I sigh and run my hands over my face, pressing my fingers into my eyes. I don’t really know how to do this. In the palace, there arerules and protocol and . . . andorder. Thorin joked about Quint organizing a revolution through paperwork, but at least the Palace Master is organizing it somehow. Thorin and Saeth are walking patrols and working with the people. Karri is delivering letters to see if we have any allies at all. As for me . . . ?I’m grasping at straws. Useless.
I can just imagine Corrick’s reaction if he were here now.Lord, Harristan. Is writing letters the best you can do? You might as well just turn yourself in.
My brother is going to return from Ostriary and find the kingdom in shambles.
Well, more than it usually is.
I finally lower my hands. Thorin is eating, but only because I ordered him to do it. His eyes are locked on the plate, any sense of good humor completely gone.
He’s got to be exhausted. I know I am.
We can’t keep operating like this. I can’t just wait on the consuls. I need to take action for my peoplehere. I need todosomething.
“If you could think of other guards to approach,” I say carefully, “who do you think would be most likely to join us?”
His hands freeze on his food, and he looks up. “There were thirty of us in your personal guard. Rocco and Kilbourne went to Ostriary. Saeth and I are with you. That still leaves twenty-six. They might have been reassigned, or they could have been discharged from the guard entirely—but I’m still worried Captain Huxley would have thrown them in the Hold after it became known that we helped you escape. If they convinced others we were conspiring with you against the kingdom, he might have been able to justify it.”
If my guards are in the Hold, they may as well be on the moon. I’d have no way to reach them. I might have a small army of rebels waiting outside this tiny house, but they don’t fully trust me to lead them. Not yet. And while rebels bombed the Hold once before, it wasn’t without loss—on either side. I can’t justify that type of attack. Not just for more guards.
But maybe we don’t have to. I work it through while I pick at my chicken. “Huxley has no proof that any of you were conspiring with me—because there was no conspiracy to speak of. They’ve spread rumors among the people, but that’s harder to do with men who surround me every day. But implicating myentirepersonal guard implicates Huxley himself. He’s the guard captain. He couldn’t just throw twenty-six guards in the Hold without causing a bit of outrage—if not an outright scandal on top of the one they already have.”
Thorin considers this, then nods. “That’s true. It would destroy morale, too. If Huxley threw that many guards in the Hold, I can name a dozen people who’d quit on the spot. Tensions have already been high since the first attack on the sector. Most of us had started to close ranks anyway, and not just among your personal guard.”
Most of us had started to close ranks anyway.Before Rocco left with Corrick, he warned me about Huxley, how many of the guards had started to suspect that there was more going on with the guard captain than just a taste for salacious gossip. I inwardly flinch, thinking about how much insurrection was happening right under my nose.
I wish I had people I could send into the Royal Sector, but it’s just too dangerous. Even Karri’s small apartment was searched, because she was known to be helping the rebelsandme. Another reason it’s wise for her to be the one to visit other sectors now.
“The entire palace staff is surely still scrambling,” I say. “I rather doubt Huxley and Arella and whoever else they’re working with expected me to disappear in the middle of the night. The consuls might have seized the opportunity to take control during my sudden absence, but they couldn’t have been ready for it. Any control they have is still very precarious. Especially since Quint disappeared with me.”
Quint, who’s currently organizing this revolution with paperwork.
Thorin rolled his eyes, but Quint was also the one who, three days ago, suggested that we should start submitting reports to the palace of various “sightings” of the king in other sectors, forcing the night patrol to waste resources chasing down false leads.
I glance at the door. He’s been gone for too long.
“Huxley isn’t trustworthy, but he’s not stupid,” Thorin is saying. “No one was closer to you than we were.”
It draws my attention back. “I don’t know if he would keep them in the palace, or if he would feel safer giving them leave.”
“It’s a risk to keep them in the palace,” Thorin says. “I don’t know that Huxley fully trustedusat the end either.”
That’s promising. “How many do you know well enough to know where they live?”
“Between me and Saeth? Not everyone, but a lot.” He winces. “A few live in the Royal Sector. That’s a risk. We would be recognized.”
I hold his gaze and lean in. “How many do you think would join us here?”
“All of them.”
He says this so readily and with so much assuredness that it nearly hits me like a blow.
My chest clenches, and I have to sit back. “Surely notallof them.”
“From your personal guard? Yes. All of them.”
I swallow, and my throat is tight. I don’t know why the loyalty takes me by surprise, but it does. I barely knew their first names. There were so few people in the palace that I trusted, and most of them sailed away on a ship to Ostriary.
“Well,” I say, and my voice is rough.
