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“We’re on our way.”
Mak disappeared, and Lio stepped to Cassia’s side behind the dressing screen. She had her gown on, barely, and she was shoving her feet into her shoes.
Lio slung an arm around her waist. “Perita will come to wake you any minute for a council Chrysanthos just called. We’re out of time.”
Cassia’s hand closed around the glyph shard at her neck. “My Sanctuary ward can’t protect me from being late. I hope that mage of Anthros melts in his own god’s pyre.”
By the time she finished speaking, Lio had them and her liegehound at the guest house halfway across the city, hidden amid the white rose bushes in the courtyard and a veil spell to cover their arrival.
From beneath an archway, Mak lifted a hand. “One of the initiates just delayed Perita in the hallway to give her fresh linens. Hurry.”
Cassia yanked Lio’s mouth to hers. The astonishing kiss was over before he could appreciate it, leaving his fangs unsheathed and his body throbbing. She darted through the glass door of her guest room, and with Knight at her heels, disappeared behind the curtains.
OUT OF LINE
The courtyard door closedbehind Cassia just as the bedchamber door sprang open before her. Perita rushed in, her pretty face pallid, her light brown hair falling out of a knot. She was still in the act of tying her apron over yesterday’s wrinkled gown.
She cast one glance up and down Cassia. Perita’s gaze didn’t even hesitate on the glyph shard, which protected itself and Cassia from discovery and danger. But her handmaiden took in her wild, unbound hair and her disastrous attempt to dress herself in her purple formal gown.
“I only got an hour of sleep,” Cassia blurted. She waved a hand in the direction of the courtyard. “I gave up after a while and put my dress back on to go look at the roses.”
Knight plopped down on her feet, hiding the one that was only half in her slipper. He had barely been able to walk last night, until Cassia’s secret introduction to the Queens of the Hesperines, when Queen Soteira had healed him with a chuckle and a scratch on the chin.
Cassia put on a long-suffering expression. “Knight worked himself right out of his bandages, incorrigible fellow. It’s hopeless trying to keep a liegehound still.”
“Oh, my lady, I’m so sorry I’m past my time! Please—”
Although Cassia’s pulse pounded, she gave a laugh. “Perita, be at your ease. We are still growing accustomed to Orthros time. What’s the hurry?”
“We’re already running late! Apprentice Tychon sent Apprentice Eudias over from the other guest house to tell Callen to tell me to tell you that his master wants the whole embassy to meet together to talk about tonight’s events.”
“Tychon’s master has called this council? Then I will take my time dressing Knight’s wounds again before we go. After all, my hound heroically fought in Martyr’s Pass while that mage sat around on his berobed backside.”
“As you say, my lady.” Perita bit her lip, but didn’t quite manage to hide her smile. She eyed Knight. “I can scarcely see his wounds under all that fur. Best bandage him up again to remind everyone of his battle scars.”
Cassia held back a sigh of relief. It seemed her flimsy excuses and the famously strong constitution of liegehounds were enough to avert Perita’s suspicions.
She need not worry her handmaiden would ever get close enough to Knight to examine where his wounds had been, not when Perita had to use a medicinal tonic just to keep his fur from making her ill when she did Cassia’s laundry.
“I will not have you run yourself ragged on the mage’s account, Perita. We are not at the beck and call of ‘Honored Master Adelphos,’ even if he is from the royal Sun Temple of Anthros at Solorum.” Cassia recited Chrysanthos’s false identity in a mocking tone.
It wasn’t as if anyone in the embassy was unaware that Chrysanthos was really from Cordium. But of course he would insist they refer to him as a mage from Tenebra’s capital, even amongst themselves, in case Hesperine spies were listening. It was almost laughable that he didn’t realize all of Orthros already knew he was the Dexion of the Aithourian Circle, second-in-command of the Order of Anthros’s elite war mages, the Hesperines’ mortal enemies.
Perita scowled. “Right you are, my lady. Don’t you worry about that mage. Callen and I won’t let you out of reach again, not after the heart hunters attacked you in Martyr’s Pass. We’ll never forget the ‘honored master’ sat safe and sound while the rest of us got caught in the avalanche the heart hunters conjured.”
“Having you and Callen to rely on sets my mind entirely at ease.”
If only Cassia could confess that she was on the Hesperines’ side and in danger of Chrysanthos sending her up in flames if he ever found out. The trust between her and Perita had withstood every test thus far. Might it survive heresy, too?
Cassia could not afford to find out. Some secrets were too dangerous to reveal. She must keep her friend safe.
“I suspect,” said Cassia, “that ‘Honored Master Adelphos’ wishes to give us instructions to reassure himself we will not step out of line—and he wishes to draw the line himself. This council is an opportunity for me to show him I walk my own path.”
TRIAL BROTHERS
Behind Lio, Mak clearedhis throat. “You’re not quite invisible.”
“Right.” Lio strengthened his veil, rubbing his mouth.
