Page 145 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

Nore pressed her lips together. Celestine smiled. She looked away, at her guards, and only then did Nore allow her own gaze to slip to Cas.

She did not let her horror show on her face. He had clearly been treated badly, his lip split. And for all of Nore’s careful posturing—Caspian was looking at her with an expression that could only be described as lovesick. She bit hard on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from revealing anything.

“You’ve looked better,” Nore said.

“Perhaps my beauty is lacking, but they can’t take away my charm,” Caspian said.

Nore tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “They can,” she said, “if they kill you.”

Caspian reclined, invoking carelessness as much as one could while strapped to a chair, potentially there for some form of torture. “Then I hope you think on me fondly when I’m gone,” he said, pitched softer.

Nore tore her gaze away, focusing back on Celestine. Her heart felt odd and strangled in her chest.

“I have never seen much of you two together,” Celestine said, looking between them. “It’s always been a mystery to me, knowing you separately, how such a marriage would’ve worked.”

“Obviously,” Nore said through her teeth, “it didn’t.”

Another knock sounded. Nore stiffened, but it was only another guard, bringing a tray with a porcelain tea set. They set it down on the table, the pastel flowers of the pot and two saucers incongruous against the scarred, stained wood of the table and the stone of the prison.

“Tea, Finch?” the duchess asked.

“Please,” she said. She knew what the duchess expected of her.

The duchess poured tea with just a bit of milk, as she thought Nore took it. Caspian raised an eyebrow but he did not comment. He knew, of course, that if given the choice, Nore drank it as sweet as her coffee.

“And tell me,” Celestine said, pouring her own tea as if they were not in the middle of a prison, “how did you fare on your mission?”

Caspian sighed, looking at her. “I would say it was an abject failure,” he said, tension in his body even as he tried so hard to look at ease. “And I’m sure you’re unaccustomed to failure from Finch.”

“A failure?” Celestine repeated, her eyebrows raised. “How unfortunate. I was disappointed to hear, my dear, how badly things went for our Nestrian friend—our allies are none too pleased that Mr. Borrel is now in the clutches of the High Lady and her viper.”

Nore swallowed, looking away. “They were playing a losing game, unfortunately,” she said.

“Well then,” Celestine said, taking another sip of her tea. It hurt to look at her, but Nore did her best to act normal. “That is most unfortunate, especially considering how useful they were to us.” She shook her head, as if shaking away the merest of inconveniences and not a man’s life.

Nore bit her lip, knowing the blade she was about to throw. Knowing that Caspian had gone out of his way to tell her what he could, through years of letters and as many confessions as he could allow while they were together—and everything she had, she had kept from him. She could pretend and say that it was habit, keeping secrets from Caspian, but the truth was she didn’t know how to trust him. She could not allow herself to remember those years after, the aftershocks of his betrayal, of the feeling that she had set her very soul on fire—and she could not allow it to happen again.

She was thinking, now, that keeping her secrets was a greater mistake than setting herself aflame ever had been.

“Except, Your Highness,” Nore said. “I was successful.”

Caspian looked at her, his gaze shifting, like he was only just realizing that she still had the capacity to betray him.

Celestine’s smile was so beatific it made Nore feel sick. Weeks before, she would’ve done anything in her power to get that kind of smile from the duchess. “Good work, Finch,” she said. “What did you find?”

Nore took a sip of her tea. She remembered the commander’s firm grip on her arm, and his kindness—he had not freed Nore for her own benefit. She knew that, of course. If she had to guess, she would say that he freed Nore because Caspian loved her and asked for her life; she now understood that the commander had someone he would sacrifice for, perhaps someone he had sacrificed for.

Cas had been brought here to foster when he was barely a boy—and then, what? Given small tasks? Letter recovery?

She had never even stopped to question why he’d been in the alley behind the theater the night they met.

She reached below her shirt, the chain snaking through her fingers. She watched Caspian’s face as his gaze lit on the medallion—and how it flickered ever so slightly as he recognized it.

But to an untrained eye, how did one ancient, powerful medallion differ from another?

Celestine’s smile spread. “What a wonder you are, Finch,” she said. She reached out, shaking slightly, and took the medallion from Nore. She shuddered, probably feeling the weight of the magic it held. After all these weeks of wearing it, using it semiregularly, Nore was almost used to it.

Nore looked at Caspian, who was watching her as if he’d never known her at all.