I blink back my shock, eyes glancing at the wall Draven watches from behind. Kasper’s hair is very nearly white … like mine, but it’s so platinum it’s more silver. But his relation to immortals is more direct.
“Who is he?” I ask.
“All I know is he was important enough to be in a vanguard of immortals sent to broker peace during the War. She didn’t exactly elaborate. Wanted to pass me off as being the Lord of Shadowfell, though he never bought it. I thought … maybe he was a druid, she mentioned he had wings.”
“You risked being Selected on the off chance you’d find your father?”
“Sound familiar?” Kasper raises a brow.
“My situation is a little different. I knew who my father was—”
“You sure about that?” he snarls. “Your dad seemed pretty cozy with the seraph princess. Heard he’s the right hand to the seraph king.”
I tilt my head, reading him over. “It’s really obvious when you’re trying to buy yourself time, you know?”
Kasper startles, shifting uncomfortably.
“And you don’t know anything of more value, do you?”
He looks quickly off to his right, as if searching his mind for some answer.
But I already can tell he doesn’t have one.
Draven steps inside the cell and Kasper’s gaze goes wide, his pupils pinpricks. He looks back and forth between us and breathes, “I wasn’t involved with this. I’ve got nothing to do with her.”
“I heard.” Draven turns to me. “Do you believe him?”
I sigh but nod reluctantly. Kasper came here for an ulterior motive, the same as me, but it has nothing to do with the Ascension, even though he knew about it. Draven draws forth the World, then summons the Hierophant to the front, walking the memories of this questioning back, erasing them from existence. Afterward he draws the Emperor, and the last cuff releases, allowing Kasper to go free. Draven brings the Hierophant back to the forefront, and tells him commandingly, “You didn’t have a good time at the party. You chose to go home early.”
“The party wasn’t fun. I’m going to go home.” Kasper repeats the sentence blankly, as if he’s half awake. He stands up and walks out of the room, the same dissociated look haunting his eye.
His departure leaves Draven and I alone.
The tension strung between us is nearly painful. My attention flits to the wall, and I know guards could be behind it. “Was getting him to confess a test for me?”
“Yes and no.” Draven shirks his jacket off, displaying all those strong muscles pressing against the fabric of his shirt. He follows my look. “We’re alone. I sent them to interrogate the others.”
“But you still have questions for me.” I sit in the chair Kasper vacated and he rolls his eyes. It burns my skin, uncomfortable though not intolerable. But I might as well be in the right seat if I’m about to be grilled next.
“I did want to see you put your Wraith skills to the test.” He clenches his jaw, glancing to the walls as if it’s easier than looking at me. “But I want you. You know that. You used it to make a fool of me.”
The vulnerability and outrage in his voice has me squirming more than if he held a knife under my fingernails. “It wasn’t fake.” My voice pitches in a horrid, scratchy way. I force it clear. “Nothing was. Even with assassins surrounding us. I still wanted …” but I cannot bring myself to say “you” because although I know it would not break our deal, it would breakme. Unexpected tears roll down my cheeks. “I never meant to hurt you.”
He drags a chair from near the door, sitting on it backward, facing mine, rolling up his sleeves in the broiling heat of the space until I can see the jaguar tattoo representing me, mixed among the other whorls. His gaze never lifts past my collarbone, and whatever else has happened tonight, knowing he cannot look at me is the worst of it.
“You and I are in a perpetual game of truths.” He nods to the raven tattoo burned across my forearm. “But trust is still an earned thing. So, tell me, was I just a mark to you, Rune?”
“No.” My lower lip trembles and I force it to flatten, like linen beneath an iron.
Draven’s gaze finally lifts to mine and sticks, caught in the honeyed promise of a syllable.
“I knew you were powerful but didn’t want you for it. Powerful men tend to be cruel. Immortals more so, at least I thought. You teased but never bullied, and I pretended to hate you to hide how badly I wanted you. Anything else blossomed despite all odds, fruit growing from salted earth.”
He swallows, but his eyes don’t soften. “Why didyouwant to be Selected?”
“To be reunited with my family.” A crease forms between my brows. “You know this.”
“And you craved vengeance, for yourself and mortals.” Draven steeples his fingers together. “But I want to know why you came searching for this now. It’s been years since your family was taken. You’d already made a life for yourself. So why did the Wraith of Westfall come seeking her vendettathisyear?”
