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“I’m Dinah,” she says, and though I don’t think I’ve ever seen her, I recognize her now. The subtle similarities to her sister are written all over her—the curve of her nose and the deeper quality to their voices, and even the way they carry themselves. “You’re Blaise, and you must be Nox,” she says, nodding toward him. “Glad you made it back to this side of the Realms,” she says, rather politely, especially for someone who just had a knife pointed in our direction.
She beckons us to follow her, and after we shrug at each other, we do.
“Why’d you decide to trust us?” Nox asks, clearly confused.
Dinah looks up at him and offers a sad smile. “My family believes in second chances.”
Nox’s eyes glow with something, and he looks at me, then quickly turns away.
“But it’s really not up to me whether you’re punished,” she says, looking toward me with a slight bit of concern.
“What do you mean?” asks Nox.
“I mean, that decision is up to someone else.” She stops, biting her lip. “I’m afraid he’s not too happy with you at the moment.”
Dinah slips into the shadows.
I have a sneaking suspicion I know exactly who she’s leading us to.
I’m not expecting a warm reception.
CHAPTER 93
KIRAN
Light from Beezie’s lanterns in the main dining area streams into the cellar, highlighting flecks of dust that swirl in the air as Dinah’s slight frame descends the ladder.
Fin, Lydia, and I all tense as we await the news she brings.
When Tavi used her last moments to transport Fin and me outside of the palace, she didn’t send us far. We ended up dumped into an alleyway, where a beggar immediately reported to Dinah the appearance of two males who looked suspiciously like the deposed king and prince. Dinah hunted us down not long after, leading us to Bezzie, who, as it turned out, had not defected to Az, after all.
In fact, she had several choice words to say about the boy she’d always known was trouble.
We’ve been hiding out here ever since, in Bezzie’s hidden furnished basement, devising a plan to extract Asha from the palace. It’s been grueling—the waiting. The problem is that we’ve had difficulty finding a way into the palace that isn’t heavily guarded.
Not that I wouldn’t rip through hordes of guards to get to my wife. Not that I wouldn’t gladly die trying.
But if we die trying, and we fail to rescue her, then Asha will be the one to truly suffer.
So we’ve waited. We’ve spied. We’ve plotted.
Lydia and Elias joined us two days ago, bringing news that the body of Queen Abra had been found separated from her head in an abandoned warehouse on the border of Avelea and Dwellen.
There was no word regarding what happened, or the whereabouts of Piper or the parasite, who we assume escaped at the moment of Abra’s death.
Dinah looks at me first, holding a metallic lamp in her hands. “I think I can get into the palace in the early morning. Tonight maybe, even,” she says. “There’s a statue of Tionis in the graveyard quarter I doubt Az knows about. According to the guard schedule I snuck from one of their pockets, there are two gaps. The first, I’m pretty sure only I could get through. The guards on duty at that time aren’t sympathetic to our cause, but they are new. There’s a low risk they’ll recognize me if I sneak in dressed as a servant. If we want to go as a group, though, we’ll have to wait until just before sunrise, when there’s a gap in coverage.”
Relief lingers on the edges of my mind. It’s something. Not enough to banish the anxiety threatening to rip my chest cavity in two. But it’s something.
Just a few more hours, and hopefully I’ll have heard from Asha.
Assuming Dinah doesn’t get caught.
“But Kiran,” Dinah says. “There’s something else.”
Fin and I exchange a worried look.
Dinah sighs. “We have visitors.” She beckons to the hole in the ceiling, and two figures descend the ladder, both with too much ease to be natural.
