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“My ‘home’?” He laughed. “I can tell you precisely what Razak’s bedchamber looks like from the end of a leash, and the council chamber, from every corner to every crack in the floorboards, but as for the court or the city itself, I’ve only seen its slums. Do not mistake me for anything more than a pet. I’m certainly not the prince he’s tried to proclaim me to be.”
But Lark knew more about his court than Draven or I did. There had to be a way to use that. “Then you don’t know where Pain’s crown is?”
He tapped his cup. “Actually, I may know.”
In truth, Lark was our only hope. He was the closest person alive to Razak. He’d spent years with the Prince of Pain. “What ifwestole it?” I suggested.
“Take Pain’s crown?” Lark mused aloud. “It’s possible, I suppose. Razak won’t expect it. Nobody will expect it, because it’s insane.”
“Exactly.” I grinned. “It’s perfectly mad.”
He leaned forward. All around, the hubbub in the feasting tent continued, almost drowning out his hushed voice. “I have no power there, Arin. Worse, I’m nothing there. Even if we were to get inside, I’d be thrown into Razak’s chamber, and you? If they find out who you are, I suspect they’d hang you, at the very least. I’d prefer not to think on it.”
“Then we go as other people, in disguise.” I was grasping at straws some, but it felt like something. Like an idea we could build upon. We had to get out in front of Razak, and this was the only way.
“The council are too close-knit to let strangers inside their circle, and if the crown is where I think it is, then no outsider will be permitted access. Disguises won’t help.”
“There must be a way. We’d only need access for a short while. Any longer and Razak would learn of it. A few days, at most—”
“Arin, it’s too dangerous.”
“No, it’s not. We can do this. We just need to think on it some more. There’s a way.”
He smiled, and now the smile was soft and genuine, and so wholly Lark that the love I sometimes wished I didn’t have for him made my heart both swell and flutter at once.
“I wish I had your abundance of hope and optimism,” he said. “Two things the Court of Pain do not foster.”
“You said it wasn’t so bad there.”
“No.” He laughed bitterly. “I said, it looks bad from the outside looking in, because I’ve lived it. It’s my life. For you—no. This is ludicrous. It’s impossible. Pain will chew you up and spit you out.”
“I’m not the fragile Prince of Flowers everyone believes me to be.”
“Oh, I know. I’ve felt your blade at my throat.” His expression changed, turning intrigued and locking on to me without blinking. Heat simmering. What was I missing? Why was he staring with the same heavy-lidded intensity he’d worn last night when I’d begged him to finish me?
“What?”
“I’m imagining you in purple and black, and it’s decidedly arousing.”
I leaned closer now too and the camp in my peripheral vision blurred into an indifferent haze behind Lark’s beautiful eyes. “Then put me in purple and black. We will steal Pain’s crown. How do we do this? How do we make it happen?”
He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. I’d already seen him in purple and black, as a prince, standing beside his brother, the two of them so alike—
The idea struck so hard, I dropped back. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Lark smirked. “I know that look. We’re all doomed.”
I knew how we could do this, and I knew it would work. But it all hinged on Lark pretending to be the one thing he hated more than anything else in this world.
“I apologize,” Draven said, returning to our table. “There was something I had to attend to. You’ve barely eaten, both of you.” He sat next to me and stilled, picking up on our tension. “What did I miss?”
“We have a plan.” I smirked.
“We do?” They asked together.
“And you’re both going to hate it.”
CHAPTER8
