Puzzled, breath hitching, I tried to catch what he was saying but couldn’t make the words out over the droning of the wind.
The wind.
With a sick shock, the truth crashed over me—Llir was a Gustmouth—and I stood frozen, dumbfounded.
The air was swirling messily around him. A chaotic vortex. He muttered to it again.
Heart kicking wildly, I turned to leave. I was still clutching the heavy tower key in my fingers and, without thinking, I dropped it into my pocket, intending to vanish the way I’d come.
Thunk.
The noise was gunshot clear.
I looked down. The key was lying at my feet. I thrust my hand into the pocket—it had no bottom.These breeches were Rhianne’s, and the stitching had come loose.
A scrape behind me. A grunt of surprise. I lurched for the door, but a strong gust slammed it closed. Falling against it, I wrestled with the latch, but a second later, I felt Llir’s hands on me.
“Show yourself!”
He dragged me backward, his arm snaking up to try to hook around my throat.
I stumbled and fell, pulling his arms down with me, and we rolled, limbs knocking, my cloak tangling in his legs.
Before I really knew what I’d done, I thrust out my elbow, snapped it up into his jaw. He jerked back, grunting, and I staggered to my feet.
Breathless, we faced each other, Llir in a crouch. At some pointin the scuffle, my hood had come down, and I saw fierce recognition flare in his eyes.
“Of course it’s you,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking, sneerlike. His gaze was knife sharp, his hair tumbled by the wind. “Tigo said he’d come across you lurking. You were inmyroom, too, weren’t you? A week ago. What is it this time—come to scrub bird droppings off the battlements?”
I scowled back. Excuses whirled through my head—the ones I’d prepared in case I was caught in the castle—but none of them were going to fly up here.
Instead I stepped back, my shoulders sagging. “I…followed you,” I said eventually. “I saw you from my window. Wanted to know what you were doing.”
He stared at me, taken aback by my bluntness. But I couldn’t summon even the flimsiest lie. “Zennia—your old Floodmouth. She left a sort of diary. Said she’d spotted lights up here, and I…I guess I just got curious.”
At last he rose, flicking his tongue over his lips. “I suppose we should have just told you from the start. The others know: Tigo, Mawre, Rhianne. But”—his eyes darted intensely—“we didn’t know if we could trust you. Father…doesn’t like people knowing.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Goose bumps rose on my arms, and not because of the chill in the air.
This was it: the secret I needed. The secret the Cage could use against Rexim.
“It was obvious, then?” he added, massaging his jaw. He winced. “That hurt quite a lot, you know.”
“Sorry,” I said, flushing. I’d elbowed aShearwater. “I mean, it was obvious something was going on. The furtive looks. The way you all cut off speaking. You haven’t exactly come across as…normal.”
Cogs now clicked into gear in my mind. “That’swhy Tigo tails you so closely. So anyone near you who’s wearing laconite thinks it’shimsetting it off. We’re your cover.”
“Congratulations,” he said brittlely, “on your powers of deduction.”
“But if I noticed,” I said, “surely others would, too?”
He turned slightly, glancing out at the sunrise. Dragged a hand through his wind-tossed hair. “Not necessarily. Not the Hundred, at least. It’s tradition for us to have Orha with us. We don’t really bother when we’re not in company, but now, with the Cormorants, and back at the ball…” His eyes ran over me. “Well, you’ve seen the charades we have to keep up.”
I studied him sidelong in the sun’s pink glow. I was seeing him anew. It all slotted into place.
I thought of Rexim’s luncheon. The ball guests. Morgen. If even one member of the Hundred found out, it would spread through the Houses like ink in water.
And as for marriage within the nobility, even a mere liaison with one of them…As much as I’d found myself envying Morgen, their murmured remarks, their comfortable banter, it was clear now: Llir could never allow himself to be alone with her. Or anyone else draped in laconite.
