He lifted his head, the pain in his face nearly too much to bear. “I trusted you.”
She closed her eyes. “Trust is a magic trick. You never really knew me.”
How could he, when she barely knew herself? Truth, lie—there was no difference, not with her. None of her was real.
None of this is.
A muscle feathered in his jaw, the fury overtaking the endless hurt. “How long have you been working with her?”
“From the beginning.” She watched him bury his head in his hands. “She approached me in my Malik unit. Told me that if I could infiltrate the Library, earn your trust, and ultimately convince the Conclave to vote against you, she would erase my criminal record, end my sentence, and set me free.”
“Let me guess,” he muttered into his hands. “If I bring this to the Conclave, you’ll produce proof that I’m lying?”
“Letters written in your own hand to me. A second mage who will testify to everything I’ve said.”
He lifted his head. “Another spy?”
“The only one.”
It took a moment for that to settle. His head dropped back against the stone. “Elyae was innocent.”
“Elyae was a problem. I needed her out of the way, and I needed you to trust me.”
“Clever,” he murmured. “Always so clever.”
She wanted to turn away, knew that every emotion flitting throughher was plain on her face, but the least she could do was look at him, no matter how much it hurt. “I didn’t have a choice. If I refused, Vera would have sent me back to Belvar. This time for good. I couldn’t—I couldn’t go back there, Allaster.”
The torc bobbed along the long column of his throat. “I would have helped you.”
“You would have chosen the Library, like you always do,” she said quietly. “Like you should.”
“You don’t know that.” And it was the raw ache in his voice, the tenderness, that broke her. She retreated for the door, desperate to get out, but his words stopped her. “Is it worth it? Worth my life, Gievra’s life? They’ll want his head too, you know, for Thane. Is it worth the soul of the Library and the devastation that will come next?”
“I won’t let either of you die,” she promised.
He laughed, loud and sharp. “Is that where you draw your line?”
But that was what Allaster didn’t understand, what Kasira herself had only just realized. She had no line. She would do whatever she had to, even if it meant having him look at her that way, as if he didn’t even have enough left in him to hate her.
“My life for theirs, isn’t that what you taught me?” She forced the words out even as her throat closed. “I’m doing what I must to protect the Library, Allaster. You just got in the way.”
A strange look came over his face then, as if the pieces of a puzzle he’d been wrestling with had finally slotted into place. “You’re lying,” he said slowly.
“I’m not—”
“You are.” He was watching her with a new intensity now, his silver eyes locking with hers as he climbed to his feet. “What I can’t figure out iswhy.”
Kasira fought the urge to retreat, mentally resetting her stance, her face, anything about her that might have made Allaster doubt her, but his expression only grew more certain. It was as though a veil had been lifted, and the way he was looking at her, like he trulysawher, trapped her heart in throat.
The cell door opened, and one of the mages entered. “The deliberations have completed. The verdict is in.”
ALLASTER WAS LEDback to the Glass Room in chains, where the dignitaries had already retaken their seats at the great oak table. The quiet murmur of conversation among the crowd grew silent when they appeared, and Kasira could feel May’s gaze on her, though she refused to meet it.
Talthari stood at the podium, their wizened face troubled. “The council has reached a decision. In the matter of stripping Allaster St. Archer of his position as Librarian on the grounds of repeated discrimination against an individual nation’s interests and gross misuse of Library resources, the council has voted three to two in favor of Kalthos.”
The room exploded into an uproar, but Allaster remained impossibly still. Everything in her wanted to reach for him, to apologize, but her touch was poison. She knew that now. First, the Talowell, then Loraya and Thane, Revna, and May—she ruined everyone close to her. She always had.
Talthari’s voice rose above the tumult even as it shook. “Lord Allaster will be released into Kalish custody to undergo trial for the murder of Thane Ryarch.”
