The grin doesn’t appear to reassure him.
“The lower canal channel floods every few hours,” I add. “We cut through there while the guards were still figuring out where the noise had come from.”
The water had been cold, waist-deep in places, the current pulling hard against our legs as we pushed through the submerged tunnel. But it had also washed away our tracks.
Sometimes luck is just physics working in your favour.
“And the gate?” Varek asks.
“Collapsed halfway off the hinge behind us.”
Which meant the route was dead for two months.
I nod towards the coil of wire resting on the table between us. “Took me eight weeks to track down enough decent metal to rebuild the hinge frame without it snapping the first time someone pushes on it.”
Varek says nothing for several seconds. Then he asks quietly, “You repaired it alone.”
“Not entirely.” I straighten slightly, counting the names off on my fingers. “Rin was there helping. She knows the canal tunnels better than anyone alive and is impressively strong. Olek was on patrol watch above ground. And the Glowranthpair helped keep an eye on things, then later with moving the refugees once we got the gate open.”
His brow furrows. “The bonded ones.”
“Talek and Mirren,” I confirm.
Both are Glowranth and stubborn as hell. They’re also absolutely unwilling to let the Queen keep their Riftborn mates chained to labour houses.
Love, it turns out, is also a surprisingly effective recruitment strategy.
Still, when it came down to it, the hinge repair had been my responsibility.
Varek exhales slowly, the sound controlled but heavy. “You should not have been the one repairing it.”
I shrug. “Someone had to.”
His gaze intensifies. “And it had to be you?”
“Well, unless you know someone else in this district who can hang off a half-collapsed gate bracket and rewire a hinge while standing in canal water up to their knees, yeah. It did.”
The air in the room shifts. The change is subtle but unmistakable. Something darker moves behind his silver eyes—something instinctive, protective, and not entirely pleased.
“You could have been trapped,” he says quietly.
“Wasn’t.”
“The patrols?—”
“Didn’t find us.”
“Pax.”
My name leaves his mouth with a low edge to it, a growl threading through the syllable before he reins it back under control.
Nyxerian voices do interesting things when their instincts get involved. Which is deeply unfair because it absolutely should not sound that good.
I fold my arms and raise an eyebrow at him. “Relax.”
“I will not relax.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
