Her? Who was “her”? It was then Eira realized in all the time she’d known Olivin, which admittedly wasn’t long, she’d never heard him even so much as mention a partner, or interest.
Was it a scorned lover who joined the Pillars? Or perhaps an old friend who was also missing? The questions burned but weren’t going to be answered now. Alyss was already moving thefloorboards, scrambling up. The rest of them followed, the floor back in place in a blink.
“—are we going to do?” Noelle said worriedly from the hall.
“I don’t know,” Cullen replied. Their voices were low and whispered.
“We can’t tell them they’re not here, not when we said they were just upstairs. We should’ve said that they’re sick instead of sleeping. Mother, where would they go?Howdid they go?”
“Go where?” Eira asked. “We’re right here.”
Cullen and Noelle looked as if they had seen a ghost. Neither moved, though their eyes bounced between the four of them.
“Just wherewereyou two?” Noelle hissed, pointing a finger in Eira’s face. “We scoured this whole place from top to bottom and neither of you were here and—Ducot, where in the Mother’s name did you come from? And Olivin—” Heavy knocking on the front door interrupted her.
“We’ll speak later.” Eira started for the door. “I assume they’re conducting some kind of surprise inspection?”
“How did you know?” Cullen asked under his breath. “Just whatwereyou doing?”
She gave him a slight smile. “What I’m good at. Making trouble.”
“Solaris, we will enter in three—”
Eira opened wide the door. She arched an eyebrow at the man on the other side. “It’s forbidden for competitors to enter abodes that aren’t theirs without express permission, but it’s fine for the attendants?”
“This is a matter of security,” he said stiffly. “We have reason to believe that someone might have infiltrated the games and need to verify the presence of all competitors to ensure nothing nefarious has occurred.”
27
“Step outside, please,” the attendant commanded.
“Something possibly nefarious? Terrifying.” Eira did as she was told, fighting a slight smile when she felt a small pulse of Alyss’s magic. The floorboards were no doubt in the process of knitting together seamlessly as Eira stepped into the central street of the village. “I do hope you find whoever infiltrated our security.”
“We will do our best.” The attendant paused. “Why are the two of you here?”
“We gave them permission to be here,” Noelle said firmly.
“You didn’t mention them earlier when we first announced we’d be searching.” The attendant narrowed his eyes at Ducot and Olivin. “Are you sure they have your permission?”
“Absolutely,” Cullen said.
“Yes.” Noelle took a small step closer to Ducot.
“Andwhyare they here? Isn’t it a bit late to still be together?”
Eira searched for a quick explanation. What could she say that would be believable? In her mind this was escalating. If the man was a Pillar then he would use anything she said as an excuse to accuse Ducot, or Olivin, or both, for being “suspicious.” He’d take them for “questioning” or some otherequally poor excuse and then they’d go the way of Yonlin. She had no proof he was a Pillar, but also no proof he wasn’t. It’d be safer to assume he was.
“We only just wrapped up the picnic,” Alyss said. The bag containing her new journal was nowhere to be seen. She’d no doubt stashed it somewhere while Eira wasn’t looking—she could always trust her friend to think ahead.
“The picnic ended an hour ago.” The man had a gleam to his eye that had Eira’s hopes sinking further. “Now, why are they here?”
“I don’t think we owe you an explanation.” Cullen put on his authoritative, lordly voice.
The attendant was unbothered. “Failure to comply might result in my having to disqualify you.”
“How is that fair?” Noelle balked.
“There’s a simple explanation.” Eira had to defuse the situation somehow. She had to think of something that couldn’t be questioned. “They’re here because…” She trailed off as the attendant’s eyes swung back to her.
