Petra licked her dry lips and ordered, “Get them and deliver them to Yelizaveta. Tell her to give the soldiers one pill each in their food and then lock the door to the wing behind her.”
Speaking in a whisper, he asked, “Just one?”
She shared a glance with Silas, who only lifted a shoulder. Attention swinging back to her assistant, she amended, “Best make it one and a half.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
It waspure bad luck that this year, unlike all that’d come before it, the sovereign couple chose to forgo their usual discreet entrance through the back of the cathedral. Normally Petra hosted them for a few minutes in her office. She’d hoped to catch them before they walked out in front of the packed crowd waiting for the solstice service, but Robert informed her that for reasons unknown to him, they would instead enter the cathedral at the start of the ceremony.
It was more bad luck that whenever she glanced at Silas, he shook his head, wordlessly confirming the fact that the grid hadn’t gone down yet. She trusted that itwould,but as the minutes ticked by, it became more and more likely that she would have to intercept Margot and the sovereign herself.
“You’renotgoing out there,” Silas flatly informed her as she released her glamour.
Already stripping out of her casual clothing fast enough to tear seams, she argued, “It’ll be the easiest way to get to them.”
“They’re expecting Robert to give the service, not you. I’m not putting you up there when we don’t know what they had planned. What if they planted a bomb?”
Petra tried to hide a shudder.I didn’t think of a bomb. Why didn’t I think of a bomb?
After all, Margot and Theodore Solbourne’s relationship began with the bombing of her healing house. It would’ve been tragically ironic for their story to begin and end with a bomb. The dirty little secret that the public didn’t know, and the main reason she’d been taken into Margot’s confidence in the first place, was that the person who’d planted the bomb was Delilah Solbourne herself. The only reason Petra knewthatwas because she happened to be in the room when the truth came out, and she’d been very firmly sworn to secrecy by the sovereign himself.
But knowing how precious Antonin had been about using Glory’s iconography to assert his importance, she doubted that he’d blow up her seat of power in the city, especially if he intended to utilize his connection to the Temple to win trust with people.
“If Antonin had planned to be here for this, then a bomb would’ve been stupid,” she replied, fervently hoping she was right. “And if all of his soldiers are knocked out, we shouldn’t have a problem. Performing the ceremony will give me a chance to talk to Margot up close.”
She could see in his sour expression that he hated the idea, but he also had no good arguments against it. Unzipping the garment bag that held her wildly expensive ceremonial gown, she added, “You’ll be there, so I know I’ll be safe. You’d never let anything happen to me, right?”
Silas let out a slow exhale through his teeth. “Never.”
“See? Everything will be fine.”
She’d just shimmied into her ceremonial gown — a weighty confection of crimson velvet, seed pearls, shiny gold thread, and garnets — when Silas allowed Yelizaveta into her bedroom.
After a moment of shocked silence, the pale yellow dragon scurried across the room, a stream of words flying from her lips.Petra could hardly understand half of them. It took a precious minute before she could calm the initiate down enough to ask, “Did you do what Robert told you to?”
Yelizaveta’s tail whipped back and forth behind her. “Yes, your grace, but I don’t— what if they don’t eat their breakfast?”
Petra shot Silas a panicked look.First a bomb and now this. Why didn’t I think of that?
It was all too stressful. There were too many things that could go wrong. It seemed that every time she thought she knew what to do, there was some new factor added to the equation that she’d never considered.
“If they’re real soldiers with strict orders and they eat their meals at the same time every day without fail, then I doubt they’d skip breakfast,” Silas assured her.
“See?” Petra forced a smile. “I’m sure it’ll work.”
Yelizaveta’s wide eyes darted between Petra and Silas. Shuffling half a step closer, she whispered, “Why do you have a demon with you? He’sterrifying.”
Petra could feel Silas’s gaze on her as the nervous dragon waited for her answer. Taking a deep breath, she gently clasped Yelizaveta’s hands. There was no time to be nervous about how her staff would react to the news or to consider whether she’d still have a future in the Temple after this was all done, but she wasn’t about to lie or brush it off.
No matter what happened next and no matter what anyone said, Silas was hers.
“He’s my mate,” she answered simply. “And once this is all over, we’re going to get married.”
Yelizaveta’s eyes went impossibly wider. Her great, leathery wings mantled with surprise before they settled back against her spine. “YouChose?”
Knowing how seriously dragons took mating — orChoosing —Petra nodded firmly. “I did.”
There was half a beat of stunned silence before she blurted, “Are you going to leave the Temple?”
