“Try it,” I said quietly. “Bring me to the gallows and watch the city burn under Thorne’s fire or rot under the blight. You cannot hang me without hanging yourselves for what we did.”
“How do we even contain this blight, Magister Corvo?” Elwin asked, all cool contempt while Isolde fumed.
“I do not know,” Evie admitted. “But naming what happened and breaking the silence is a start.”
Oh, Evie. Innocent in spite of the power that ran through her, a power that mingled with mine. I had told her at the keep that the Crown would never own this. Neither would the academy. There is no bargaining with kings and wizards.
I would have to teach her that myself. After we survived the siege. After the city stopped burning. This was not the time for lessons in repentance.
Elwin sneered. “You parade before us, reveal the Court’s deepest secret with your chancellor at your side, and then tell us you have no idea what to do?” His tone was pure condescension. It woke the storm in me. The urge to turn him to ash rippled through my blood.
Bramwell looked lost. He tugged at Evie’s sleeve as if to say, “We should go.” He and she belonged to the Council of Farming. They had no place airing Court sins before the king.
“Enough,” Lionel said, his voice filling the hall. “Take your posts. We will meet again whenthis is over.”
I saw thebutsin Evie’s eyes. She wanted to contest it, to plead to be heard. But she would only make a fool of herself, and this was no time to argue with the king. She would risk everything to set things right, her pure heart the only light in the room. That was why I lo?—
What was I about to say?
Bramwell tugged at her arm again. “Let’s leave, Magister,” he said. “We need to go to safety.” He was her superior, but in that moment he looked like a child pleading with his mother to leave.
Everyone filed out. Anger, disappointment, and thin contempt masked their faces. I lingered a breath.
“Where will you stand?” I asked Lionel.
He sighed and leaned back on his marble throne. “Right beside you.”
So he would hold the leash himself.
I was about to leave when his voice stopped me. “Word of Drachenfels must never get out, Kael. You know this.” I did. “I take it you will take the necessary precautions.”
“Understood, Your Highness.” I did not look back.
He meant I watch her. He meant she must be silenced—by force, by magic, or by reason. The first two were off the table. So I would have totalkher into silence.
I had never been more uncertain.
Evie waited outside the audience hall. Bramwell had gone. Her whole body trembled with cold and loneliness. She was angry. “Before you say anything, I know that went poorly. Butyoumust speak to the king. He listens to you.”
“We do not have time for this, Evie. The city is about to blow. Go to the lower halls and stay there until I find you.”
She stared. Her eyes accused me and then fell to resignation. Her lips quivered. She was plainly terrified. “I want to stay with you.”
My heart stuttered. She was beautiful when she was afraid. “You can’t.”
“What will we do about Drachenfels?” Her voice was almost a plea.
I exhaled. “Nothing for now. Let it lie. Go to the dungeon. Now.”
I walked away with a piece of my chest snatched out. Her gaze clung to me like a shroud. At last, her footsteps receded. She moved toward the south tower for safety.
I rounded the corner when someone seized my arm. Surprise made me flinch. I twisted, broke the grip, and pushed them back. Magic coursed through my veins. I sent a pulse through my hand and pinned them to the opposite wall.
It was Isolde.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I barked.
She lifted her chin, still held to the stone by my power. “I wanted to warn you, Kael.” Her voice trembled under the force I kept on her. “I signed my name on those writs too. If the truth comes out, it will not only ruin you. It will destroy the king and the Court.”
