Page 81 of Prince of the Sun

“Come where?”

“To our secret hideout,” says a familiar voice in the far corner.

I jerk up to a seated position to find, with a powerful wave of relief, Cara. Seated in an armchair. With Berendir perched on the arm.

Wait a minute… Cara is in league with the elves?

Every ounce of warmth I feel at seeing her drains instantly from my body. Cara is with Berendir. She’s always withBerendir. And, as my roommate, she has perfect access to watch me for signs of light. Of course she’s in on it. The only question is—

“Why?” I ask. “Why are you helping them?”

Cara squints at me in the way she does when I ask her something stupid, like what an Application Programming Interface is. “Whyam I helping them save my closest friend? Gee, maybe because I love her?”

“Wait.” I blink. “Save me?”

“Duh.” Cara gestures to the surrounding space. “Look around, kiddo.”

I do. I’m lying on the couch of a modern apartment with dark wood floors and panoramic windows. Daerios is seated at the end of the couch. Cara is in the armchair, feet up on a massive, cubical coffee table. Outside, lights twinkle across the sky; we appear to be high up, looking out on a landscape of skyscrapers.

“Don’t tell me.” My eyes cut to Daerios. “Another one of yours?”

“Actually, no.” He stands from the couch and walks over to the open kitchen across the room, rounding the white marble counter and bending over to rummage in one of the cabinets. “This is Lûth’s place.”

Lûth.The youngest elf prince. Yesterday, I would have been pleased to be here; Lûth always struck me as the kindest of the bunch. But today—

“So what?”

“So, we’re rescuing you from your own idiotic deal with the devil.” Cara crosses her legs and leans back in the armchair. “Obviously.”

My eyes flick to Daerios, who has pulled out a tea kettle and is filling it from the sink. “He delivered me right to his father’s front door,” I say. “Why would he want to save me?”

“I’m right here, you know.” Daerios sets the kettle on thestove. “You don’t have to speak of me in the third person.”

“She can speak of you in whatever tense she wants,” Cara throws over her shoulder. Then, under her breath, “Lying prick.”

Berendir covers a grin.

Daerios, with his superhuman hearing, catches Cara’s insult. He spins from the burner to glare at us. “Why amIthe lying prick? Is no one going to acknowledge the fact that Quinn was lying to me, too? That she was spying on us, prying through our secrets,usingme to get answers?”

Sighing, Cara starts to push herself up from the armchair. “Sounds like you two need time alone to settle this marital spat. Ber and I will just—”

“No.” I cut her off. “I don’t want to be alone with him.”

Over by the counter, Daerios stills. A strange expression crosses his face—a slight crinkle of the forehead, eyes pinched shut—but it passes quickly. When he speaks, his voice is firm. “Likewise.”

“Oh-kayyy.” Cara lowers herself slowly back into the chair. “Back to the matter at hand. Daer, how long do you think we have before your father figures out where we are?”

Daerios opens and closes one fist atop the counter. Tension seems to ebb from his body as he straightens and says, “The King does not know that Lûth owns this property. No one knows—except me. And that was only because Lûth dragged my ass out of a fistfight in a club a few years ago and put me up here.”

“Shocker,” I say flatly. “To return to my earlier question: Why bring me here? Why rescue me from that camp, when you’re the one who brought me there in the first place?”

“It was not me who brought you to that camp,” says Daerios. “Those were Saechon’s orders.”

“But you didn’t fight him.”

“How could you know that? You weren’t even conscious.”

“Whichyoustood by and allowed to happen!” I yell, theninternally shake myself for doing so. I don’t want to feel this much emotion toward Daerios; when it comes to him, I want to be as empty as I was the year after I lost Dad and Michael.