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Nodding, I retreated toward the hidden elevator in the study and took it up to the royal floor, landing myself in the general corridor. Endora whirled, her hands extended to blast me with a spell.
“It’s just me, Endora,” I sighed, closing the antique doors behind me. “How is Cyndella?”
“She slept through the whole attack,” the enchantress informed me, lowering her hands. “Thanks to Alle and her potions.”
I eyed the closed doors to the west wing, debating whether to check on my sister, but turned and headed toward the north wing instead.
“Really?” Endora fired out. “You’re going toher?”
I stopped and turned back to look at the enchantress with a scowl.
“Unless you know a way to retrieve my shifting powers, yes, I’m going toher!” I barked back, with far more defensiveness than I intended. “Have you learned anything since I told you?”
Endora’s mouth parted, but she didn’t speak.
“I didn’t think so,” I spat, pivoting again and marching toward the double doors.
No guard stood outside, all of them summoned to the fight downstairs except Isa, who was inside the suite.
“You’re going to get sucked back in by her!” Endora called after me, but I ignored her, letting myself into the rooms without knocking.
I had no intention of being “sucked” back into anything, but I didn’t tell Endora that I’d been terrified the whole time that Agnan had located Mirielle. I just needed to see her with my own eyes. As furious as I was with her, I couldn’t help but feel some compassion for her. She had clearly been trying to show me the entire walk through the Bellewoods that she was flooded with shame and regret for what had happened.
Isa jumped to attention the second I walked into my mother’s old suites, her small but sturdy frame erect and ready for battle. She appeared relieved to see it was me.
“Alpha!”
“Wait outside, Isa,” I instructed the guard.
Mirielle appeared in the doorway of the sitting room, hearing the guard call my name, her face twisted in a fusion of reassurance and worry.
“What’s going on down there?”
“What do you think?” I retorted. “Your friends have come to get you.”
She shook her fiery waves passionately, approaching me as Isa saw herself out into the hallway, closing the door in her wake. “No,” Mirielle insisted. “It’s not me they want.”
I rolled my eyes and sat on the sofa, but I couldn’t deny the insurmountable sense of ease I felt knowing that she wasn’t harmed.
I cared about her. I couldn’t just turn that off, as much as I’d like to. I loved her.
The understanding frustrated me. I didn’t want to feel this way, and yet…
“Zen… Alpha,” Mirielle mumbled, tentatively sitting across from me. “I never wanted any of this.”
I refused to look at her, the trouble she had caused impossible to ignore, but I also couldn’t overlook the way she made me feel. The contrition painted all over her face wasn’t fake. Agnan had come after her, too, and she hadn’t run off with him again.
Maybe it was time to listen to what she had to say. She knew Agnan well. If anyone could take him on, it might just be Mirielle.
“Tell me everything,” I ordered her. “Start from the beginning.”
Mirielle sat back on the settee, biting on her lower lip, and I released a low grunt of disapproval. “I mean it, Mirielle. Tell me everything. Every sordid detail. You claim you aren’t with him—”
“I’m not!” she agreed quickly.
“Then prove it. Tell me what you know.”
Inhaling, she nodded and began, her chin falling.
