“I can,” Deneya admitted. “I never understood that man, but he was the secretive sort. And he suspected we might be closing in on him even then. He might have seen the boy as an opportunity to have an agent on the outside. Someone who could act in his stead and who wouldn’t be questioned by his most devout followers.” Deneya cursed and slammed her fist into the table. Her knuckles were bloody, but she didn’t so much as wince. “We missed it. All of us.”
“Every secret is usually supported by several more,” Lorn said solemnly.
“We are the ones who need to know them, all the way down.” Deneya inspected her knuckles, sighed, and murmured some Lightspinning. Glyphs rotated over the wounds and knitted the flesh. “So Ferro is Ulvarth’s son and the manor was his home, his birthright.”
“The key is to figure out whatexactlyFerro has been working toward this whole time,” Eira said, continuing to inject herself into the conversation.
“Bringing his father back to power,” Rebec gave Eira a roll of her eyes. Eira resisted returning the expression.
“Buthow? Freeing Ulvarth would’ve been the first step.” Eira spoke over Deneya’s objection that Ulvarth was dead. She didn’t believe it in the slightest anymore. “Then they see the treaty and the tournament as an opportunity to undermine Lumeria’s rule. But they need something to justify them being ordained by the goddess. What would—”
“What are your orders?” If the sharpness of the question to Deneya was any indication, Rebec clearly had had enough of Eira’s interjections.
Eira pursed her lips. She was already in trouble as it was.
“What book did you find this information in?” Deneya glanced between Alyss and Noelle. “I’ll need it to report to the queen.”
“I…” Noelle picked at her fingers in a guilty motion Eira had never seen from the self-assured woman. “I might have torched it.”
“What?” Lorn’s eyes were consumed by white as he stared, utterly horrified.
“It’s not my fault! Everything happened so fast. The man lunged, and grabbed the book, and then I saw he had a dagger in his other hand… I acted on instinct.” Noelle put her hands on her hips and regained her composure. “I defended myself and I’m not going to apologize for it. But the book was caught in the crossfire. And I am a bit sorry about that.”
Deneya sighed and looked to Lorn. “You know what I’m about to ask, right?”
“I’ll see if I can find another copy, or the original records, or a Lark that knows about that book and can transcribe something.” Lorn put the pages back into the folio and returned them to their safe in the back of the room.
“And me?” Rebec asked.
“You’re going to turn over that manor, from top to bottom, and make sure there’s no entries or passages we don’t know about. I don’t want a rat to shit in that place without a shadow knowing.”
“Understood.”
“What about people working in the manor?” Eira had yet to bring up Harrot. “I think that—”
“They’ve all long been vetted.” Deneya brushed off the notion.
“But—”
“That is the final word on the matter.” The Court of Shadows was so self-assured in their power and they had been for so long that they weren’t looking at what was actually there. That power they thought was cemented was slowly slipping from their grasp, eroding away by assuming they were in control.
Eira wanted to scream. She didn’t for the sake of her friends.
“What about us?” Alyss asked, motioning to her and Noelle.
The keen, horrible weight of disappointment seeped into the air from Deneya’s pores at the question. Even Alyss and Noelle could feel it. But the one Deneya’s stare lingered on the longest, the one it held the most weight for, was Eira.
She choked down an apology. The words wouldn’t matter now. They wouldn’t help Deneya sort things out. Or smooth over the messes Eira had made.
“You have done more to endanger and hinder the Court of Shadows than even our enemies of late. You’re a risk we simply can no longer bear.”
“But I—”
Deneya held up a hand, stopping Eira and confirming what Eira already knew. It didn’t matter what she said. Deneya had already made up her mind.
“We’re going to return the three of you to the manor. And on pain of death you are going tostay thereand keep your mouths shut.”
As if starting now, Alyss and Noelle nodded mutely.
