When they continue to stare and me and shrug, I mutter, “Right, that’s something you don’t know and that the prince is trying to find out.”
“They’re working on it,” Sonny says.
I let out a breath. “And Aelith really thinks he can find those answers in the palace?”
“Yeah,” Sonny says quietly.
“By walking straight back into it?”
“He seems to think so.”
Sonny sounds as unsure about this plan as I do.
“With his human mate?”
Sonny winces slightly. “Yeah.”
I shake my head, disbelief threaded through the motion. “That’s insane.”
“It’s necessary,” Jack says.
I look at him, and he holds my gaze steadily.
“He knows that place,” Jack continues. “He knows how it works. Where to look. Who to watch.”
“And more importantly,” Sonny adds, “he knows how to move without raising suspicion.”
“He’s the prince,” I say. “Everything he does is watched.”
“Exactly,” Sonny says. “Which means no one expects him to be sneaking around like a thief in his own home.”
I huff a humourless laugh. “God, I hate how much sense that makes.”
“Same,” Sonny says.
There’s a pause. Then I ask the question that’s been sitting at the back of my mind since this conversation started. “And Dawson?”
Sonny’s expression softens slightly. “He chose to go.”
I’m not surprised. From the simple interaction we had when I could barely stand straight, he seems like the kind of guy who’ll face the world with his head high and a smile on his face.
Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “Didn’t even hesitate.”
I close my eyes briefly. “Idiot.”
“Brave idiot,” Sonny corrects.
“Same thing.”
“Not always.”
I open my eyes again.
The weight of it all presses in—the rifts, the king, the possibility that none of this is random. That someone—something—is controlling who gets pulled into this world. And that the answers are sitting behind palace walls, hopefully waiting to be discovered.
“That’s the situation,” Sonny says. “That’s why Aelith went back.”
I exhale slowly. “All right,” I say. “Thanks for telling me what you know.” I nod once, still processing, still adjusting. Rebuilding the shape of the world in my head with this new information slotted in.
