Page 66 of Songs of Vice


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I leaned my arm up, angling it so the key slipped down to my wrist. It banged into Elisa’s palm and her eyes widened incrementally before she bowed her head so that her curls curtained her face, and she looped a thumb under the key and slid it into her sleeve. “You coming to speak with me is enough.”

She met my gaze again as I carefully slipped my hand out of the cell. Lennox sighed. “Perhaps, I can put in a word for you, Elisa, and lessen your sentence. Since you were so compassionate to one of our citizens.”

I turned on him, shocked once again. Everything I’d heard about him didn’t align with the man I’d met. “You’d do that?”

“A word. I can promise no more.”

“Thank you, Prince Lennox,” Elisa said.

He bobbed his head.

“Trusting a man you’ve known for less than a day?”

Sai’s voice rankled through me like lightning sliced down my spine and crackled over my flesh causing hair to rise on my arms. I raised my face until I met his eyes and kept my expression schooled in cool neutrality. I had never been a brilliant actress, but I didn’t need those skills presently. Acting wasn’t necessary. “No, that would be rather foolish, to meet a man and trust him immediately, wouldn’t it?” A muscle on his jaw jumped, but he remained quiet. “Perhaps, it’s a lesson you could learn as well, Prince Sai.” I spat his title. Magic whirled down my limbs, ice that would freeze the entire corridor. I swallowed hard and pushed the magic back. I couldn’t expose my elemental powers in front of Lennox or his guards. “My mother works with Prince Lennox. Yet, you gullibly took in a magical being with so few questions. Now you find yourself trapped in a cell you cannot get out of. Perhaps the naively trusting one is you.”

Sai’s mouth gaped, and I had to fight a grin from slipping up on my face. I turned and Lennox and his guards followed behind me.

Sai would, in a moment, realize my words were false. As soon as Elisa unveiled the key to him, he’d know I still helped his team.

I was on the side of retrieving Prince Shaan’s zevar and not letting the others face execution for Sai’s choices, and nothing more. He could rot as far as I was concerned.

When we reached the top of the stairs and poured out into the hall again Lennox cocked his head. “Why did you say that to Prince Sai?”

“Because he’s a bastard who deserved it.”

Lennox’s features pinched. “Is that so?”

“Don’t you agree? You have him locked in a cell.”

“Perhaps,”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“I judged him based on his brother. My inclination was to believe he fought for his court but was honorable. I suppose that’s foolish, though.” His shoulders sagged with his words, and he brushed his thumb over the back of his hand.

The uncertainty and hurt in his voice sent an echo of regret through me. God, I was dancing between these groups and stepping on every toe as I stumbled my way through it all. “I said that to Sai to scare him.” Lennox raised his face. “I know nothing about the fairy realms, and it’s been frightening, running from one group to another, not knowing who to trust. Honestly, I just wanted to hurt his feelings.”

“That’s what one does when they feel used, isn’t it?”

This was no longer about the words I’d stabbed at Sai. It was about him and Shaan; I was sure of it. Luz had said they wouldn’t call Lennox well-meaning.Contrite maybe, they’d said. There was more to their story than what Sai had revealed to me. It wasn’t my place to ask. “We should go. I know you have a lot to do today before the gala. Thank you for allowing me to visit Elisa.”

“I will speak with my father on her behalf. I swear it.”

A pang of guilt pulsed through me. Betrayal seemed to be the entire game here, and I was quickly becoming a key player. I’d just lied to Lennox who’d been nothing but kind to me and used him to help a group of his enemies get free. Would his father realize he’d escorted me to the prison and their escape was my fault? Would he endure the blame of that?

A terrible feeling sank into my gut. No matter how many right decisions I tried to make, it seemed I hurt someone with my choices. There was no walking away from this guiltless. The pain I’d caused would haunt me. Soon, however, I’d be away from here with two bags of gold and my future stretching ahead of me. I could unravel it all then.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

SAI

Lira turnedon her foot and marched into the shadows. Lennox and his guards followed behind her, as though they protected her. Apparently they did. She’d worked for them all along? Goddess, I’d been a fool. Hadn’t I thought from the moment I met her it all seemed convenient? Here it proved true.

Elisa grinned up at me. “I knew she wouldn’t betray us.”

Orman sighed and settled onto the bench along the back wall with a groan. Ishir bounced with the motion and leaned back against the stones.

“She just clearly stated that she had betrayed us,” I said.

I’d trusted her. Maybe I’d questioned it the whole time, but I’d felt that pull towards her and ultimately believed in her. I could have sacrificed her, but I protected her, and she’d been an enemy all along.

You should trust no one.

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