Neil shifted uncomfortably.Constance frowned.
Ellie felt a quick pulse of fear.“We want to help.”
Subhas assessed them frankly.Ellie and Constance were quickly dismissed.He hitched slightly on the sword at Neil’s back before taking in the rest of Neil and looking unimpressed.
He halted a breath longer on Adam, eyes moving from the machete at his belt to the breadth of his shoulders before his expression closed.“I fail to see what help you would be.”
“We have done this sort of thing before,” Ellie pushed back.
“Not here, you haven’t.”
Ellie climbed to her feet to face him.“We know the people you’re dealing with.”
Subhas glared back at her.“I know Borthwick.And Borthwick’s the one that matters.”
“But…” Ellie began.
Subhas stepped closer, something dangerous coming into his expression that belied his cultured accent and relative youth.“It’smyforest.”
He turned to leave.
Ellie scrambled for a way to call him back.She wanted to find an argument that would convince Subhas to let them help—but she couldn’t.Itwashis forest, after all.
Constance had no such qualms.She shot to her feet, hands braced on her hips.“Oh no, you don’t!You aren’t pushing us out of this so easily.”
“And what are you going to do?Scold Borthwick into submission?”Subhas stubbornly retorted.
A cold fury slipped over Constance’s features.
Subhas moved to the steps.“We’re done here.”
He stopped as a dagger embedded itself into the post beside his head.
His grandmother chuckled with wheezing amusement.
Subhas turned with slow disbelief.
Constance plucked a second blade from her trouser pocket—which she had apparently cut open in order to more easily access her garters.“You were saying?”she prompted sweetly.
Subhas’s eyes blazed, leaving Ellie with no doubt that he had plenty indeed to say on the subject, once the shock of having a dagger thrown at him by a scion of the local royal household had worn off.
He didn’t get the chance, as a familiar nine-year-old boy sprinted up to the porch, spilling out a monologue with breathless urgency.
Ellie understood only a single word of it—one that sent a chill shivering over her arms.
Vanika.
Adam’s focus sharpened.“What happened?”
Subhas translated as the boy kept talking.“The children took Vanika to see a party of soldiers they found marching on the edge of the Adrija lands.”
Ellie’s stomach sank with sudden worry.“Soldiers?”
Subhas barked a rebuke at the boy, clearly unhappy that this was the first he was hearing of the intruders.
“Ninge, Abbaya!”the boy pleaded apologetically.
“What about Vanika?”Adam demanded.
