Noa thought that through strategically, as she knew Xavier would have done. “As long as he’s only getting rid of unpopular people, his court will probably stay loyal to him. But I think he may have gone too far—I heard one of his councillors say he was planning to retire, just to get away from the king. And the mages aren’t happy. Apparently Xavier wants to ban certain kinds of magic from Florean City.”
“He’d ban them all if he could.”
“And he’s still killing dark mages,” Noa said. She glanced at Mite, thinking of the skeletons and all those scurrying crabs. Instead of saying it out loud, she passed her notes to Julian.
He read the part about the dark mages, but he didn’t look surprised. Noa wondered if he’d already known the gruesome details. “At this rate, Mite and I will be the only dark mages left in Florean before I retake the throne,” he said grimly.
Noa opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, another ghost drifted into view. He hovered just behind Julian, and then, when he noticed Noa watching, slunk back into the shadows. There was something familiar about him, but Noa couldn’t place it.
Something smashed behind them. Noa whirled to see a different ghost standing over Julian’s desk. He had knocked over a half-empty glass, spilling water across several books. Half his face was worn away, but his eyes were full of such bitterness and malice that Noa was filled with cold terror. The ghost held her gaze for a second before fading away.
“What was that?” Mite said around a mouthful of octopus. She had been eating steadily, watching their conversation with an avid gaze.
“The wind, I guess,” Julian said with a sigh. “I’ll clean it up later.”
Noa’s heart thudded. Julian’s tower was drafty and inhabited by, on average, half a dozen invisible cats. It was perhaps unsurprising that things were often being knocked over, lost, or moved around. Once, Noa had watched an odd breeze float one of Julian’s papers into the cauldron, an important document containing spells he’d been working on for a month. Another time, a lavastick had suddenly overturned next to him, setting the sleeve of his cloak on fire. That had been particularly strange, because most of the cats were afraid of flame.
Noa hadn’t always been able to see ghosts, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. She’d just never given them much thought, the way you tended not to think about things you couldn’t see.
Had Julian’s tower been haunted all along?
“—but if they did flee, perhaps they’ll come to us,” Julian was saying. He was leaning his chair on its back legs, his hands clasped behind his head. “It would be useful to have the nobility on our side. . . .”
The oddly familiar ghost flitted into view again. Noa choked on her water. Mite pounded on her back as she coughed.
“What is it?” Julian said.
Noa felt light-headed, and not from the coughing. She knew who the ghost was—or rather, she knew who it had been. It was one of the not-fishermen they had stumbled across when Astrae ran into the fake island.
One of the men Julian had killed.
“You look like you’ve . . . ,” Julian began. “Oh! Have you seen a ghost?”
Noa swallowed. The ghost of a woman drifted into view. She held a sword at her side, and was dressed in red and gold, Xavier’s colors. It was one of the soldiers Noa and Mite had met during the mango attack. The one who had let them go. She and her companions hadn’t made it off Astrae.
Julian’s tower was haunted by the people he had killed.
“Oh no,” she whispered. She felt all wobbly, and gripped the table so hard her hand went white.
“Noa.” Julian put his hand over hers. “What’s wrong? Are they threatening you?”
“No, they . . .” Her voice was a croak. The soldier had faded into the shadows, but something told Noa she would be back. Something told Noa she never left.
She stared at Julian. How did you tell someone something so awful? She prayed that Julian wouldn’t do anything reckless. He watched her with narrowed eyes, as if prepared at any moment to leap to her defense with some spell.
“I think your tower is haunted,” she whispered so that Mite wouldn’t hear. “Not by just anyone. By people you killed.”
Julian blinked. “Are they trying to hurt you?”
Noa shook her head.
“Oh.” His gaze drifted for a moment. “All right, then.”
And he went back to his dinner.
Noa stared at him. Mite’s gaze darted between him and Noa.
“Is that all you have to say?” she said. “‘All right’?”
“Is there anything I can do about this?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then yes. That’s all I have to say.”
“But I just told you—” Noa couldn’t understand it. How was Julian not as distressed as she was? He didn’t seem to feel anything at all—he just sat there calmly cutting up his broccoli, as if she’d told him he was being haunted by a family of tortoises. “How can you be so heartless?”
He looked surprised. “What does being heartless have to do with it? I’m fighting a war. People die in wars. How they choose to spend their time afterward isn’t my concern.”
Noa’s mouth fell open. Her pulse was throbbing in her ears. She pointed at the ghost across the room. “Standing right there is one of the fishermen you tossed to Beauty a few days ago. Don’t you want to say anything to him? Don’t you feel the least bit sorry?”
Julian’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I feel sorry? Those men were part of Xavier’s plot. Am I supposed to regret disposing of his servants, given that they would have happily taken me captive if they’d had the chance, and ki—” He stopped, glancing at Mite. “And hurt the two of you?”
“I’m not saying you should regret it,” Noa said. “I’m saying you should feel sorry.
