He chuckles softly. “Tycho, I’mhere. If you don’t think being yanked out of Washington, DC, was a distraction—”
I scoff. “That’s not the same.”
“Fine. I can tell you I was plenty focused when I was a doctor.Sofocused. I graduated at the top of my class at Georgetown—that’s a really fancy, expensive school for medicine. Then I landed at Hopkins for my residency—one of the best places you can get into. I had my whole future lined up. But I forgot my wallet one day, and there was this … this …” Noah looks up at the ceiling, searching for words. “I’m trying to think of what you’d call it here. Like … a scruffy young outlaw, I guess. He was in line behind me. He paid for my coffee. He was probably a heartbeat away from prison—or, hell, a grave. He hadtroublewritten all over him.” Noah rolls his eyes. “Even once I got to know him, he’d never tell me what he was doing, but I could tell it was bad. He’d show up with bruises. Once he got a cut over his eye and I had to drag him to get stitches. Sometimes he’d have blood in the creases of his knuckles, and I’d have to pretend not to notice. I probably should have steered clear—stayedfocused—” He gives me a look and rips clean through another piece of muslin. “But on that first day, there was something … somethinggentleabout the way he offered me two bucks. He looked like someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, but as soon as he spoke, I was no good.”
I study him. “Who was he?” I say. “What happened to him?”
Noah startles, then bursts out laughing. “I’m talking about Jake.”
I sit straight up. “Wait. Jake was ascruffy young outlaw?”
“The scruffiest.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was shaking people down for money. Threatening them if they couldn’t pay what they owed.”
“Huh.” I try to reconcile that with the man who sat next to me on a horse and lectured me about my duties to the Crown.
A servant appears in the doorway. “My lords.” She bobs a curtsy. “His Majesty requests your presence in the library, Lord Tycho.”
“Of course,” I say, though the request sends a tiny spike of dread right into my heart. I wish I could shake the worry that I’ve been carrying around forweeks. “Right away.”
“Tycho.” Noah’s voice catches me before I’m through the door, and I pause, looking back.
“Jake wasn’t doing good things,” he says. “But he didn’t think he had any other choice. He was trying to protect his family.”
I nod. “I know. Jake is a good man.”
“He was a good manthen, too.” He pauses. “You’re not distracted. You’re not reckless. If your heart tells you someone deserves your attention, listen to it.”
The library is on the far side of the palace, with thousands of books, dozens of tables and armchairs, and countless shadowed corners where anyone could sit and get lost in a story. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the Crystal City, allowing the sun to flood the space with warmth in the afternoon. I don’t think Grey has ever summoned mehere, and I’m surprised at the location he’s chosen—until I reach the library and find him sitting at a table with a sheaf of papers, while Sinna sits at a distance with a middle-aged woman I’ve never met before. Sinna is playing with her dolls in front of the windows.
When she spots me, she sprints across the velvet carpeting. “Tycho!”
I reach out to catch her, to throw her in the air.
Grey looks up. “Sinna,” he says sharply, and she skids to a stop.
“Forgive me,” she says primly. She offers me a crooked curtsy, then whispers, “Da has been cross all afternoon.”
I want to frown, but I school my features to stay neutral, then bow in return. “No apologies are necessary, Your Highness,” I say, then wink, and she giggles.
The older woman has caught up to Sinna. She looks more regal than the usual nannies who chase the princess around the palace, which makes me wonder if they’ve hired a governess instead. This woman has gray hair in braids that are coiled on top of her head, and one eye is blue while the other is brown. She curtsies to Grey and then to me. “Forgiveme, Your Majesty. My lord.” She takes little Sinna by the hand and leads her back to the sunlit spot by the windows.
I brace myself and approach the table, but Grey gestures to a chair. “Tycho. Sit.”
I sit. He looks better rested than he did last night, but there’s still a tension around his eyes that’s never been there before. I wonder if it’s about Sinna and the baby—but the king wouldn’t have called me here to talk about that. Maybe Jake finally told him what we found at the forge. About what happened with Jax.
Despite everything Noah said, Grey is the king, and he deserves the truth. I can own up to my mistakes. Warmth crawls up my neck, and I inhale to do exactly that.
But Grey says, “My brother tells me we’re at odds.” He shoves a leather-bound folio in my direction.
I freeze, then clamp my mouth shut. So much has happened over the last week that I almost forgot about my conversation with Prince Rhen. I let out a long breath. “I did not say we’reat odds—”
He taps the letter. “See what he wrote.”
I hesitate, then look down at the first few lines of Rhen’s perfectly even script.
