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Kiran goes back to staring into the fire, but Evander fixes his gaze on me. He looks like he’s about to say something, but then his eyes flick behind me, toward the mouth of the cave. A smile, bright and relieved, grazes his lips.
“What?” I ask, turning to find that outside, the snow has ceased.
“I think we’re going home, Blaise.”
A firm hand comes down on my shoulder as I perch my leg onto the wagon bed, about to step in.
I flinch.
Because it’s not Evander.
Kiran clears his throat and jerks his hand back to his side. “I just wanted to apologize again for harming you earlier. That Marthala creature was in my head, but Evander saw past her, so clearly that’s no excuse.”
I turn to face Kiran and examine the set nature of his jaw, the molten fire in his eyes. Only hours ago, I was pondering whether to ask him for help. Wondering if perhaps he’d see in me the same love he has for Asha, and have enough sympathy for me to help.
Thanks to Marthala, I now know the answer.
“No hard feelings,” I say, because it’s true.
Kiran and I are the same, but that doesn’t matter. Because when it comes down to which of us gets our happy ending, I know whose I’ll choose.
PART II
LIAR
CHAPTER 9
PIPER
I’ve always prided myself on being the most paranoid person in the room.
It comes with the territory—kidnapping children for a living from the ripe age of twelve tends to do that to a person.
It seems, however, that I’ve been displaced.
Lydia, Princess of Naenden, also known as the Umbra—though that’s supposed to be a secret—has usurped me.
The female wouldn’t drink a drop of nectar from a honeysuckle without first offering it to a stranger.
That wouldn’t be so inconvenient, except that she forces Marcus, Amity, and me to follow the same protocol.
As if I hadn’t learned to detect poison in my goblets from the time I could taste the difference between sweet and sour. I have few things for which to thank Bronger, the man who had raised me to be his head trafficker, but survival skills definitely make the scant list.
“She really is going to do this every time, isn’t she?” Marcus sits atop a tavern barstool to my left, playing with my hand under the counter, bringing a blush to my cheeks. Amity, our unofficially adopted daughter, bounces excitedly on her tiptoes before scrambling onto the barstool to my right.
Traveling with Amity has been another thing to which Lydia has had to adjust. Apparently, our guide is used to frequenting the seedier taverns and inns for daily needs, none of which Marcus or I would typically let Amity go anywhere near.
Lydia grumbles about it, of course, claiming the two of us to be overprotective. We mostly just chuckle over Lydia’s stunned expression every time Amity speaks to her.
It’s clear Lydia is not used to being around children and doesn’t know what to make of Amity’s bluntness. Which is ironic, since Lydia is probably the most blunt person I’ve ever met.
That, and the most insistent on checking for poison in our goblets.
That’s exactly what she’s currently doing, draping herself over the bar and batting her eyelashes at the male sitting beside her.
From the looks of her, you would think she’s drunk, though Elias explained that Lydia can hardly stand the scent of ale. He never explained the reasoning, but I’ve heard enough about the late King of Naenden, known enough fathers like Amity’s, to have made my own assumptions.
Lydia leans in close to the stranger, who blinks rapidly as if he’s trying to decide whether this is actually happening to him, whether a female as stunning as Lydia could actually be flirting with him.
