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“You’re not the person I thought you were either.” She opened the door to walk out.
“Go back to your husband and live in luxury while the rest of us live in dirt. Traitor.” Mak’s voice followed her down the street where anyone could hear.
Well, that had gone well.
She got home later than usual, like she always did on nights when she went to meetings. Altair waited for her, still in a bad mood.
“You broke it off?”
She was starting to wonder if Altair had installed a spy camera at Mak’s front door.
“Yes,” she answered, not that it was his business but she wanted to take suspicion off of the rebels as much as possible. It was better that he think she was having a lover’s quarrel.
His mood improved after that, but Nova didn’t feel like talking, so they had a quiet dinner, and she went to bed early.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, when she went on her daily trip to the clinic to pick up the medicine she needed to deliver, Elizabeth intercepted her and asked to see her in her office.
With a bit of luck, she would be telling Nova that she was going home soon. It wasn’t her fault the rebel’s plans had been a bust.
She sat on the chair in front of Elizabeth’s desk.
“How are you?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’ve been better. Any chance I can go home now?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Things didn’t exactly go as planned.”
“Wasn’t exactly a great plan.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “We may have underestimated Altair. No one thought he would care enough to set an ambush. And we assumed he would be too happy to have Devon out of his hair to call him back in case of trouble. We definitely hoped he would be too giddy over his new wife to even notice rebels in Baeddan.”
Nova rolled her eyes at that.
“But maybe the fact that you’re not his real match had an effect on that too.”
Humpf. Nova could make Altair giddy over her if she wanted to, match or no match. She’d just been too busy keeping him at bay. She’d been more focused on keeping him upset than happy. This was the first she’d heard of thisgiddyplan.
But she wasn’t going to argue about this with Elizabeth.
“Altair does what he thinks is right,” she said instead. Even if what he thinks is right had been so twisted by his family’s bad intentions that no moral person in their right mind could ever consider any of what they did as “right.” “And for now what he thinks is right is what his family expects of him.”
Why had she said, “for now?” Was she hoping to change that? That would be difficult. Altair was set in his ways, and he liked to be in charge. Any loss of control made him feel uncomfortable. Besides, what would be the point?
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as if thinking about what she’d said. “I’d always seen him as a lesser danger because he has less invested in the family’s success.”
“He was abandoned by them, but he craves their approval.”
Elizabeth didn’t look happy with her answer.
“Do you think he is as dangerous as Devon?”
Her gut reaction was to protest, to say that Altair was nothing like Devon, but Elizabeth expected the truth.
“He is dangerous, yes. But his motives are different from Devon’s. I think Devon worries Altair is a danger to him. Altair could be useful to your cause.”
“You think he can be turned?”
