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“Us?”
“You’ll have to come with me.” There would be time later to apologize that this hadn’t been Plan A—for now, she hoped his concern would be enough to stop him quibbling over the details. “We can start again on Earth. Together,” she added, trying to smile. His love for her was rapidly becoming the most reliable tool in her arsenal. But to her surprise, he was already shaking his head.
“No. If I go, the Mage’s Guild will know that the Queen helped me. They might believe that you escaped, but they’d never believe that I managed to hoodwink the kingdom into letting me go, too. And they’ve made it clear that any resistance to their demands will be considered an act of war. I can’t just leave everyone here to fight a war that’s my fault while I start a new life in another world, Kaya.”
“Are you saying that’s what I’m doing?” she snapped, feeling all the frustration and fear of the last few days suddenly coming to a head. She’d expected him to flinch away, to apologize—right now, she wanted nothing more than for him to put his arms around her and promise that it was all going to be alright. But his expression was suddenly colder than she’d ever seen it.
“Isn’t it?” he asked, so quietly she almost couldn’t believe she’d heard it. “Hasn’t that been your plan all along?” Inota opened her mouth to retort, but when she reached for a stinging rejoinder, she came up empty-handed. “Ever since we’ve met, you’ve always been a few steps ahead. Always keeping the next step of your plan to yourself … until you’re forced to tell me, that is. But you only tell me the truth when you have to. And by then, there’s always a new truth to hide. Kaya, you’re mysoulmate.” She’d never heard him speak the word with such venom before. “Does that—does that even mean anything to you? What kind of dragon—” He broke off, and she wondered if some of her panic had shown on her face. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair.”
“No,” she said, reaching for cold anger and managing only a hurt whisper. “It’s not.” A long, awful silence. “What happens now? What’s the Queen going to do?”
“The Prince returns from Earth tomorrow morning,” Callan said, and she felt her heart ache as she watched him wrench his diplomatic mask back into place. “The Queen will consult with him before she decides on a course of action.”
“Then we’ll discuss it then.” She folded her arms across her chest, wishing desperately she could think of something to say that would keep him there in the room with her. But one look at his face told her that it was too late to repair this. The trust that he had in her, the trust that she’d pushed to breaking point over and over again—it had finally snapped. What had she expected? That he’d just keep forgiving her? That his love for her was that strong? That wasn’t love, she thought as a tear spilled down her cheek. That was madness.
And when the door closed behind Callan, leaving her alone, she knew what she had to do.
It was freezing cold in the woods before dawn that next morning, but Inota didn’t care. She moved through the darkness, heedless of the branches scratching at her as she moved quickly through the trees. She was following the path that she knew led to the edges of the Valley, but she couldn’t risk being seen from the air, not when the Queen and her consort would be heading out into the Fog to welcome their Prince home.
It wasn’t her first choice of plan, but it was going to have to do. The Queen would be there, and so would a portal through the Fog into the other world. All Inota had to do was distract them long enough to get through it, and then she’d be free. Free, in a new world, where nobody knew any of her names or any of her faces—a world where she could finally rest, where she could leave all of this heartbreak and misery behind. As for Callan… she couldn’t think about Callan. If she thought too long about what the Mage’s Guild would do to him, she wouldn’t be able to go through with her plan.
And at the end of the day, it was better that one of them escaped than neither of them, right? Simple mathematics. One prisoner, or two. One horrible, lonely, awful death at the hands of an unforgiving and powerful organization, or two.
Focus, Inota. The sun was coming up, steadily lightening the forest around her to gray, and she picked up her pace, worried she’d somehow misremembered the way. There was a secret passageway that led from the Palace out into the forest—she remembered it well from the attack, because it had been how she’d slipped into the Palace in the first place, disguised as one of its own guards. The path she was on marked the shortest distance between the mountain peak in the middle of the insula and the Fog that surrounded it. Reasonable to assume that she was headed for the place where Queen Lana would be forming the portal. If not… well, she’d be lost in the woods alone.
And given what was coming for her, there were worse places to be.
Inota could feel the tendrils of Fog before she saw them, familiar as an old friend, and she felt a strange relief as she moved into the embrace of the curious gray mist. It was fascinating that a dragon had learned to manipulate Fog for magical purposes. A long time ago, when she’d been young and foolish, she’d believed that Haspar was dedicated to an ancient goal of dispelling the Fog once and for all, of joining each insula into one. The Mage’s Guild had a similar goal, though they never spoke of it to outsiders. That was perhaps the most dangerous secret Devere had shared with her. It was likely the Guild would move against the dragons of the Valley soon enough, once word reached them of their Queen’s unique magical ability. Maybe it already had. Maybe Inota had given them just the excuse they needed to attack.
Focus, she told herself again as the Fog thickened around her. These dragons and their war were none of her concern. She, of all people, had suffered more than enough for such things.
From the branches of a quickly-scaled tree, Inota watched the skies. It wasn’t long until she saw what she was looking for—three pairs of wings, dark shapes cut out against the slowly lightening sky behind them. Just as she’d hoped, they were heading in this direction, winging their way towards the closest patch of Fog. She watched carefully, taking note of where they were headed, then slipped back down the tree and hastened to meet them where they’d landed.
Inota slipped behind a tree to hide when she heard voices, her heart pounding in her chest. This was it. Her chance to escape. Her chance to leave everything from the past behind her for good. All she had to do was get to the portal. Then all of this would be over.
What struck her first was how beautiful it was. A dense, whirling disk of gray, as though the Fog itself had been compressed and flattened into a surface that resembled polished metal. The Queen was standing before it, her eyes closed as she concentrated her power, and Inota could feel an unfamiliar but undeniably magical force raising the hairs on her arms. As she watched, the center of the gray disk began to expand, creating a widening window in the gray substance that showed not the trees that stood behind it, but a different world entirely. Inota crept closer, making out two figures on the other side of the portal—the Prince and his mate, she guessed, her heart pounding. This was it. This was her chance.
“Queen Lana!” she called, breaking into a run. It felt strange to hear Callan’s voice emerging from her lips, to know she was wearing his face. One final betrayal to add to her list, like the signature of an artist on their masterpiece. All she needed was to distract the Queen long enough to dart past her and through the portal. And she’d certainly distracted her. Lana looked absolutely stunned to see her there. But her expression of surprise was nothing compared to the look on Callan’s face.
The Prince had stepped through the portal, too, with an unfamiliar woman at his side, both of them looking back and forth between Inota and Callan… but there was a look of dawning recognition on Conrad’s face. Of course the Prince she’d impersonated during the attack would recognize what was going on.
“The mage from the attack!” she shouted, knowing she didn’t have long before Callan put the pieces together too. “That’s him!” She pointed at Callan, who looked stunned as Conrad and Lana both turned to look at him. She felt the uneasy thrill of magic in the air, knew they were on the verge of shifting.
“No,” Callan said weakly. But Conrad had already seized him, restraining his hands behind his back, warning him not to make another move. The Queen was distracted and the portal was still there. This was it. This was what all these months of planning had been about. Her escape was inches away—she could see the other world there from the corner of her eye, shining like a beacon on the other side of the portal…
But her feet weren’t moving. She could feel the precious seconds slipping by, seeing the portal begin to flicker and fade as Queen Lana’s attention moved away from it. But Inota couldn’t take her eyes away from Callan’s face, from the dawning realization in his eyes. And in that moment, she realized something, too.
She couldn’t leave him.
And as the Fog that composed the portal dispersed, taking her last chance of freedom with it, Inota finally let her mask fall.
Chapter 25 - Callan
Callan was looking at his own face. He was too stunned by what he was seeing to even react properly to the accusation being leveled against him. How was it possible? By the time he’d remembered the shapeshifting mage that had attacked the Palace, it was too late. He was still so stunned that he barely resisted when the Prince leaped forward to restrain him. But that surprise was nothing to what he felt when his double’s face suddenly began to melt.
Conrad, again, was the first to react. He dropped Callan’s hands and leaped forward with another shout, but the mage didn’t resist at all. That face… it didn’t seem to be able to keep still. It warped and shifted even as he watched, the impression making him feel vaguely ill. He’d seen dragons and wolves shift between their human and wild bodies a thousand times, but this was something brand new.
“Stop it,” Conrad snapped. “What are you? What is this?”
