“I wish I had that answer for you, but I’m not sure. Nothing else makes any sense, though.”
Syrus reached over and gently squeezed his brother’s arm. “It’s okay not to have all the answers. You’ve done more than enough to help us. I owe you a debt of gratitude I don’t think I can ever repay.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Ellis said, shaking his head. “You would have done the same for me.”
“I have a question, too,” Eiri said. “What happened to Marsen?”
“Marsen? My mother’s spymaster?” Syrus frowned, looking over at Eiri. “How is he involved in this?”
“He helped us get to you. We knew you were in the observatory, but we couldn’t get past the guards. Marsen grabbed me and showed us a different way.”
“He didn’t have to grab you both so literally,” Xan grumbled. “I could have killed him when he did that.”
Ellis ducked his head, and Syrus felt like he was missing something important there, but his brother spoke before Syrus could question him.
“We got caught when we were leaving Kien’s room,” Ellis said.
“What? You didn’t tell me that before!”
Ellis raised an eyebrow at Xan. “There wasn’t time. But as we were getting ready to leave, three soldiers were there. They wore Brandow’s personal crest, not the family one like the other palace guards.”
“Your brother is starting to annoy me,” Eiri muttered under his breath, and Syrus couldn’t help but agree.
“Me too,” Ellis nodded. “I think they were coming to search Kien’s room, too, because they seemed surprised to find someone else there. Marsen… he shoved me behind the door so they wouldn’t see me and tried to fight them. I don’t know what they did, but he couldn’t seem to use his magic. They overpowered him and arrested him.” Ellis looked down at his hands, his voice getting quieter with every word he spoke. “He kept fighting, though. I think it was to keep them occupied, so they couldn’t spare anyone to come into the room. I think he was protecting me.”
“Marsen is a clever man. He’ll find a way to escape. If not, we’ll help him,” Xan promised.
“The queen will be furious, but she’s too smart to have him executed,” Syrus added when Ellis looked unconvinced. “He knows secrets even she doesn’t, and his network extends all over the world. Without him, she loses access to almost all her spies.”
“Personally, I wouldn’t mind that,” Eiri said, and finally Ellis relaxed a little. “I don’t know him very well, but I know a fellow survivor when I see one.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know everything is chaotic right now and we have a lot more questions than we do answers, but we’re better off than we were yesterday, and that’s not nothing.”
“Speaking of answers…” Xan focused his attention on Ellis, who immediately sank back into his chair, shoulders hunching.
Syrus could admit to himself that he hadn’t been the best brother to Ellis. Their sixteen year age gap meant Syrus had been a full adult living his own life by the time Ellis was old enough to talk, and his years as a soldier kept him away from home more often than not. He’d tried to make up for it in recent years, and while he and Ellis were the closest of all their siblings, there were still many things they didn’t know about each other. In the years they’d grown closer, though, he’d never seen Ellis look as scared and defeated as he did right now.
“You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to,” he murmured. As desperately as he wanted answers, he refused to force them from the younger man.
Ellis looked up at him, the surprise in his eyes quickly fading to gratitude.
“Thank you. I’ll tell you as much as I can.”
Xan didn’t look pleased with that compromise, but he reluctantly accepted it. “I guess the biggest question would be to ask how you got Queen Delia to back down like that. What agreement were you talking about?”
Ellis chewed on his lower lip, hesitating for several long seconds before he finally spoke. “I can’t give you the details of that. She and I had an argument a few years ago, and we came to an understanding that protected both of us, in a way. It’s more of a mutually assured destruction, honestly, but it works so long as we both keep to it.”
That sort of non-answer would put every politician Syrus knew to shame. Ellis answered the question without tellingthem a single thing. He was starting to wonder if he’d truly known his baby brother at all.
Xan huffed his displeasure. “That’s not an answer, Ellis.”
“It’s all the answer I’m able to give you.” Ellis tilted his chin up, meeting Xan’s eyes for the first time all day, and for once, he didn’t blush or stammer.
“It’s good enough for me,” Eiri cut in before the tension could worsen between them. “I had a question for you, Xan. How did you move us from the tower to the throne room? That magic shouldn’t be possible. And why the throne room? I’d have preferred to wait and face the queen until we recovered.”
In all the chaos of the last hour, the manner of their arrival had fallen down the list of important in Syrus’ mind until it was all but forgotten. He glanced over at Xan in question, but his cousin was already shaking his head.
