Chapter 510: The Flower of Revenge
When Hill Fawkes entered the palace basement, his heart was shaking.
Not from fear. From something that had no good name—excitement too thin a word for it, relief too calm. The torch flame on the wall seemed to dance for him specifically. His footsteps on the stone floor sounded like something being affirmed with each step.
He had spent six months in the dark of King’s City, and now the dark was giving him this.
At the top of the stairs, Theo searched him one final time out of habit—Hill had no objection, it was the correct thing to do—and then patted his shoulder. “Go. Don’t stay too long.”
Hill nodded and walked into the passage.
He moved slowly as he approached the cell, wanting to hold this moment for as long as it would let him. This was not something he would ever be able to come back to. He had learned that about the moments that matter: they pass while you’re in them, and then you spend the rest of your life standing at the edge of where they were. He intended to be fully present for this one.
Through the bars: Timothy Wimbledon.
Hill covered his mouth. The tears came before he expected them—not grief, something different, a pressure that had been building for two years and was now, at last, releasing. Everything he had done had not been wasted. The outcome had come earlier than he’d dared to plan for.
My wife would have smiled at this.
“Who’s there?” Timothy turned from the wall. He squinted into the passage, then straightened slightly—the reflex of a man who had spent years being the most important person in every room. “Is that you, demon—did you change your mind?”
Hill stepped out of the shadow and walked to the cell door.
Timothy went still. Then wary. He moved two steps back. “Who are you? Who let you in? I want to see Roland Wimbledon. Where is he?”
This was Timothy Wimbledon.
Hill had only ever seen him at a distance—the coronation ceremony, two years ago, when the new king had mounted the high platform in his crimson robe and golden crown with his scepter in hand, surrounded by the knights of King’s City. He had looked like what Hill’s father had always told him a king should look like: certain, complete, above the ordinary calculations of ordinary men. Hill had hoped, in the way that people without power hope, that this king would be good. That the city would be stable. That ordinary life would continue.
Then the raid came down on the Outer City, and the acrobatic troupe was destroyed, and his wife was taken, and ordinary life was over.
Now: this man in a cell, looking at Hill like a cornered animal, demanding answers he had no right to demand.
The sweetness of it was not what Hill had expected. He had expected satisfaction, which he associated with closure, with an ending. What he actually felt was warmth—a warmth that moved from the center of his chest outward, something like the feeling of a fire lit after a long cold journey. Not emptiness after success. Not the bitter aftertaste of revenge achieved too late to help anyone. Just warmth, simple and complete.
He found, to his own mild surprise, that he was fond of this feeling.
“I’m Hill Fawkes, Your Majesty,” he said, and bowed with the precision of a man who performed for audiences and knew the value of form. “I’m a member of ‘Dove and Cylinder.’ You won’t know me, but I know you.”
Timothy said nothing.
“There should have been seven of us in the acrobatic troupe,” Hill continued. “We lost one because of you. After that, the six remaining stopped performing and began watching. We embedded ourselves among the Rats and in the hotels, gathered intelligence on your movements, organized what we learned, and sent it to Lord Roland.” He paused. “We were the ones who told him about your snow-powder development program and your militia conscription plan for the Western Region invasion. We were also the ones who arranged for your two saltpeter factories in the suburbs to be closed down and relocated.”
“A hidden traitor, proud of what he’s done.” Timothy’s lip curled. He was reaching for contempt as a weapon, the only weapon he had left. “A lowlife who sold his dignity for a rebel’s coin and now comes to gloat. I don’t know anything about any ‘Dove and Cylinder.’ Stop performing and say what you’ve come to say.”
“Benefit?” Hill’s voice was quiet. “Betrayal?” He shook his head. “No, Your Majesty. I followed my heart. That’s all.”
He paused.
“The partner we lost was my wife. She died in your witch-hunting campaign. In prison—” He did not rush the sentence. “She was tortured and insulted, and when it was over, the court determined that the responsible party owed twenty-five silver royals. That was the value placed on her. The City Hall eventually offered three gold royals in compensation.” He spread his hands. “It means nothing. She doesn’t come back.”
Timothy’s eyes moved.
“She was not a witch,” Hill said. “She was taken because someone reported her, and the arrest was convenient, and the fee collected. She died because of you.”
For a moment the cell was entirely quiet.
“I didn’t do it,” Timothy said.
That response—that small, weak, inadequate response—was sweeter than Hill had words for.
“Lanry executed the arrest, and Lanry was your man,” Hill said. “Even the Steelheart Knight couldn’t stop him. I appealed to the court and to the City Hall. Both rejected my appeal.” He kept his voice even. “There’s no doubt about what happened.”
“Enough! You lowlife!” The control broke. “Do you know what you’ve done? If the witch-hunting campaign wronged only your wife, then you have ruined an entire kingdom! Roland Wimbledon—your precious master—has been dead for years! What serves you now is a real demon! You handed your loyalty to a demon for the sake of one woman!”
Hill let the echo of it settle in the stone before he answered.
“When I prayed,” he said, “there was no response. Not once. So I swore—” He said it without drama, as a man states a fact about the weather. “—that if I could have my revenge, I would follow whoever gave it to me. Even into hell.”
He bowed again, one hand over his chest. The bow of a performer acknowledging an audience.
“Goodbye, Your Majesty. It has been an honor to have aided in your destruction.”
Theo nodded when Hill emerged at the top of the stairs. “Satisfied?”
“Yes, Your Excellency.” Hill took a breath that went all the way down. “Please take me to His Majesty.”
On the third floor of the palace, Roland Wimbledon looked nothing like Timothy.
They had the same gray hair and gray eyes—the Wimbledon inheritance, unavoidable—but nothing else matched. Timothy’s face had always carried something that kept people at a careful distance; Roland’s had the quality of someone who had found the distance unnecessary and had abandoned it. He did not look like a nobleman. He looked like a person who happened to be in charge of things, which was, Hill was beginning to understand, a different matter entirely.
“I’m grateful for your work in King’s City,” Roland said. His first sentence. No preamble, no ceremony. “The intelligence you provided allowed me to approach this campaign at the lowest possible cost.”
Hill opened his mouth to say it was nothing.
“I know you did it for revenge,” Roland said. “Timothy will receive his sentence. Now that you have what you came for, you’re free to begin whatever comes next—but I hope you’ll choose to continue working for me.”
He stood and crossed the room and looked at Hill directly, the way people look at you when they are actually looking at you.
“The city needs to be stabilized and eventually rebuilt to what it was. The Rats need to be managed. The restless nobles need to be watched. Theo can’t handle it alone. You and the rest of your troupe—you have skills, networks, and knowledge of this city that I cannot replicate from the outside. I’m asking you to use them in a formal capacity. To protect the people of this city from what your wife experienced.”
Hill felt his knees bend before he decided they were going to.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “Even without the offer, I would follow you. You kept your word to me. Now I keep mine.” He spoke slowly, because he wanted this to land with the weight it carried. “The rest of Hill Fawkes’ life belongs to you.”
The flower of revenge had borne its fruit at last—and the fruit was not bitter.