I grit my teeth.Allisander.
“If this is true across Kandala,” I say sharply, “I have no doubt that he’s already beginning to spread word that the sole reason the fever sickness has lessened is because I’ve been removed from power.”
Her face twists. “I—I told you we made uniforms so we could set the explosives for when the rebels took the sector. We still have some.”
My ears perk up. We have weapons in the Wilds, butnothingcompared to the Kandalan army. Access to explosives could give us an edge. They could allow us to plan something bigger than just minor missions to acquire guards.
“You still have explosives?” I say.
She shakes her head. “We still have the uniforms.”
Oh. I try not to let my face fall. “As much as I appreciate your honesty, I’m not sure how much it will help. I lost half a dozen people attempting to get more guards. I don’t have a way to get more explosives all the way from Trader’s Landing.”
“You don’t have to go that far. The ones we set are still in the palace.”
“What?”
She nods emphatically. “We never set them all off. Most of them are lining the walls of the passages behind the throne room. But there are more scattered through all the walls in the western wing.”
Words freeze in my mouth. I can’t stop staring at her.
They set explosives behind the throne room. I wonder how long they were there. I wonder how long I sat with literal bombs waiting to go off behind me. My breathing shakes a bit, and I genuinely can’t tell if it’s fury or fear.
Annabeth takes a step back. “So many of us were dying,” she says, and her voice is so small. “We were dying, Fox.”
There’s a note in her voice that tugs at my heart, and I have to run a hand across my jaw. I’ve gone through so many emotions tonight. “I know,” I say roughly. “I know.” I draw a heavy breath. “But if you’d bombed the whole palace, you would’ve killed everyone. Not just me and the consuls. My guards, my whole staff. They had nothing to do with the fevers. You would have killedeveryonejust to retaliate against me and my brother?”
She swallows thickly. “We thought of that. Some of us have family that work in the palace. We tried to keep the explosives away from the bottom floor. So the staff could escape.”
Footsteps are approaching from behind me, and it has to be Quint. Annabeth backs away another step.
“Wait,” I say. “Please.”
“I’ve been gone too long. My husband will notice.”
“Then I’ll come talk to him with you.”
She shakes her head. “No! No. I’ll try to come back.” She takes another step away.
She can’t run again. Every time I talk to her, I barely learn anything at all. “You still haven’t told me how you managed to gain access,” I say quickly. “Or why you didn’t set off all the bombs in the first place.”
“We were supposed to,” she says, backing away farther, just as Quint appears at my side. “But some of the girls said the buildingwould collapse. That we wouldn’t be able to save anyone at all.” She glances past me at Thorin. “We couldn’t do it.”
Then she turns and sprints between the trees.
Quint wastes no time. “What happened? What was she telling you?”
“She said she and the other women laid explosives throughout the entire palace,” I say. “That they didn’t set them all off, and more remain in the walls of the west wing and behind the throne room.” I turn to look at him in the cloaking shadows of the trees. “Only the east wing was damaged during the first attack. No other parts of the palace. Do you think that could be true?”
He spends a moment considering. “It could be, I suppose. I’m not sure what good it does us to know of it, however.”
I don’t know. My thoughts won’t stop spinning. I turn to head back toward Thorin.
“She also said that people are no longer getting sick,” I say to both of them. “Have you noticed that?”
Thorin nods. “Alice said that no one has died in a few days.”
“And I haven’t heard as much coughing,” I say—and immediately cough to contradict that. I scowl and add, “Well, in others. But even so, whoeverwaspoisoning the people has stopped now that I’m not in power. This will be used to prove my guilt. Every time we gain a little ground, they manage to gainmore.”
