Seraphina’s lips pursed. Her brow furrowed. She didn’t like it. Not one bit—this business of her own Spymaster burning down buildings owned by her loyal, hardworking subjects.
But so long as no one had been hurt…
“How in the world didyoupurchase a printing press?” she blurted out, unable to let the matter go just yet.
“Not on the wages you pay me, that’s for certain.”
Seraphina delivered up to her friend a flat look. “Olivia.”
The other woman sighed, shooting a glance first to the left and then to the right. “All right. Do you remember that awful diamond necklace Tiberius tried to give you?”
She had always wondered why Olivia had wanted to keep that wretched thing. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, Idid. I’m still trying to decide what I’m going to do with the rest of the money I got for it. Who knows? Maybe I’ll purchase a ship and start my own trading company.” With a hint of her usual mischief, Olivia suggested, “Or perhaps I’ll just get another pet snake sincesomeonemade me give away my last one.”
Seraphina’s lips quirked into a smile. She had missed moments like these. Moments where she and Olivia could just…exist. Talk. Tease one another. “I refuse to sleep in the same room as a viper.”
Without missing a beat, Olivia pointed out, “You sleep with an usuru.”
Seraphina rolled her eyes. “That’shardlythe same thing and you know it.”
Alyx purred again, as if aware she was being talked about.
Olivia’s expression sobered. Sidling closer until their shoulders pressed against one another, her friend whispered, “But to answer the question you didn’t ask—I have the ringleader ofthosepamphlets in custody as well. A merchant by the name of Ivan Talbot.”
The other woman’s features hardened further. “He has family in Mysai. I’ve asked him every which way I know how and I can’t get him to give up the name of his superior. He claims it was all his idea.”
Seraphina took a renewed interest in the balcony railing, studying the pattern in the marble there. “But you think he’s lying,” she murmured.
Not a question. A statement. She knew Olivia.
Olivia thought everyone was lying.
“I have my suspicions on who is truly behind it. And besides, my being suspicious of everyone and everything has gotten me this far in life,” her friend confirmed. “The Lady willing, it’ll carry me further still.”
At mention of the Lady, Seraphina winced. “Olivia—”
Olivia shot her a sidelong look. “If you’re about to invite me to chapel again, Sera…don’t.”
Seraphina set her jaw, prepared to protest further, before a flurry of movement near the palace gates drew her attention that way.Riders. Riders coming in fast, their horses lathered with sweat and billowing vaporous breaths in the chill air.
Even from that distance, she recognized the pair of men at once. And the sight of them stopped her heart cold.
It was Tiberius and Tristan.
Back from the duchy of Coreto a full week early.
Chapter twenty-seven
Aldric
“Again!” he barked at the farm boys lying in the yard at his men’s feet. Panting. Sweating. Bruised. But they’d receive far more than merely bruises on the front if they didn’t shape up quickly.
Calix took up the call and shouted, “You heard His Majesty! On your feet! You can rest when we’ve retaken Arlund.”
His Majesty.
It had been one week since his kirei had declared to the world that he was the rightful King of Drakmor. One week since she had stood there in the middle of her study, shouting that Edmund was a worm, a pretender, a bastard. Thathe, Aldric Hargrave, was the only king sherecognized.
