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“What are you doing?” Endora asked, padding around behind the desk.
“Research.”
“What research?” Endora pressed, looking at the screen, and I started to respond as Mirielle cleared her throat.
I glanced at her curiously, and she shook her head, but Endora caught the look.
“I can’t help you if you two don’t tell me what you found out when you went into the woods. I’m the one who sent you out there, remember?”
“You didn’t tell her?” I asked Mirielle.
“I wouldn’t know what to tell her.”
That I could understand.
“It’s a lot to swallow,” I promised the enchantress.
Endora grinned wickedly, winking. “You’d be amazed what I can swallow,” she purred.
I groaned in disgust.
“Zen thinks I’m… that my mother…” Mirielle babbled incoherently.
“She’s Audrina’s daughter, lost princess of the Original kingdom,” I concluded. Endora fell back in such a dramatic fashion, I laughed aloud, but Mirielle was less amused.
The enchantress collected herself and stared at me. “You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.”
“No one is going to believe this, Zen,” Mirielle told me coldly, spinning away from the desk to flop down on the sofa.
“It doesn’t matter what they believe,” I insisted. “It’s true. We have all the proof we need. I’ve seen it, and you’ve seen it. And we know now why Agnan has kept you alive and close for so long.”
“I don’t believe it!” Endora squawked, finding her voice. “But Agnan hates the royals! The Order of Souls has made it their life mission to take them out, starting with the Originals!”
“Maybe the Order has,” I remarked thoughtfully, sitting back in my chair. “But Agnan might have had something else in mind all along.”
Mirielle leaned forward, placing her forearms on her knees to stare at me pensively. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” I cocked my head. “He’s had ample opportunity to kill me already, hasn’t he?”
Her brow knit as if she was pained by the idea, but she nodded.
“In fact, he could have employed you to do it when you were here. But instead, he took you back with him when he gave your memories back. Why? What did he say to you then?”
She sank against the cushions and scrunched up her eyebrows in deep thought. “Something about being useful later or something. I don’t remember his exact words. He said he couldn’t let me kill you because of all the guards.”
She nodded slowly, as if my logic was settling in. “But you’re right. He’s been playing a long game. If he only wanted to take you out like the Order has always wanted to do, he could have done it a dozen times already.”
“He wants something else from you and from me. He knows who you are, I’m sure of it, and he wants to use that to his advantage somehow.”
“But that goes against the Order.” Mirielle shook her head. “The Order is about annihilating the royals. That’s all there is to it.”
“I don’t think he gives a shit about the Order,” I insisted. “And if he’s running things, Miri, we can end the Order with him relatively easily.”
“He still has an army of orphans that he will use as a shield—and as weapons,” she reminded me.
“I haven’t forgotten that,” I agreed. “We have to devise a plan to draw him out on his own.”
