Lottie figured it would be enough. Their mother seemed to avoid August most days, so the odds of her going to check on him were low.
She seemed like a different person depending on which of her children she was speaking to. Though she made little effort with either, toward Lottie, she at least resembled a parent, making small talk, asking about her day. She’d grant her permission to go into town, assigning a guard or two to accompany her.
With August, she was cold and unyieldingly strict. She hadn’t allowed him to leave the castle since their father’s death. Lottie sometimes wondered if it was part of her grief, if their mother was so heartbroken by the loss that she kept August in a bubble, terrified of losing him, too.
Were that the reasoning, Lottie probably should have been envious, but she couldn’t make that explanation fit.
“Perhaps you can tell me where he found this.” Her mother lifted a gloved hand, the black ring from August’s armoire in her pinched grasp.
It was just a ring, and August hadn’t known where it came from. Probably garbage dug from the gardens when he was a child, put away and forgotten. But something about the thing lifted goosebumps on Lottie’s arms. It felt so distinctlyother.
She blinked. That was a strange thought. It was just a ring.
Still, it felt like a secret. And it wasn’t her secret to tell.
So she lied. “I don’t know. Maybe one of the guests brought it.”
A long, scrutinizing look, then her mother let the hand drop to her side. “Sebastian.”
As he approached, Lottie took an involuntary step back. He unsettled her—a vague, prickly nervousness she didn’t fully understand—and her attention went to the dagger beneath her skirts, feeling the press of it against her thigh. The dagger that had belonged to her father, that had ended up in her possession, though she couldn’t remember how.
Not unlike August and the ring.
“Have you seen anything like this before?” her mother asked the guard.
“No,Mo Aesran.”
Her tone was softer when she spoke again. “Do you think it’s from that place? The cold is the same. I can feel it through my gloves.” She handed Sebastian the ring, and he removed a glove to place the small object in his palm.
“I have no doubt,” was his reply.
The conversation felt like a continuation, as if the two of them spoke like this often.That place. Her mother was asking his opinion, which in and of itself was strange. Lottie could sense the secret between them like a living thing, and the words scraped like they were clinging to her, desperate for her to understand. To remember something long forgotten. It made her head throb.
“What place?” Lottie asked. They both ignored her.
Her mother kept her eyes on the strange object. “It’s a perfect match to Talien’s family ring. Even the signet is the same.”
Lottie hadn’t noticed the similarities between this ring and her father’s. That, too, felt important.
Sebastian pressed the flat side of the ring to his thumb, then pulled it away to study the marking. His expression was unreadable, his eyes still obscured by the shadow of his helmet.
“How is that possible?” he asked.
A crease carved across her mother’s forehead. “I don’t know. But that place is linked to this one. These objects are connected. They’re like opposite sides of a caern.”
There it was again.That place.It clawed and grasped at her, screaming, begging.
Remember.
Sebastian nodded in agreement, then handed the ring back. “It’s too perfect a replica to be a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.” Her mother’s voice slid seamlessly back to the hardened one Lottie knew too well. “I’d like a meeting with High Commander Fenholt.”
Sebastian’s head tilted almost imperceptibly, a curious motion that reminded Lottie of a cat she’d once found on the castle grounds. Much like Sebastian, the animal was shifty and unsettling.
“Can you trust the commander?” he asked.
“I trust no one. You know this. But talk of revolution is seeping into every corner of the city. I know death too well, and I have no wish to meet it again. Steps are already in motion to prevent the worst, but if I’m right about this ring—if it can be bound to the original—then perhaps there’s still a way to achieve what we’ve been working toward. The rebellion could be smothered before it ever begins. ”
