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“Stop,” I cried, running forward. “Stop that at once. Put him down!”
The bearded man had the gall to look surprised. He ignored me.
“She is right,” Draven snarled, stepping forward. “Lower him at once, Javer. He is your pupil, not your toy. Treat him with respect or I will have him reassigned to someone who will, regardless of what the Queen Regent has told you.”
Javer’s face flashed with anger but he did as he had been told. Lowering his hand, Beks crashed to the floor with a cry.
I ran to him, crouching down to help him rise. The boy was rubbing his shoulder gingerly.
“My master,” he whispered, smiling weakly. “I’ve been sneaking away from our lessons. Now you see why I...”
“Silence,” Javer commanded. “You will follow me. Now. You have missed days of instruction because of this foolish truancy. You will make them up immediately.”
Beks looked at me helplessly and shrugged.
To my fury, Draven said nothing more, only stepped aside so that Javer and the boy could pass.
When they were gone, Draven glanced between Crescent and I. His face was stony. “I take it I interrupted a history lesson.”
“Crescent was just bringing me up to date on a few details I had forgotten,” I replied sweetly. “How kind of you to bring the prince here to me, Odessa. How thoughtful.”
Odessa’s jaw clenched ever so slightly but she said nothing.
“I will deal with this,” Draven said, raising a hand to his brow as if he were weary. “You two may go. Thank you, Odessa.”
“Yes, thank you, Odessa, for caring so very much about my whereabouts. I thought you were a warrior but I see I have mistaken you. You are simply a paid snitch,” I snapped.
“That’s enough,” Draven said sharply. “She did what she was told to do.”
I turned to him, seething. “Yes, and she should not have been told to do it in the first place. Just as I should not have been confined to that suite. I am not a problem for you todeal with.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I have been a fool. I’m sorry.”
My jaw may have dropped if I had not made a point of holding onto it.
“You’re... sorry?” I managed. “And just what do you plan to do to remedy things?”
“I can’t remedy everything,” Draven replied, causing me to scowl. “But perhaps I can at least grant you more freedom, once you understand.”
“Help me to understand then, Draven. You promised me answers when I awoke that first day, but you have given me none.”
He nodded. “I’ll try.”
I watched as he clasped his hands behind his back and approached the painting of Vela.
“Crescent told me about the curse,” I said. “I know everything now.”
“Everything?”
“I know the Siabra were the ones who did that to the fae children.”
“We are fae, too. Do not forget it,” Draven said softly, without turning around.
“Two sides. Split asunder. The fae that remained in Valtain and the fae who left for Myntra and called themselves Siabra,” I surmised. “But what split them?”
Draven turned to face me. “Can you not guess?”
I thought of the wall in the Temple of the Three. “Appearances? Could it really be so trite?”
