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“The one you’ve found. I want to see it.”
Verol hesitated. “We’ve located it, but it is difficult to reach. It is currently being retrieved by an associate.”
They didn’t even have it yet. Not growling in frustration took significant effort. “Who is doing the retrieving?” When they didn’t answer, she said, “If you honestly think you cannot trust me with this, then I wonder that we are having this conversation at all.”
“It isn’t a matter of trust,” Marquin said. “It’s that we don’t actually know.”
Now Clare was the one rubbing at her temples. “How can you not know?”
“They’re an informant of ours. One we know only by the name Phoenix,” Marquin said. “Whoever they are, they are well-connected, and we’ve been in contact with them for enough years to have established trust. They have given us information in the past that has been invaluable. Along with information that has allowed us to save several lives. What Alaric asks of Verol within the court is never pleasant. Phoenix has sometimes been able to give us information that allows Verol to…manipulate those tasks.”
Well-connected. In Alaric’s court. Her heart slowed, then sped up. “So it’s someone close to Alaric?”
Verol nodded. “One of his generals, I suspect. But in truth, it’s better if we do not know. For them and for us.”
One of his generals. But how much would a general know of the intimate details of the courtiers whose minds Verol altered at Alaric’s whim? She thought of a lacquered box sitting on Verol’s desk, of its twin in Numair’s library. Of the way they’d felt linked, as if…as if what you put into one ended up in the other. The perfect method to send letters between people working together against a king.
She thought of his most recent letter to her. You can’t help me. But I’m trying to help myself.
She thought of the name, Phoenix. A creature that died to be reborn. Like a man who might be allowed to be reborn as himself…if a king died first.
She stood, pacing the length of the table. “The item Phoenix is after. Where is it?”
Another shake of Marquin’s head. “We don’t know.”
She was growing exceptionally tired of the number of things they didn’t know. “Then what is it?”
“It’s called the Siren’s Tear.”
She dropped her coffee cup. The fine porcelain shattered on the dark wood floor, splashing hot liquid over everything.
“Clare?”
She stepped around the mess of broken china and spilled liquid. “I have to go.”
Because she knew the legend of the Siren’s Tear. That it lay in a cave beneath Siren’s Cliff, the very same one she’d sung of at The Musicale House. The song Numair had heard. The one that held all the clues to the location of Siren’s Cliff, if one knew what to listen for.
She ran to her room, hastily pulling on her boots while the Arrendons followed like shadows.
“What is going on?” Verol asked. “Talk to us.”
She shook her head and brushed past them, down the hallway, pausing in the front doorway. “If Alaric comes looking for me, tell him”—she looked down at her mourning clothes—“tell him my uncle in Dunen Province has taken a turn for the worse. I’ve left to be at his side.”
“You don’t have an uncle in Dunen Province,” Verol said, following her outside, Marquin on his heels.
“I could.” Long, almost-running strides carried her to the paddock where Kialla waited.
“Well, yes, but what does this have to do with the Siren’s Tear? Why do you need to leave?”
“Because I know where it is, and Phoenix can’t go there. I have to stop them.” She pulled Kialla’s halter and lead off the gate, slipping through the rails to collect the mare.
“You know who Phoenix is?” Verol asked.
She haltered Kialla and looped the lead around her neck, tying it to the metal ring beneath the halter in a set of makeshift reins. “I don’t have time, I have to go.”
“Then we’ll come with you?—”
“No.” She cut Verol off. “You can’t.” Numair wouldn’t want him to know.
