Nyelle lifted a hand, her fingers brushing along his jaw in a familiar gesture that still sent a tremor through him. “Fine. Keep her if you must, but don’t lie to yourself about why. You’ve never been any good at it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He averted his gaze, but Nyelle only tilted his chin, forcing him to look at her.
“You used to look like that when you thought of me.” Her hand fell away, leaving Allaster to stare at her in wide-eyed objection. But he said nothing.
She was right. He never had been a very good liar.
Nyelle’s smile turned forlorn, then disappeared. “You should know that there’s something else in that folder. The day Kasira was reported for desertion is the same day Ambassador Vera visited her battalion.”
CHAPTER 36
KASIRA
THE NEWS OFELYAE’S BANISHMENT SPREAD SWIFTLY THE NEXT DAY,and Kasira fielded as many questions as she could, wanting to control the narrative. The more guilty Elyae looked, the better she appeared by comparison, as both the target of Elyae’s attention and the one who exposed her.
“She didn’t have any explanation at all?” Fen asked, slowing their shuffling. Kasira had joined them and Carlia for a game of cards as was their habit in the evenings, the Gold Room empty save for the three of them and the Talowell. Iylis had brought them cups of tea and a plate of lavender biscuits, but no one had touched them, and the tea had long gone cold.
Kasira feigned disappointment. “Nothing. She just let Allaster send her home.”
Fen’s shoulders drooped, and Carlia wrapped an arm around them. “Maybe we should call it an early one tonight?”
Fen nodded, and they both bid Kasira good night. She watched them go with an empty smile, sliding deeper into her armchair, hoping it might swallow her whole. Lying to them had been more difficult than it should have been, her hesitance growing with every word, but she only had to last a little longer.
“Careful, Kas,” came a low voice. “That’s starting to look like regret.”
She closed her eyes, forcing her emotions out with a breath, and when she opened them again, Thane was in the armchair across from her. There was a fervency behind his blue eyes that startled her, and she almost reached for a blade, but he only dropped a folded piece of paper onto the low table between them. She didn’t have to open it to know what it was.
Elyae had been a little too easy to frame as the spy and certainly had the motivation for it. So after the mage’s banishment, Kasira had left a note for the spy in their book, knowing that if it disappeared, that meant the spy was still here. Apparently, they weren’t the only two who knew about it.
“A respectable effort,” Thane mused. “But your hunt ends here. Any future communications you have will go through me.”
Kasira didn’t respond. She only fed the note to the fire and left.
A somber air settled over the Library over the next few days, the disgruntled whispers about Allaster growing unchecked. Many of the mages Elyae had been training with thought her dismissal unfounded; others simply saw Allaster’s general absence as avoidance. Kasira danced a thin line between hearing their concerns but not assuaging them. Bit by bit her entrenchment grew, shouldering Allaster gradually out like a sydara sapling smothering the roots of its fellows.
At the week’s end, Kasira donned Eirlana’s least restrictive dress for the Prince’s engagement party. A soft rose-gold gown embroidered with a waterfall of silver stars, it clung tightly in the bodice before rippling about her hips. The most daring aspect was the cut that ran to just above her knee, matched by the slits of the flowing wrist-length sleeves.
She admired the dress in the mirror, her dark hair in a braided crown courtesy of May. This was not of a Kalish design—Riviairen, perhaps? She hadn’t expected this little bit of rebellion from Eirlana, whose family would have balked at their daughter dressing in the style of a people who lived symbiotically with beasts.
After securing several hidden knives about her body, she snapped her fingers to join Allaster in the portal room.
“There you are. We’re going to be la—” He cut off at the sight ofher. A flush crept into his cheeks, his gaze lingering long enough that she had to admit May had been right: Whatever his animosity toward her, a part of Allaster looked at her in an entirely different light.
She had dismissed it because, despite that part of him, Allaster didn’twantto like her. Didn’t want to trust or rely on her. Because she was Kalish or a con artist, she didn’t know. All that mattered was that she had been a fool to let it go unexploited for so long, even if the idea of pulling those strings felt like a betrayal of another kind.
She returned his flustered gaze with an evaluating look of her own. He’d traded his Librarian’s uniform for an ankle-length coat of deep teal that split at his hips over a pair of dark pants tucked into black boots. The coat had two rows of golden buttons linked by filigree chains, the collar and sleeves adorned with feathery swirls of gold and celeste, and it split at the collar to exhibit his henolite torc. Her eyes followed the curve of the collar down past the hollow of his throat to his chest, and she tried not to smile when his blush deepened.
“You clean up nicely,” she told him.
“Where did you even get that dress?” he asked weakly.
“You say that like you think I stole it.” When he only stared at her expectantly, she sighed. “It’s one of Eirlana’s. Now, shall we go?”
Allaster straightened his already pristine cuffs, as if seeking something to do with his hands. “I don’t like leaving Thane here unsupervised.”
“May is watching him. What would you rather do? Toss him in a cell?”
“It crossed my mind.”
