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With a huff, she spun away and ignored me. And neither she nor Quilla had spoken to me—or each other—since.
I sighed heavily into the silence. Aside from their unstable temperaments, I had to admit the relaxed pace they set was nice.
No one traveled like these two, I swear. I was used to riding with parties who were under strict schedule constraints and didn’t spend unnecessary minutes lollygagging because it was always time to get back on the road. But Quilla and Melaina liked their luxuries and made comfort a priority over haste. Their we’ll-get-there-when-we-get-there mentality was refreshing and utterly stress-free.
Except for one point.
Safety.
My mate was never going to be safe out on the open road like this.
“So, anyway,” I started when no one responded to my first question. “How the hell did you make it through the canyon pass the first time through?”
Melaina gave an aggravated sigh of disgust. “It’s really quite simple, dearest. We used a glamour.”
I frowned. “But they do glamour tests at either entrance.”
Quilla’s aunt smirked at me. “Not after we openly showed them Quilla’s mark, they didn’t.”
Okay, what? “That makes no sense.” I turned my attention to Quilla, but she still wasn’t talking to me. With a sigh, I refaced Melaina. “I’m not following.”
That earned me a condescending smirk. “It’s obviously been a while since you’ve visited High Cliff, hasn’t it?”
I nodded. “Just over five years now. Why?”
“Well, there’s a posted notice going around the kingdom that’s requesting the capture of at least one live Graykey. Or a Graykey could always surrender themselves before the crown.”
Quilla snorted. “Surrender, my ass,” she muttered. “Death would be preferable.”
I turned to her, sensing anxiety and fear in her emotions just under the layer of spite in her tone. She honestly believed execution was preferable to being taken alive.
“Why do they want one of you alive?”
“For my blood,” she answered. “What other reason?”
Shaking my head in confusion, I glanced at Melaina for an explanation.
The mistress of disguise fluttered out an unconcerned hand. “They have apparently concocted a magical potion, or ritual, or something that will help them accurately track down and find the rest of the Graykey clan. All they need to complete the process is the blood from one live Graykey.”
“Wait. So we could find the rest of your family with a sample of your blood?” I asked Quilla with a certain amount of hope in my voice. “Like, say, Qualmer?”
She sent me a scowl.
Melaina answered, “Yes, but we’ve no interest in finding my evil son. Besides, from what we’ve heard, the extraction process is brutally intensive and painful, plus we believe the blood donor dies during the procedure.”
“Oh.” Well, that was a different story, then. I winced toward Quilla, silently apologizing for even considering the idea of putting her through that.
She rolled her eyes with a glare—telling me I was not forgiven—and trotted ahead of us.
“So you pretended to be a High Cliff knight who’d just captured a Graykey and was taking her in to turn her over to the king, to get through the canyon pass, didn’t you?” I asked her aunt.
Melaina nodded and sent me an admiring glance. “Well now, I guess you can be smart after all.”
I shook my head, hissing out a curse. “That was dangerous, Melaina. They could’ve checked you for a glamour anyway and caught on to your ruse when they realized you weren’t a High Cliff knight after all.”
“But they didn’t.”
“What if the same guards are at the entrances this time too? Or smarter guards are on duty, because seriously, why didn’t they question the fact that you were going north through the pass, out of High Cliff? Not toward the capitol where the king is?”
