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“Right. Of course.” I collect Mika’s cheeks in my hands. “You go straight to the ballroom right now. Do you understand?”
His head bobs up and down, his bottom lip wobbling with fear.
“Go! Now!”
Mika tears away, and I follow Kazimir up the stairs.
Praying Atticus survives and that Romeria’s bloody hands had nothing to do with this.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
ROMERIA
Pan trips over the slain guard’s boots and stumbles into the cedar hedge.
“Imbecile,” Jarek mutters.
“I can’t see anything in the dark!”
“Shhh!” I warn sharply, and Pan clamps his lips together.
I look over my shoulder for the hundredth time to make sure no one followed us. We snuck past the flock of guards, again using my cloaking skills. It seemed too easy. “At least they didn’t find him.”
“Let us keep it that way, or this place will be crawling with guards tomorrow.” Jarek drags the corpse out and throws him over his shoulder like a sack of grain before continuing. “If we must return.”
“Yes, we must.” A surge of adrenaline charges through me as I think of the task we have ahead of us, and how much harder it could be now that Atticus—and the king’s guard by default—knows a caster is in their city.
I wish I hadn’t had to reveal myself like that tonight.
I pat my pants pocket where the letters for the port guards are tucked away. We snuck into the war room on the way here, figuring the royal guard would be too busy looking for us outside the castle wall to think we might be inside already.
Jarek notices the subtle move, but he notices everything I do. “What did you write, anyway?”
“Hi, my name is Atticus, and I stole my brother’s throne.”
He snorts.
“I kept it simple and to the point. The ship is allowed to leave port immediately, by the king’s order, and with mortal passengers.” Hastily written and generic, but maybe enough to pass the guards’ tests.
“If they don’t pay attention to the bloody smears on the paper.”
The reminder has me wiping my hands across my cape again in vain. “And if they do?”
“Then we put the lives of all those mortals ahead of them.”
He’s saying we’ll kill them. I sigh. “Right.” And Jarek is right, though I hate it. Never did I think I’d be adding murder to my résumé of crimes.
We exit the cedar maze and trek across the open grass, Jarek carrying the corpse. Moonlight shines from above, granting enough light that I can see the shadowy outline of the nymphaeum ahead. In two days, the second Hudem moon will shine so bright here, it’ll seem like daylight.
And everything will change.
It’s all I can do not to take off running toward the stone, so I can get back to Ulysede sooner, and write a letter for the taillok to take to Zander. My heart aches to see him again. The hours between now and dawn, when Gesine confirms he is safe, will drag mercilessly.
“I would have left him there to die.” Jarek’s gaze lands on my face. “What you did tonight for Atticus, I would not have had the fortitude to do.”
“I didn’t do it for him.” I hope I don’t regret the choice.
“Still. It takes a certain strength.”
“Are you admitting that I’m stronger than you?”
His responding chuckle is dark.
Movement high in the sky catches my attention. “What is that?” I point upward. “Do you see that?” A large, winged black shape soars above us, circling. Unease slips down my spine.
Jarek curses and speeds up. “Run.”
“Thank the fates!” Gesine exclaims as we spill through the stone and into Lucretia’s crypt. “His Highness would have skinned me alive had you not returned.”
Lucretia appears out of thin air a moment later. “The fates have nothing to do with this.”
How she moves about Ulysede, I would love to know.
She winks at me as if she can read my mind. For all I know, she can. “Did you find the answers you sought, Your Highness?”
“I think so. A lot of them, anyway. Also, I’m pretty sure we saw Caindra.” Jarek and I exchange a long look. He must be feeling what I am—relief that the dragon stayed where she was, circling above the city rather than diving into it. I can’t imagine the devastation that beast could rain down on Cirilea.
“Yes, she will be able to find you anywhere.”
“Wonderful.”
“Isn’t it?” Lucretia smiles, missing my sarcastic tone, or ignoring it.
Pan scampers away, finding a spot behind Zorya where he can gawk at Lucretia’s sheer black gown and the feminine flesh beneath while trying to avoid her attention. The sylx seems to scare him.
Lucretia has no interest in Pan, though, her rapt attention on Jarek. “Who have you brought with you?”
“A willing male,” Jarek says dryly, dropping the corpse on the stone floor. “Enjoy him.”
She seems to study the dead guard, tapping his thigh with her toe. “Not much fight left in him, but I imagine he won’t complain.”
