But when she looked, she found her caged queen wide open and undefended. She’d let herself get distracted. And now, if she couldn’t find a way to block him, she would lose her queen and with it, the game.
Roa looked up from the board, stunned.
“Want to know the third rule of gods and monsters?” he asked, grinning. “I just made it up.”
Roa crossed her arms as Dax leaned across the board.
“Never underestimate a fool.”
Twenty-Nine
Roa banged her fist on the door twice before it swung in. Dax stood in the frame, hastily lacing up his shirt, his lips parting with whatever order he intended to use to send the knocker away.
When he saw her, though, his fingers paused at his throat and the order never came.
“Roa.”
Pressing her hand to the half-open door, she gently pushed it open farther, peering into the room.
Except for the warm glow of a lamp spilling across his canopied bed, it was cloaked in shadow. But all Roa needed to see was the bed.
Which was empty.
She let out a breath.
“I need to speak with you,” she said, stepping inside.
Dax let the laces come undone again. As if there was no point. As if the effort of looking his best would be entirely lost on his wife. He shut the door behind her.
Roa turned back to find him running a hand through his brown curls.
“The palace gate is locked.”
Dax nodded. “Remember the meeting? What part ofwe’re locking the palace gatedidn’t you understand?”
“They refused to open it for me.”
“Yes,” he said. “Because no one’s allowed in or out until Safire is certain it’s safe.”
“Not even the queen?”
Dax studied her, his brow furrowing. “Why is this suddenly so urgent?”
“Because I need...” Roa paused. But it was too late. Dax saw what she was going to say before she said it.
His face darkened. “You need to see Theo.”
Roa didn’t deny it.
“And the nature of this need?”
Roa burned beneath the question.
Not that,she thought.
But what else could she tell him? She couldn’t tell the truth, that she was complicit in the plot against him. That she needed to tell Theo about the secret way into the palace—which Dax himself had shown her.
So she lied.
