Bailey Baz's Arc

Chapter 32 of 44

Bailey had the name. Maren Lossel sat in his cells, the head of the whole conspiracy. But his mother's pages ended mid-sentence. The last leaves were missing. Rook confirmed it that night, spreading the papers thin. "Someone tore these out," the scribe said. "The part that names what you are. Where you came from." Bailey stared at the ragged edges. The one truth he had chased his whole long life was gone. Crane knew where. "When the loyalists raided Rufus, they split the pages," the old officer said. "Maren kept the last leaves close. She always did." Bailey went down to her cell alone. Maren stood when he entered. Even in a stone cage, her white robes stayed clean. Her hands folded before her, never still. She smiled, but the smile stopped at her cheeks. "Little king," she said softly. "You look tired." "You have my mother's last pages," Bailey said. "They tell what I am. Where I began. I want them." Maren tilted her head. "I have them memorized. Every word. I could burn the paper and still recite it." She stepped closer to the bars. "But I won't give it for free. Open this door. Let me walk out. Then you learn everything." Bailey's jaw tightened. He had spent a hundred years not knowing his own name. She held the last of it in her mouth like bait. And she knew it. Footsteps hurried down the stairs. Cora burst in, wand cracked in her fist, breath ragged. "Bailey, the vines," she said. "They're moving in the swamp. Something's pulling toward the deep water." Behind her, Tyrek gripped his knife, eyes on Maren. Bailey understood in a cold rush. Malachar. His bound uncle still spoke through the swamp. The vines answered him. "She sent word to him," Bailey said. "Before we caught her." Maren's smile widened. "The old emperor knows your mother's secret too. He wanted you whole for a reason. Free me, or crawl to him and beg. Either way, you kneel." Bailey looked at the totem half in his pocket, the carved fragment that let him hear Malachar. He could go to the deep water. He could ask. But that path had trapped him once already. He would not trade one master for another. He turned to Cora. "Seal the swamp gate. Cut the vines where they cross the palace ground." Then he faced Maren through the bars. "You had one thing I wanted. Now I don't need you to give it." He left her calling after him. He climbed to his desk and pressed his bare marsh-blood hand to the torn edge of the last page. The ink there was faint, but it remembered. Old words rose in his mind, half a truth. He read what his mother had begun. His name was not Colton alone. He was marked before birth to hold a thing the swamp feared. The rest was still hidden in the deep water. But now he knew where to dig, and he would not go begging to get it.