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“Fine.” Malcolm pushed himself off the wall, held his hands behind him in an almost-military stance. The daggers on his harness caught the falling light. “This has already progressed too far to stop now. Tell us the logistics.”
“Unless you’re planning to undertake all of this entirely on your own,” Alie murmured. “Council be damned.”
Bastian shook his head. “No, Lore was right. You’re my council, I should treat you as such. This was a onetime occurrence; in the future, I’ll consult at least one of you before making such a decision.”
Alie glanced at Lore, her lip between her teeth, then looked away.
“The guards will stay in the Church,” Bastian said. “Where the Presque Mort can keep an eye on them.”
“Delightful,” Malcolm muttered. “Are we putting them up in the cloisters?”
“Put them wherever you have room and can closely watch their movements. We want to keep them away from Maxon and Caius as much as possible, so we can better control what kind of information is getting back to Kirythea—we don’t want the Kirythean guards hearing too many rumors we can’t monitor. Maxon and Caius, we’ll keep in the southeast turret. It seemed to work fine the last time we had spies in the Citadel.” The last time, when the spies were Lore and Gabe, when they’d been led every step of the way down the path Anton and August wanted taken. Lore supposed that did bode well. Though Maxon and Caius were probably better spies than she and Gabe ever were.
“So we’re just accepting that they’re spies,” she said.
“Of course they are.” Bastian picked up his circlet, spun it around on one finger.
“So how do we know they aren’t going to try to assassinate you, or stage a coup, or a whole host of other bad things that an enemy delegation could do from inside your stronghold?”
Bastian laughed, a hoarse bark of sound. “I truly don’t think we have to worry about that. I can take care of myself, beloved.”
Beloved. That was new.
Across the room, Gabe glowered.
In the window, the sun finally died, its fiery burn fading to soft lavender twilight.
CHAPTER SIX
Your King is your lord, a shepherding partner who will lead you in the way you should go. All authority I grant him; look to him as you would to Me.
—The Book of Mortal Law, Tract 903 (green text, spoken by Apollius to Gerard Arceneaux)
She knew it was a dream because there was no scar on her palm. Her hands stretched out, white and unblemished, softly touching the deep-brown bark of the tree in front of her.
That was the first sign. The second was the colors—they were so vibrant Lore felt like she should squint, but in the dream, her eyes were used to such saturation. The green leaves were so deep an emerald that the veins in them looked nearly blue, the cloudless sky a brilliant sapphire streaked in violet.
Lore took a deep breath. There was no charred smell, no smoke, and it calmed her, somewhat. There was no tug at her chest, no water rushing over her ankles, no shadowy figure by her side. It was a dream, but it wasn’t dangerous.
Not in the same way.
“It’s yours.”
That voice, coming from behind her… she both recognized it and didn’t, somehow knew its contours though the tone and cadence were new. Still, they itched at a memory, like maybe she’d heard them recently, or something that sounded similar.
Hands came around her waist. Real-Lore, locked somewhere in the recesses of her brain, eyed the hands with apprehension, but dream-Lore leaned back, resting against a strong chest like she’d done it a thousand times before. “It’s a start,” she sighed, alien pain in her voice. How strange, to hear a heartache, feel it coming from your throat, and have no context for it. “And no one but us can come here?”
The arms around her waist tightened, palms flattening over her hips and pulling her closer. “No one but us.”
“And the others.”
“And the others,” the voice agreed, with barely hidden irritation.
“Lore.”
It was still dark out, but Bastian’s voice reverberated through the door at her back. He must be standing close, his hand pressed to the wood, his head bowed forward. Were the door not there, he’d probably be touching her.
Lore didn’t answer. She shifted her position, though, making sure her shoulders rasped over the wood of the door, so he’d know there was no way she hadn’t heard him. She hadn’t lit candles, her room blanketed in darkness, but he somehow knew she was awake. That shouldn’t surprise her, she supposed.
