Before Reagan’s curse ended, I remembered Onorio in a different way. His complexion had been tinged green. I’d wondered whether it was linked to his familiar and what form it might take. In his shop, I hadn’t paid much attention to his face without the beastly colour. I didn’t know if his skin was always that pale, but it was his shoulders, stiff beneath the cloak, that drew my attention.
“No, My Lady.” His throat bobbed. “I was hoping I could speak with you. About them.”
“Your family?” I asked, studying the nearly empty corridor as he kept checking around us. Joy still waited, though the crowd had thinned.
He leaned close, his breath brushing my ear, his voice low and taut. “They told me to speak to no one but the future Lady of Mountheim.”
My body prickled as I caught the edge in his tone. He met my gaze, his thick brows knitted and wary.
Reagan’s instructions on how to recognise an attack or deception flared in my mind. I searched and found nothing. I couldn’t sense even the faintest numbness, nor any indication that Onorio was wielding.
Still, alarms rang in my ears. Suspicion sharpened my focus on him. I couldn’t let myself fall for the same mistakes again, and I didn’t trust my own ability to recognise when power was being used against me.
“Onorio, may I see your hands and ankles?” I asked, keeping my voice low and sober.
His chest swelled with a long breath, his eyes sweeping the corridor again. He showed me his hands, then lifted the hem of his trousers. Nothing. No relic I could see as he opened his cloak and lowered his hood. No glamour.
“Who are you talking about?” I asked.
“I didn’t get their names. But they…” His hands balled at his sides as he hesitated. “They took them. They kept me behind to give you the message and said you are the only one who can help me get them back. Lady Jane, I beg you to help me.”
My throat tightened. “People you don’t know took Daria and Jack,” I murmured, taking a deeper look at him.
Dust clung to some patches of his cloak. His shirt was wrinkled, and two buttons hung open, as though he had dressedin a rush. “Yes. I know where they are, but they won’t let me see them. They are being held at Yeary town, in an old construction building. It’s a holding for—”
“The Scion Order,” I cut in, the town’s name flashing through my thoughts from the Elven Lords’s list.
“They said I should bring you, in exchange for them.” His eyes brimmed with anguish. “I know it’s wrong of me to ask for your help, especially today, but…” His shoulders shook, his gaze falling to the floor.
He was asking me to come.
Jack and Daria had been taken. Sweet, shy Jack. Why? Had a Scion seen us in the shop? Was this another message intended for Reagan?
Cold fear washed over me. “Have you reported to Heil? Or any battle mage?”
“No,” he whispered. “They said I would never see them again if I reported them. They have eyes on me and these people… They don’t bluff. They said it should be only…”
He faltered, his gaze flicking away from mine.
“It’s fine. You can say it.” I glanced subtly around us. A few figures lingered, but this was the public wing. People often stopped to talk here after an Audience.
“Only the half-breed who would become lady,” he whispered apologetically. “I’m sorry, My Lady.”
The subtle flap of wings surged in my mind, as if some instinct had stirred the well of mana inside me. “Did they say why they want me?”
His ears reddened. “No. Please, we can’t tell anyone else.”
This would be walking straight into my worst nightmare. My heartbeat hammered.
I should call for Heil. I should call for Reagan. But if Onorio was right and there were eyes on him, as there almost certainlywere in the Wandering Cup, they might hurt either Daria or Jack.Jack.
My hands wanted to shake with anger. I didn’t need my truth-telling relic to know the man in front of me was desperate.
“I will come with you, Onorio. We will bring them back.”
Reagan hadn’t left through this corridor. I needed to find some way to send word. My abilities were limited. I couldn’t even guarantee I could fling back. What would stop them from taking all of us? The child was a hybrid. There had to be some safeguard I could summon, something I could rely on before I stepped into their hands.
My gaze wandered the corridor. “All right. I will go with you. Let me speak to my sister. She’s waiting for me.”
