Merlin looked over at me then and appeared surprised to see me occupying his seat. Well, really, he shouldn’t have been surprised because where else would I sit? In the center of the table with Carlisle on one side and whoever that haggard-looking woman was on the other?
Please.
Carlisle reminded me he was still glaring at me. “The distinction is that we lost the window.”
Corvin, the only other man in the room worth looking at, stood at the far end of the table, arms crossed, jaw tight. He hadn’t looked at me since I’d walked in. That meant he was furious; Corvin only went quiet when the anger had nowhere left to go. I did notice with some interest that his shadows were busily pulling all the candle light from the corners of the room.
“We’re wasting time,” he said, to the room rather than to me.
Vaelen faced Corvin and shook his head. “We go in blind, and we won’t come back out again.”
“The only reason we’d go in blind is becauseyourwoman made us wait.” Carlisle’s hawk eyes cut to me.
“She’s not my woman,” Vaelen said with a smirk in my direction, meaning he knew exactly how Carlisle’s comment would land.
“She,” I started, spearing everyone in the room with an expression that dared them to ever refer to me in such a way again, “isno one’swoman.”
“Agreed,” Hailey said, raising her hand briefly as though seconding a motion at a very dangerous town council. “On behalf of women everywhere, fucking agreed.”
Carlisle then looked at the old mage, who hadn’t moved from his position beside the cold hearth. His planetary charts were still revolving around his head like he was the sun and they were caught in his pull. His hands were folded, and his expression held the specific quality of a man who was watching children argue over a broken toy he’d already decided to take away.
Then Corvin spoke, and the temperature in the room changed.
“All of you seem to forget the fact that Guin is sitting in that dungeon, and gods only know how much time she has left.” He stood with his shoulder against the far wall, arms now loose at his sides, amber eyes moving between faces like he was accounting for each of them. “Every hour she sits in that cell is another hour we lose. We aren’tdiscussingthis any longer.We’re deciding.”
Carlisle’s thin mouth curved. Not a smile exactly. Recognition.
“Finally,” he said.
Merlin said nothing, which was interesting considering he was Guinevere’s father and, thus, had the most to lose.
I set my gloves on the table and looked at all of them and felt the faint, familiar pleasure of watching men mistake their emotions for strategy.
They always did.
“We need to act now,” Corvin said, slapping his hands together as if that was the end of it.
“Corvin should go first.”
Every eye in the room swung to me.
I let them wait a moment because I’d earned it. Then I leaned forward and pressed two fingers to the map, directly over Camelot’s eastern wall.
“Corvin goes in here. But not without my support.”
“I don’t require anyone’s support.”
I looked at him directly. “You’d be a fool not to welcome offered assistance, especially when said assistance comes from me.”
He looked at me for a few seconds but said nothing. The two of us had a short history, one that unfortunately hadn’t seen enough chapters. I knew him when he was Arthur’s closest knight, before Lancelot had taken that title.
I nodded at his silence, which meant he was no longer arguing with me. “I send my ravens ahead. Three of them. They move through Camelot unremarked; birds are birds, and Arthur’s guards aren’t in the habit of questioning the wildlife.” I traced a line from the eastern gate inward toward the dungeon towers. “They become my eyes. Every corridor, every rotation of the guard, every locked door that they see,I see. And then I supply you with that knowledge.”
Corvin’s expression hadn’t changed, but he’d crossed and then uncrossed his arms. That was enough.
“As to the guards themselves.” I straightened. “Give me one night, and I’ll walk their minds while they sleep. By morning, I’ll know exactly where she’s being held, which guards rotate when, and which of them dream about their mothers and which dream about money.” I paused. “The latter are always more useful.”
Carlisle made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh.
