Page 100 of The Faceless Queen

“Go to hell.”

He chuckled. “Not that I really needed to ask. I suspected as much. You’re still too soft, too kind.”

“I’m not as kind as you think I am,” I growled. Too long had he taken advantage of me. Too long had I been a mere pawn for him to use for his own gain under the guise of protection.

“No?” he taunted. “And I’m sure you had nothing to do with her vanishing. You’re not exactly one for making a plan. Though you’re likely to end up as part of one.”

“Well, you would know. You love to make them. So what is it now? What do you want?” I seethed.

“The same thing everyone wants. Money. Power. Freedom.”

“And?” I asked. “To what end are you aiming? Why ask me about Princess Olivay?”

He shrugged. “Why not ask? Information is valuable. I like to know things. You never know how much that trinket of knowledge might be worth one day.”

“That information is only hearsay and rumors. It’s valuable only if she is found, or my identity is revealed.”

“Yes, that is true, good point,” he said, like he was speaking to a small child. I wanted to strangle him. “Hmmm. Speaking of identities, you should know that,” he straightened, fixing the cloak over his shoulder, “Jaron recognized me the moment I arrived and sought me out straight away. He was very eager to inquire about Cecelia.”

So the fucker did remember her name. But I knew that.

“You didn’t!” I hissed.

“I didn’t have to. She was front and center. So what he spent the most time asking me about,” Geoffrey continued, “believe it or not, was you. At least, one version of you. Alyra.”

I stiffened, my chest tightening. No one had said that name to me in years. Because no one else knew it. And the only ones who did thought I was long dead. But if Jaron had asked Geoffrey, then it was as I feared. He knew she was alive.

Nausea roiled through me. “What have you done?” My voice shook.

All of Jaron’s suspicions toward me rushed to the surface: his memories, the strange looks, the way he repeated things to me that we’d said in our prior conversations—conversations when I’d been someone else. Barron’s reaction to me, and the way Jaron had forced my interactions with the stag.

“Well, of course, I told him the truth,” Geoffrey said. “Alyra was an Azete. I mean, obviously, as an innocent tavern owner, I had no idea when I hired her. I was fooled.” He placed a hand over his heart, his expression one of mock scandalization. “And, so what else could I do, but tell him she lived?”

“You—”

“Oh hush. He knew. Do you think I gave him new information? You’re smarter than that. Or you should be. Two years ago, I told you he thought you were dead so you’d calm down, so you’d get back to work and earn your Godsdamned keep. And to keep you safe, I told him that you had left my establishment. That you had changed your face and ran. I told him that you could be anyone, anywhere. Oh, don’t look at me like that. After all, you’re the one who stormed into Cecelia’s room, changed your body before witnesses, and attacked him. Did you think he’d forget such a thing—that he didn’t have eyes at the time?”

“So that means …” My chest felt so tight, I could barely breathe. “He’s been looking for me, all along. Looking for me for the last two years?” That was why he was so quick to see through me at the tourney. He was always searching, always suspicious.

Geoffrey sucked air through his teeth. “He has, I’m afraid. He’s been spearheading the organization of soldiers who go out specifically to perform those boxings.”

By all the fucking Gods, old and new. The boxings weren’t just ordered by Eskalon. They’d been ordered by Jaron himself. To find me. To hunt me. And I was standing in the same room as him.

The walls and floor of the ball suddenly seemed to circle around me even though I remained still. My gut roiled. I was going to be sick. All this time. All this fucking time. They weren’t just hoping that the women in the boxes would reveal they were Azete. They were hoping they would reveal themselves to be me. I could see it clearly. See Jaron inspecting the results at the end, seeing the imprisoned women dead from dehydration or infection. And the cruelest truth of all was that even if I’d been caught, even if I’d been drained to my original form and killed, he still wouldn’t have found Alyra. Because he had no idea what I actually looked like. What my true form was.

No one did.

Except … Brennan’s vision of me at the lake. But he’d just drowned, barely conscious. And that had been a fluke—a hallucination.

I eyed Jaron across the room, drinking and mingling with nobles from House Bathiner, his arms still around that one young girl.

“What does Jaron know now?” I gritted through my teeth.

“He knows that you were at the tourney these last two nights.”

“You told him!”

“He asked.” Geoffrey shrugged. “I told him I saw you there.”