“I want to figure out what dragon might claim me.” It was the truth, and suddenly I wished he didn’t know.
Because if I knew what dragon might claim me, I might understand Fieran’s plans.
Ander was watching us both with a carefully blank expression. I desperately wanted to ask him if he knew what had just happened.
“Let’s get back,” Ander said. “You both need rest, not dreams.”
“We could swing by the kitchens,” Tay said optimistically. “Do you not have midnight snacks like Bismyth?”
Tay seemed completely normal as he bantered with us both, and Ander was his usual self—kind but a bit clipped, as if he were above us and our stomachs.
I went into my room, but no sooner had Tay’s door closed than I was sneaking back out into the hall.
Ander filled the doorway to his room, and he beckoned me as soon as he saw me. I moved silently down the hall and he stepped back, letting me into his room before he closed the door.
“What happened to him?” I whispered.
The glazed look in Tay’s eyes reminded me of the way the mortals had danced in those cages, as if their bodies were present but their minds a thousand miles away.
“It looks to me like the queen’s enchantment,” he said grimly.
“What does that mean? What can she do to him?” My voice sounded as wild as I felt.
“Cara,” he said gently, calmly. “It means she can control him. It’s not like a casting spell, she can’t see through his eyes or hear what he hears. He’ll have to report back to her.”
I paced his room. Ander’s room was even larger than mine but strangely spare. The stone walls were hung with a few tapestries, all in muted golds and deep rusts that echoed Clan Amber’s colors.
“I need to get him home,” I told Ander. “Will the queen let him go?”
Ander hesitated, and that was answer enough. “I can have him brought home as soon as day breaks. But I fear that the queen will just fetch him again, or have him walk across the kingdom to her. If he’shere, we can protect him.”
“Can you?” I asked tartly. He was convinced Fear would get us all killed with his rebellion against the queen; Ander wouldn’t choose my brother over the safety of all Clan Amber.
Ander hesitated. “I’ll try.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I believed him, but I already knew I would be headed to Clan Bismyth—and Fieran—as soon as I could. “What do we do to help him?”
“Pretend everything is normal. If he reports back to the queen that you don’t trust him, she might call him back to her side. For now, she has every reason to keep him here where he can spy…and where we can watch over him.” His gaze softened. “But don’t trust him.”
The words twisted inside me. “I won’t.”
Forty-Eight
The next morning, I managed to slipupthe stairs to Bismyth while everyone else was going down.
I stopped at the doorway; the door stood open, but it was still closed tome.
Rees, however, had no such compunctions and darted inside. I grabbed for him, but he streaked off, and I winced, knowing I’d be face-to-face with Fieran soon. As much as I wanted that, I also dreaded it.
Asrael appeared a moment later, Rees wrapping around his legs like a looming shadow that also happened to be desperate for love. “What are you doing here?”
He sounded so cold that it scraped at my nerves. I hadn’t thought Asrael and I werefriends, but I hadn’t suspected that his tolerance of me was solely for Fieran’s sake, either.
“I need to speak to Fear.” My voice faltered, mortal-weak in the face of the shifter’s anger. The sound of it irritated me, so I lifted my chin and snapped, “Fieran already has one dog at his heels to snap at anyone who tries to enter his territory. Surely he doesn’t need you too.”
Asrael favored me with a long, unreadable look. “How is Ander?”
