“I tried to catch him—her—in the act. But the Grim always magically placed the notes under my pillow. Always one step ahead.” His gaze dropped, a flicker of shame passing over his features. “I was knocked unconscious before I ever saw their face.”
The weight of his words hung heavily in the air. I clenched my fists at my sides. My gaze fell to the ground.
“It was Cora. Aunt Cora is the Grim.”
Shayde’s eyes narrowed, disbelief etched into every line of his face as he shook his head frantically. “No, there’s no way.”
I said nothing, letting the weight of silence be my answer, never breaking his gaze.
He raked a hand through his hair and turned away, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. I could see the gears turning in his mind, trying desperately to piece together an equation that would never add up.
Finally, his warm brown eyes locked onto mine again, filled with a mixture of dread and hope. “What about Delaney? Is she here?”
I felt Rhodes stiffen beside me as a sharp, unbearable pain sliced through my chest. My heart splintered into a thousand pieces, and the lump in my throat grew, threatening to suffocate me.
How could they not have told Shayde? They’d kept him locked away here for weeks, maybe a month, completely in the dark, and with no idea of what happened.
I forced myself to swallow, to push the words out past the burning in my throat. “Laney’s dead.”
The color washed from Shayde’s face. His body went rigid as the words hit him like a physical blow. His warm brown eyes, now filled with a growing panic, searched mine as if hoping I’d take it back. “No,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “No... she can’t be. She was... you were both supposed to be safe.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
Shayde staggered back, gripping the bars as if they were the only thing keeping him upright. His breathing grew shallow, and his gaze darted between me and Rhodes, desperate for some kind of denial. But there was none.
“It’s... it’s all my fault,” Shayde’s voice cracked, breaking under the weight of his guilt.
Rhodes stepped forward, his tone steady but softer than I expected. “We need to know what the Grim was planning to do with Scarlet.”
The words struck me like lightning. I realized in that moment that I had told no one what the Grim said to me on that mountain. I knew exactly what she planned to do with me—and why.
The memory surged through me, sharp and suffocating, like a blow to the chest that left me reeling. I staggered back a step, my breath catching.
Rhodes’s hand shot out, steadying me by the elbow. His eyes flicked toward mine briefly before he continued, his voice unwavering. “I’ve already started discussions about your release, Shayde, but it’s going to take time. We need you to cooperate with us—to prove to them you’re not working with our enemy in this war.”
Shayde’s knees buckled slightly, and he leaned heavily against the bars, his head hanging low. A strangled sound escaped his lips—a mix between a sob and a guttural cry. “I’m sorry, Scar. I pinky promised.”
The sight of Shayde crumbling wasn’t what I had prepared myself for. The pain in my chest was suffocating, and I was two seconds away from going blue in the face from the lack of oxygen I could manage to inhale.
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms as I growled through gritted teeth, “Stop. Apologizing.”
Taking a step closer to the iron bars that separated Rhodes and me from his brother, I could feel the guilt radiating off Shayde in waves, thick enough to suffocate me further.
“And help us get our fucking revenge,” I hissed.
The broken, guilt-ridden version of Shayde evaporated in an instant. His entire demeanor shifted as he stood tall, squaring his shoulders with deliberate precision. Slowly, he closed his eyes, drawing in a deep, steadying breath.
And when he opened them…
The man standing before us wasn’t the shattered soul I had seen moments ago. No, this was someone else entirely—a man I’d never seen before. His warm brown eyes had turned ice cold.
“It started with simple errands,” Shayde began. “I was ordered to collect things or deliver items to secret locations. At first, I thought that was the worst of it—just a courier, nothing more.”
He paused, his jaw tightening as the weight of his words settled in the air. “But after a year of believing that was the worst of my troubles... the errands became more... inconspicuous.”
Rhodes stepped closer, his arms crossed, his gray-blue eyes sharp. “What kind of errands, Shayde?”
Shayde’s gaze flicked between us, then dropped to the floor as if the memory was too heavy for him to hold. “The Grim would give me names. My job was to track them, observe their movements, and report back. At first, I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want to know why. But I grew curious, and it was getting harder to sneak around the halls of Mageia once people became more familiar with me. So I started asking questions, but that was when the requests turned into threats.”
