the matter again. It was strange how much it still felt like a knife in her side, making her shoulders curve inward. She had typed these very words not an hour ago, and yet they still struck the breath from her.

As I am merciful, I will give you each a choice. Those of you who would join me in this new era of restoration and justice, come to safety. Come to my side of the city before the clock strikes noon today. Cross over the river to the northern side of Oath, where my soldiers will be waiting to welcome and shield you. No harm will come to you and your own should you make the crossing before midday. For those of you who refuse my offer and remain behind, south of the river, I cannot offer you protection. And as I am a god who upholds justice, given what was done to me in the Green Quarter, you must prepare to face the consequences of your actions.

The lobby doors swung open.

Iris turned to see Helena and Tobias, both striding toward her.

“What’s happened?” Helena panted.

Iris sagged in relief. “I need this to be the headline for tomorrow’s edition.” She handed over Dacre’s speech.

Helena frowned as she skimmed the sentences. But then she realized whose words she was reading, and her face went deathly pale.

“Gods,” she whispered, meeting Iris’s stare. “He plans to bomb the southern side of Oath tomorrow?”

Iris nodded, stomach clenching. “I know that you were determined to never publish a word of his, Helena, but—”

“No, this is an exception. He’s given us no choice.” Helena looked at the glass wall, where the linotypes continued to work. “Where’s Lawrence?”

“Mr. Lawrence is busy,” the woman behind the desk said loudly. “I can schedule you for tomorrow at—”

“Yes, and there’s a good chance this building won’t be standing after tomorrow, Greta,” Helena snapped. “Call Lawrence to the lobby. Now.”

Greta’s face went red, and she huffed in indignation. But she picked up a telephone receiver and rang a call to the composing room. Five minutes later, Digby Lawrence arrived, his steel-gray hair smoothed back, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His fingertips were stained with ink, and there was a hearty scowl on his face, although Iris had never seen him not frowning in the rare times when she came by the printer.

“You know I don’t take last-minute edits, Hammond,” he said.

Helena ignored that comment. “Have you printed the Tribune?”

He must have heard the urgency, the fear that tinged her voice. “No,” Lawrence said, softer. “It’s on schedule to have its line of type created in an hour. Why?”

“I need to make an edit to the first page. I’m sorry, Lawrence, but I’ve no choice in the matter.” She held the paper out to him.

Iris cracked her knuckles as Lawrence skimmed it. But she knew when he reached the threat, because the furrow in his brow deepened.

“All right,” he said. “Let me halt production. Then you can come help me at one of the linotypes, and we’ll make the edit.”

“Wait,” Iris breathed. “Has the Gazette gone to print?”

“Not yet. I always print it after the Tribune.”

“Then will you also hold it alongside ours?”

“Iris,” Helena said in a warning tone. “I can’t interfere with another paper’s production.”

“I know,” Iris replied. “But I have an idea. And I’m going to need the Gazette in order to pull it off.”

Helena hesitated, as did Lawrence. It was Tobias who stepped forward, standing next to Iris.

“What does it matter?” he said, raising his hand. “Come tomorrow, this won’t even be something we worry about.”

“You’re right.” Helena reached for a cigarette in her pocket, twirling it in her fingers. “Lawrence?”

He stood there silent, far longer than Iris liked. But then he nodded.

“Fine. I’ll hold both. Which means we’ll be printing papers just before dawn.” Lawrence glanced at Iris, eyes narrowing. “Whatever you have planned for the Gazette better be worth it, Miss Winnow.”

Iris crossed her arms. It had been a long while since her words had been published in the Gazette. She didn’t miss it most days, but every now and then, she would let herself fall back to the nostalgia, when she had been bright-eyed and eager, thinking she would become a columnist at Oath’s prestigious newspaper.

It seemed rather fitting that she would commandeer the Gazette and write for it one final time.

She said, “Of course, Mr. Lawrence. I’m going to use it to tell people how they can find shelter during the bombing.”

While Helena accompanied Lawrence to the composing room, preparing new slugs for the front page of the Inkridden Tribune, Iris and Tobias sat in the lobby with sheets of paper and pencils, writing down all the magical streets and buildings south of the river they could think of.

It wasn’t as easy as Iris had originally anticipated because she knew the ley lines below didn’t match the streets above perfectly. And while one half of an apartment complex or a building might be safe, there was the chance that the other side wouldn’t be.

Iris rolled the pencil in her hand, staring at the addresses and street names she and Tobias had scribbled down. Some places she was certain of, recalling the map Roman had drawn for her. Other places she knew from experience, like that corner grocery she had often stopped at on her walks home from the Gazette. There was no denying it was an enchanted building with roots on a ley line, whose walls and roof would withstand a bomb. A safe place for people to shelter during the attack. But sometimes magic was softer. More discreet. Sometimes a structure wasn’t as forthright about it, and Iris sighed.

“I don’t want to misguide people,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Claiming a building is safe to shelter in when it might not be.”

Tobias was quiet, studying their list. “I know. But this is going to save more people than you realize, Iris.”

She studied their list again, aching when she thought of how many people lived in the southern half of the city. The university was there, as were both the Gazette and the Tribune. Most of downtown. The Riverside Park. The opera house. The museum.

Iris lived south of the river, as did Attie and Tobias. The places they had grown up, the places they loved. All of it would be broken by Dacre tomorrow.

Iris glanced at the lobby doors. Night was fast approaching.

“You should head home, Tobias,” she said. “I don’t want you to get caught after curfew.”

“What about you and Helena?”

“We’ll be safe here. Thank you for all your help today.”

“Anytime.” He smiled, but he seemed sad. Worried. “I’m going to stop by Attie’s on the way home, to let her and her family know what’s happening, since they’re south of the river.”

Iris nodded. “I was going to walk there first thing tomorrow morning.”

Tobias embraced her in farewell, and Iris felt his words rumble in his chest as he said, “Don’t worry. We’ve gotten through quite a bit, and the last lap of a race is one of the hardest. But we’ll make it through this time.”

If Iris had said the words, she might have struggled to believe them. But Tobias had made the impossible bend like heated metal before, and she found comfort in the thought.

After he left, she gathered up their papers. Greta gave her a pointed look but didn’t stop her when she slipped past her desk to find Lawrence and Helena working at one of the linotypes in the loud composing room.

“All right,” Iris said, straining her voice to speak over the constant clicking. “I—”

Before she could continue, Helena took hold of her arm and guided her out into the quieter hallway.

“What do you have for me, kid?” Helena asked.

“This is what I’m thinking.” Iris took a deep breath before continuing. “Dacre will be reading the Inkridden Tribune tomorrow, to see if I complied and got his announcement on the front page. I don’t think he’ll peruse the Gazette as well, but just in case, I think we should list a few addresses on the front page, like it’s a mere advertisement, and then have it continue on the second or third, ending with the statement that these are presumed buildings on ley lines, and can provide the best shelter during the bombing.”

Helena, unlit cigarette in her mouth, smiled. “I think that’s brilliant, kid.”

“Until Zeb Autry calls me in the morning and threatens to sue me,” Lawrence said gruffly. Iris hadn’t realized he had followed them into the hallway. “I know it won’t matter after noon, but how am I to answer for his paper getting an ‘advertisement’ he never agreed to?”

“It’s quite simple, actually.” Iris laced her fingers behind her back. “Tell him it’s courtesy of Inkridden Iris.”