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“Stop this foolishness,” Mother spat.
She might have continued, but a guard who pushed his way past the crowd interrupted her. He bowed before me. “The King wishes to speak with you.”
My heart caught. Lennox had realized his zevar was missing. He accused me to his father—not that I could blame him—and they were going to have me searched. Then I’d end up in jail. Or, more likely, his father would have me executed or used in the manner he’d discussed with my mother. I couldn’t count on Lennox being on my side when he realized what I’d done. Plus, now that I held our group’s magic, I didn’t know what that meant for Margo and the others. I didn’t know how to unbind it.
“Of course,” I said in such a mewling voice I’d nearly forgotten the confident way I’d spoken to Mother only moments before. I didn’t even meet her gaze as I followed the guard through the pulsing crowd and along the length of the ballroom. It wasn’t until we reached the end of the floor, and he turned left towards a hall that I stopped walking. My boots reflected on the floor alongside streaking flames of candles. “This isn’t towards the king’s throne.”
The man turned, his eyes twinkling. He had a mop of sandy brown hair and a smatter of freckles across his nose. I didn’t recognize him, but something about the expression felt familiar. “You know, I wished to see if you needed a rescue, but how foolish of me to assume a typhoon would require help. You seemed to handle that well enough.”
“Sai,” I hissed.
He winced and bobbed his head. “Come this way where we won’t draw attention?”
I don’t know why I followed him into the shadowy hallway. I couldn’t label what compelled me to him, what made it so hard to think clearly when he was in the same space with me. Clouds had covered the moon, and the corridor was intensely dark.
Sai stuck his hand in a pocket. “Lira, I’m so—”
“No. You don’t get to say that just because this all worked out. God, I’m…” I was about to say,I’m a fool,but then I realized I didn’t believe that anymore. “I made a mistake with you. You were a mistake.”
He jerked back like I’d slapped him. “That’s fair.”
“Acting contrite doesn’t change what you did. You used me, Sai.”
“No.”
“Yes. You slept with me, dragged me to the Naga, and then handed me off to Lennox like it was nothing.”
“You seem to get along well enough with Lennox.” There was a hard turn to Sai’s voice, and it made the lava within me build, jittering alongside my new magic that I didn’t understand the weight of yet.
“You don’t get to be jealous or whatever the hell this is. You betrayed me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You betrayed me,” I repeated as I thrusted my hand into my pocket and all but threw the zevars at him, “and I saved you not once but twice today.”
“Shaan’s zevar.” He stared at the dark bundle of the tangled necklaces in his palm, his mouth gaping.
“It’s knotted up with Lennox’s and I can’t get them unbound.”
His expression hardened, and he slipped them into his pocket. “I’ll leave that to Shaan.”
“You’re going to take Lennox’s zevar?”
“It’s fair, isn’t it?”
I clenched my fists and stepped closer to him. It infuriated me I had to raise my chin to look him in the eyes because I wanted to catch him on fire. “That seems to be your policy, after all. Show grace to no one. Trust no one.” He winced as I threw his words back at him. “Thank you for teaching me that valuable lesson.”
“Lira—”
“No. This is over between us.”
“Do you want to get out of here?”
“Why would I?”
“If Luz, who brought you in, and my group all disappear at once, with both the Memoria Globe and the zevars taken, it’s going to make you look very suspicious.”
Crap. I hadn’t considered that.
