Ellery blinked, surprised at the topic change. “If I had my way, I’d have never come back.”
Hanna cocked a brow. “Oh?”
“Gallamere’s where I belong.”
“Makes sense. I mean, you basically went right from being the Order’s darling to Alderland’s sweetheart.” Hanna imitated a rising airplane with her hand.
Ellery’s nerves drew taut as she thought of Demelza and the reporters at theForetoldpremiere. Hanna knew Ellery most certainly wasn’t Alderland’s sweetheart anymore. “Sure.”
“Until, well, recently. Probably not feeling so glamorous anymore.” She crashed the airplane into her lap. “I’d actually be feeling pretty damn bitter, if it were me.”
Hanna watched Ellery so carefully. Too carefully. Like even though Syarthis couldn’t breach Ellery’s mind, Hanna still wanted to glimpse what she was thinking.
Ellery replayed the conversation she’d overheard between Domenic and Hanna in the lobby, the strangeness of the car ride, Domenic’s insistence in Glynn’s office that he was only trying to protect her. And it all clicked, so obvious and yet so terrible that of course she hadn’t seen it until now. The Council’s priority was finding Summer’s traitor and fulfilling the most recent piece of the prophecy. Hanna never would’ve deviated from that just to chase down a half-baked chance at a lead.
Which meant they thoughtEllerywas the traitor. And Domenic hadn’t told her.
Truthfully, Ellery did have an ulterior motive up North. But she’d only smuggled the winterghast hearts to Nordmere because the Council had refused to listen to her in the first place. And she was doing this for the good of the country, no matter what they might think.
For weeks, Ellery had tried so hard to play her part. But she was suddenly, thoroughly done with bullshit.
“You really think that’s a solid motive for Summer’s traitor?” she asked Hanna coolly. “Beingliked?”
Hanna, too, dropped her pretenses in an instant. “That whole hero routine of yours while the country casts you as a villain—I don’t buy it. No one could keep it up that long.”
Ellery wanted to laugh, or maybe scream. “No one? Or just you?”
“I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.”
“Oh, please. Is that why you stopped bothering to win people over? Or have you always been this charming?”
Hanna blew bubble after bubble, each bursting with a jarringpop. A voice drifted in from the bathroom: Domenic, still in the shower, singing the pop song Ellery had forced him to learn.
Finally, Hanna murmured, “You know, for all that everyone loves to call me charming now, I wonder what they’ll call me when I stop trying.”
As evening turned to night, Ellery cloaked herself, then retrieved her coat with the hearts still discreetly tucked in the pockets. She intended to return before either Domenic or Hanna noticed she was gone, but just in case, she left a note on the bedside table.
Outside, a person hovered beneath the hotel awning. Ellery nearly collided with them, then lurched back, holding Iskarius.
She recognized him instantly. Julian Norwood, his lean frame wrapped in a heavy coat, his dark coils peeking beneath his hat, his intent gaze trained on the hotel doors. Scar tissue sliced through one eyebrow and the corner of his lip, white and umber striated against his light brown skin. Incredulous tears welled in Ellery’s eyes, that he washereof all places. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
She sheathed Iskarius and dropped her cloaking enchantment.
“Julian,” she whispered.
He uttered a shocked noise, then cleared his throat as he noticed her stares. “El. Right, well, we might as well get the gawking over with. I know the scars are—”
Ellery rushed forward and wrapped him in a hug. After a moment of surprise, he squeezed back.
These past few weeks were the longest they’d gone without speaking since they’d first become friends. Now here they were again, not atop the mountain of Gallamere but in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by gently falling snow. Just like Nordmere, he felt familiar and unfamiliar, a relic of a life that was no longer hers and still part of her nonetheless.
“I missed you,” he said as she pulled away.
“I missed you, too. But what are you doing this far north? And how did you know I was here?”
“You assumed I was here to see you, huh?”
“Do you really expect me to believe you wandered over to my hotel by accident?”
