His son? Again, I was faced with the knowledge of how few people knew the Darkling’s secret. The Black Heretic had never died—there had only ever been one Darkling, a single powerful Grisha who had ruled the Second Army for generations, hiding his true identity. As far as I knew, he’d never had a son. And there was no way he would destroy something as valuable as Morozova’s journals. Aboard the whaler, he’d said not all the books prohibited the combination of amplifiers. Maybe he’d been referring to Morozova’s own writings.

“Why was his son in hiding?” I asked, curious as to how the Darkling had managed to frame such a deception.

This time David frowned as if the answer were obvious. “A Darkling and his heir never live at the Little Palace at the same time. The risk of assassination is too great.”

“I see,” I said. Plausible enough, and after hundreds of years, I doubted anyone would question such a story. The Grisha did love their traditions, and Genya couldn’t have been the first Tailor the Darkling had kept in his employ. “Why would he have had the journals destroyed?”

“They documented Morozova’s experiments with amplifiers. The Black Heretic was trying to re-create those experiments when something went wrong.”

The hair rose on my arms. “And the result was the Fold.”

David nodded. “His son had all of Morozova’s journals and papers burned. He said they were too dangerous, too much of a temptation to any Grisha. That’s why I didn’t say anything at the meeting. I shouldn’t even know they ever existed.”

“So how do you?”

David looked around the almost empty workshop again. “Morozova was a Fabrikator, maybe the first, certainly the most powerful. He did things that no one’s ever dreamed of before or since.” He gave a sheepish shrug. “To us, he’s kind of a hero.”

“Do you know anything else about the amplifiers he created?”

David shook his head. “There were rumors of others, but the stag was the only one I’d ever heard of.”

It was possible David had never even seen the Istorii Sankt’ya. The Apparat had claimed that the book was once given to all Grisha children when they arrived at the Little Palace. But that was long ago. The Grisha put their faith in the Small Science, and I’d never known them to bother with religion. Superstition, the Darkling had called the red book. Peasant propaganda. Clearly David hadn’t made the connection between Sankt Ilya and Ilya Morozova. Or he had something to hide.

“David,” I said, “why are you here? You fashioned the collar. You must have known what he intended.”

He swallowed. “I knew he would be able to control you, that the collar would allow him to use your power. But I never thought, I never believed … all those people…” He struggled to find the words. Finally, he held out his ink-stained hands and said, almost pleadingly. “I make things. I don’t destroy them.”

I wanted to believe that he had underestimated the Darkling’s ruthlessness. I’d certainly made the same mistake. But he might be lying or he might just be weak. Which is worse? asked a harsh voice in my head. If he can change sides once, he can do it again. Was it Nikolai’s voice? The Darkling’s? Or was it just the part of me that had learned to trust no one?