“I thought perhaps he’d already captured you, before the loss of Calimber,” Everett said, rubbing his ink-stained fingers on his unshaven chin. “He spends a lot of time in the palace dungeon.”
I frowned. “How do you know that?”
“We . . . follow him sometimes.”
My eyes widened, and I glanced at Delysia.
She nodded. “We use the secret passages. Mostly the ones we’re sure he doesn’t know about. We were trying to see if he knew anything about you he wasn’t telling us.”
“That was incredibly braveandincredibly stupid,” I said, even as my heart warmed at their concern. “Do you have any idea what he might’ve done if he’d caught you spying on him?”
Delysia’s eyes, so like our mother’s, hardened. “We were right next to him when he paraded our father’s head and body around the city. We knew what kind of man he was during the Pravaran rebellion. Webothtried to warn you about him.”
I staggered back a step. Her words peeled the thin skin off a barely healed wound.
She was right. They’d shared their misgivings several times. I’d thought they were jealous at first, that I was to train under such a powerful High Enforcer. That I wouldn’t have to fill the role Father wanted me to, as they did.
And then I tossed their worries away because I feared if I accepted them, I would have to admit my own mistakes in trusting Renwell.
But the damage was already done, and far from over.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I should’ve listened. I just... couldn’t in those moments.”
Delysia’s face softened. “I know. When Renwell said you had joined the rebels who had tried to assassinate Father, it gave me pride, not disappointment, as heprobably intended.”
I smiled. “I hope Mother would have felt the same.”
Delysia frowned. “What do you mean?”
I sat down on one of Delysia’s—Mother’s—settees. Everett and Delysia joined me as I told them what our mother had done, how Aiden had helped her, and how our father had covered it up.
Delysia wept into her handkerchief. Everett dashed at his eyes with the embroidered sleeve of his jacket.
“Is that why you went with them?” Delysia asked, her eyes pink and swollen. “Because you found out what really happened with Mother?”
I shook my head. “Not at first. But I knew I needed to after Arduen’s Mountain. I helped free the prisoners and destroy the mine for her. And for Rellmira. Now I’m going to do the same for you.”
Delysia and Everett shared a look. It pinched my heart that I was on the outside of it. They’d had to survive in a different way than I had. It’d clearly brought them closer.
“We don’t have anywhere to go,” Everett said, leaning back in a velvet armchair. “Renwell’s announcement of Father’s usurpation, coupled with our lack of relationships outside this palace, has truly sealed our fates here.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You want to stay? With him? After all the warnings you gave me?—”
“He doesn’t hurt us,” Delysia interrupted. “He lies to us, keeps secrets, sure. But what good would we do on the street? Who could we trust to help us? We can trust Renwell to be untrustworthy. And we were hoping—before he surmised you’d died in Calimber—that you would come back and we could help you overthrow him.” Delysia smiled, a distant look in her eyes. “Then I would run away with Henry, and Everett could be a Teacher in one of the Temples.”
I glanced at Everett with raised eyebrows.
He smiled sheepishly. “It’s what I’ve always wanted. I just never thought it would be possible with becoming king and all.”
It made sense. And judging by the ink stains on Everett’s fingers, Renwell was still allowing him to use the library. Giving Everett what he wanted until Renwell needed something in return, no doubt.
“But... I need to get you out of here,” I said, still surprised I had to argue with them on this. I’d thought they’d be desperate to leave. “It’s going to be too dangerous for you to stay.”
“Why?” Delysia demanded, crushing her soiled handkerchief in her fist. “Is that why you’re here now? What are you going to do?”
I hesitated. “I shouldn’t say it here.”
“Closet,” both my siblings said.
