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“You’re detained under charges of conspiring with Razak to raze the Court of Love, to infiltrate the Court of War, the attempted poisoning—”
“What?!” I dug my heels into the floorboards, but two of the three had locked my arms under theirs, and they far outmuscled me. “Stop! Wait!” They marched me down the corridor. “At least let me collect my belongings?” I didn’t have any, but I needed time to think, to stop my head from spinning and to think of a way out of this, even if it included climbing from a damned window to escape them. This was insanity. I hadn’t done any of those things against my own court or War’s. I’d tried tostopRazak.
“Hey!” Ellyn cried behind us. “Stop there, you can’t take him. Arin!”
Draven would stop them. We’d get to the foot of the stairs, he’d see, and he’d wield his daggers, stopping them in their tracks. They’d reconsider my arrest then.
We stumbled to the bottom of the stairs.
Draven stood at the bar, already close, still finishing his wine.
“Draven!” I called, struggling anew in the men’s grip. “Help me.”
He didn’t move.
“Draven?”
He stared into his tankard. Couldn’t he hear me?
“Draven, they’re arresting me. Tell them it’s wrong, tell them—” I bucked and writhed. “Let go, let me go!”
He lifted his eyes and stared with no surprise, no anger, barely alarmed, as though he’d been waiting for this. As though he’d… known.
I twisted and tried to fix him in my sights, but Justice’s enforcers shoved me through the inn door and outside into cold night air, where a prison wagon waited, its horses chomping at their bits. No, they couldn’t put me behind bars. Alone. Trapping me behind another locked door. Not again. I’d spent years behind a door, locked away. I couldn’t do that again.
“Draven!”
I couldn’t go in there, in that wagon with bars on the window. Locked away again. “No, stop! Don’t. This isn’t right. Draven!” Why wasn’t Draven doing anything, why wasn’t he stopping them?
An enforcer flung open the wagon’s rear door, and the pair threw me inside. I sprawled onto my hands and knees, turned, and sprang at the door.
It slammed closed, plunging me into near darkness. I fell against it, then hammered a fist against the scored wood. The only light came through the narrow window. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be happening. It was a dream, a nightmare.
Arrested as a conspirator against my own court, against the Court of War? How?
I peered through the window. “You’re making a mistake.”
The inn door opened. “Draven, tell them!” Yes, he’d tell them now, and they’d unlock this door.
Draven said something to one of the enforcers. They nodded. Yes, yes, this was it, they’d let me go. Draven strode toward the wagon. The light from the inn’s windows washed over his grim face.
“Draven… stop them.”
“I’m sorry, Arin.”
Sorry? Sorry for what? Whatever this was, he didn’t want it to happen, but he’d known it was coming. None of this was a surprise. He wasn’t fighting, raging, demanding my freedom.
Becausehe’d known.
Our meeting at the Overlook Inn had been arranged weeks ago. Only three of us knew. Me, Lark, and Draven.
Draven had told Justice I’d be here. Draven had brought them here,for me.
“You did this?” I hissed.
He’dbetrayedme. They’d take me to Justice; they’d put me on trial as a traitor to the Court of War and my own court. They believed I conspiredwithRazak! And Draven had aided them? I didn’t want to believe it, not Draven, but his face and its guilt showed the truth.
His cheek twitched. “There was no choice. I don’t expect you to understand, but I am sorry.”
