And then there’s the matter of reading these notes. It’s one thing to pass them unknowingly. Entirely different to beawarethat they’re words of treason.
I don’t know who I think I’m fooling, because it’s certainly not myself.
The iron is beginning to glow yellow, so I seize my tongs and pull it out of the forge. “If we read these letters,” I say, “there’s no coming back from that, Cal.”
She stares back at me. “I know.”
I begin to hammer, and she waits.
“I thought you couldn’t be gone long,” I call over the noise.
She catches my arm, and I stop midswing.
“Don’t you want to know what we’re doing?” she says.
She’s so fearless. I remember the moment she came flying into the barn, her ax swinging. The way she pulled a kitchen knife to defend me from Lord Tycho, who was carrying an armory’s worth of weapons.
“And what will we do?” I say. “What will we do if they’re letters of treason? What will we do if they call for revolution?” I jerk free and slam my hammer against the steel again. “Turn them all in, and then you can lose the bakery and I can lose the forge?” Every strike ringsthrough the workshop. “Or maybe we’ll all be hanging from a rope anyway.”
“Jax.”
She held me too long, and the metal cooled too quickly, so I have to shove it back into the forge. “What?”
“If we’re committing treason, we should know.”
I look down at my hand, the one Tycho healed. I was hurt, and he healed it … and he asked nothing in return. The magic was powerful and terrifying and wondrous all at once. I shoved him in the chest and yelled at him, and he could have taken my head off right there. He didn’t.
I would offer you mercy.
And we’re sitting here talking about treason.
I pull the metal free and look at Callyn. “You’re right,” I say finally. “We should know.”
Lady Karyl doesn’t appear until sundown. This time she has two people with her, a man and a woman, both heavily armed. I don’t know if they’re guards or soldiers, but they don’t look friendly. They hover in the shadows by the edge of the workshop while she draws closer. Her hair is still coiled against her head, her robes damp at the hem as she steps across the mud-slick ground. Her blue eye is bright, even in the dim light of my workshop.
I grab my crutches and stand, casting a glance between her and the people in the shadows. I’ve been expecting her all day, so her “note” is in my pocket, but she’s not alone. I’m not sure if I should just hand it to her or wait for her to ask for it. After the way Lord Alek treated me, her showing up with an armed entourage doesn’t seembetter.
“My lady,” I say carefully.
“I saw Ellis in the tavern,” she says, and I go still. If she gives this business back to my father, I have nothing. No recourse.
“He asked why he hasn’t seen me,” she says.
I’m not sure what response she’s looking for, so I say nothing. I glance at the people in the shadows again. Light glints on their weapons.
“You haven’t told him,” she adds.
“No,” I say.
Her eyebrows lift a hair. “Have you told anyone?”
Callyn. I barely hesitate, but her eyebrows lift farther. “I understand you’re close with the girl down the lane. Shall I send my guards to ask the baker what she knows?”
Cal wouldn’t breathe a word. I know she wouldn’t. They could put a blade right to her throat and she wouldn’t break.
But I think of little Nora.Clouds above, look at all that silver!She’s still afraid of the dark, so I can just imagine how she’d act if someone pulled a sword on her sister.
I swallow. “Callyn won’t say anything,” I say roughly. “I swear it.”
