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“Do you have any better ideas?” Draven groused.
I didn’t. And that was a problem. I always had ideas. But not this time.
I was out of my depth.
Adrift.
“Should he even be out of bed?” Draven whispered, not quietly enough.
“You try keeping him there,” Arin replied.
I looked down at my folded arms to where my borrowed shirt rode up my scarred wrist. “It’s really quite simple. A single cuff will suffice.”
They both fell silent.
I wasn’t angry at them, but they were so easy to hurt. Pain was familiar, my only friend. I huffed and turned to face them both. “I’m sorry... for being an asshole.”
“But you’re so good at it.” Draven grinned.
“I see you got all your voice back. How wonderful.”
He laughed, and it felt good, seeing him smile, and Arin too. Were we friends? Were friends something I had now? No, friends were dangerous liabilities, weaknesses Razak could use to get to me. Better not to have friends, and not have them hurt.
I started down the corridor. “I need to talk to Razak.” They’d chase, and argue, but they wouldn’t stop me.
“What? No.” Arin jogged alongside, trying to keep up. “Lark, no. He’ll get inside your head.”
“He’s always in my head.”
“Lark—”
“What choice do we have?” I stopped, making Arin stop and Draven saunter over. “He won’t talk to Draven. He’ll take any opportunity to bait you, Arin. But me? He’ll want me to know he’s won. He might make a mistake, say something he shouldn’t. I have to go to him.”
“Then I’m coming in with you,” Arin said. I rather liked this protective side to him. He’d always had it, but now he let it show.
It didn’t change my mind though. “No. You can’t. I go alone or he won’t talk.”
He glanced at Draven. The warlord shrugged.
We had no more time to waste. I left the pair of them in the corridor and hurried toward the detainment area. The first pair of guards barred my way, refusing to let me though, until Draven appeared. I thanked him with a nod and he followed me, smoothing the way with each set of guards, until the final door.
The cell they kept Razak in consisted of an iron cage inside a stone room. He sat cross-legged in the middle, hands on his knees, too calm. He didn’t look like a man about to face trial for countless murders and Justice Ines’s disappearance.
I gripped the bars.
We were alone. No guards. They remained outside with Draven. It was just my brother and I.
“Where’s the crown?” I asked.
Razak sighed and raised an eyebrow. “You should leave. You’re not welcome here. Ogden will have you killed if you stay.”
“And that would piss on your plans, as you’re the only one who is permitted to kill me.”
“Indeed.”
I couldn’t get to him behind these bars. But there had to be a way to make him slip up, something I could say that would anger him into revealing too much. “You know what I thought when they dragged my mother and me into your court, and I saw you?”
He listened, staring into my eyes.
