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“He’s not evil,” I said.
Damyn’s lips just twisted, and I wondered what he was thinking. “You trust too much.”
“And you don’t trust enough,” I returned.
Those glimmering eyes met mine. “I trust you.”
I didn’t know how to answer. He reached out his hand for the training sword. “Lynx was looking for you. He needs to check in with the spies in Rylow.”
He’d just said something so sweet, and yet I felt like I’d been dismissed.
* * *
Lynx,Hanna and I traveled through the streets of Rylow, unseen. Somehow despite how tall and imposing he looked ordinarily, Lynx could don a cloak, change his posture, and slink unnoticed through a crowd.
I brought Hanna back to the academy. Branok’s suggestion that the academy was my dream, not hers, haunted me.
“You don’t have to stay here forever,” I reminded her when we stood on the steps. “I just need to know you’re safe while we hunt down Joachim and… finish this.”
She gave me a sad smile. “If you’re queen… are you ever going tofinish?Is there really ever going to be peace here?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just because peace hasn’t existed in our lifetime… we can still believe.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she hugged me goodbye. I walked her up the steps to the door, and it opened before we arrived. Seeing the headmistress in the doorway instead of one of the girls surprised me.
The headmistress looked at me closely, as if she saw through my disguise, and I pushed my hood back, letting my spell shift away from my face. I kept the damned crown hidden, though.
“Honor,” she said warmly. “You have made us proud.”
“Glad to hear it.” I was surprised to realize that, though I’d wanted to hear those words from her all this time, I didn’t care deeply in the same way anymore.
Which was good, since she might not feel so proud if our ability to shift vanished with the Scourge.
I kissed Hanna goodbye. She clung to me, briefly, then straightened and gave me a smile that was too bright. My heart ached, knowing she didn’t want to be there, but I couldn’t break a kingdom and rebuild it with my little sister underfoot. My focus would always be on protecting her.
She reached the doorway and looked back at me, and this time her smile was genuine. “Go cause some trouble, sis.”
“I don’t think I can help myself,” I answered.
Then she was gone, and the door closed behind her.
“Time to go,”Lynx thought to me urgently through the bond.
I darted down an alleyway and traveled back to him. I expected danger when I found him, but he was alone, taking off his cloak and flipping it around with a muttered word of a spell so it transformed back into his royal cloak.
I glanced at Lynx, able to feel how his emotions were a roil through our bond. His walls were up so I didn’t catch his thoughts, but he could communicate clearly with me now. I should mark all my men; I wasn’t sure all of them were ready to be so obviously and irrevocablymine,but gods, it was convenient.
“Let’s get home,” he said briefly, and I took his hand. As we phased through the shadows, it occurred to me that we’d both called that castle—which had once been the place of our greatest suffering—home.
As soon as we arrived, we summoned all the others together in that little command room we’d set up.
“Caldren’s spies got eyes on Joachim and sent us a message,” Lynx said grimly. “Joachim and Kallus are working together, and I’ve got bad news.”
“More?”
Lynx’s gaze flew to his twin. “Kallus has Lucien and Alina there with him.”
I could feel the spike of pain from Branok stabbing into the back of my mind.
