I shake my head desperately. “No, I heard you the first time. But how is that possible? Executed? He’s her son!”
Clare squeaks so loudly this time, her glasses nearly tumble from her nose.
Fox just stares at me, his hand tight around my arm.
“Then we have to go,” I say, ignoring his grip and already striding toward the library exit. What the hell have I been doing? I was meant to be researching the Black Tower, finding a way to free them. Instead, I’ve been distracted by ancient history that has no bearing on today, that won’t help me at all, that means nothing if I can’t save the men I love. “We have to go right now.”
“No, you don’t,” a voice says.
And then, as if by magic – most definitely by magic – the three Princes appear in front of me, blocking my path. Clare squeals so loudly this time I’m almost convinced she’s fainted. Even I blink my eyes and hold out my hand to touch the nearest man, Beaufort, and check I’m not seeing ghosts again.
“Is it you?” I whisper. “Are you really here?”
Dray chuckles, and it’s then I realize he’s completely naked, covered in some kind of congealed green substance and shivering his ass off.
Fox whips off his cloak and thrusts it in Dray’s direction. The shifter looks at it contemptuously, but I narrow my eyes at him, aware my squeamish friend has already had to undergo enough ordeals in the last few minutes, and with a pout, he accepts it and shrugs it around his shoulders. It doesn’t hide everything, but at least it’s an improvement, and at least he stops shaking from the cold.
“Where have you been?” I ask. “Where did they take you?”
“The Black Tower,” Beaufort answers.
“And how did you escape?”
Dray puffs out his chest. “It’s not all about smarts and stupidly powerful shadows, you know, Little Kitten. Sometimes it’s about pack smarts.” He taps his forehead.
I peer at Beaufort for an explanation, but he just shrugs and shakes his head, making it clear that it’s a long story.
“But you were meant to be executed today,” Fox says.
“That’s correct.”
I can’t help the little sob that bubbles up my throat. It’s one thing being sentenced to death by the Empress of the realm. It’s quite another thing when that woman is your own mother. My father was a lousy parent and a drunk. He was oblivious to all the harm that my step-mom did to me, but I can’t ever imagine him doing anything this awful.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Dray smirks at the Professor, “but it didn’t happen.”
The tears start trailing down my cheeks. I’m so relieved to see them.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, so glad you’re safe,” I mutter, as the tears keep coming and I hug each one of them tight to my body, not caring about the green slime or the fact my two friends are right here.
“How did you sneak into the academy?” Fox asks them next.
“Cloaking spells,” Beaufort answers. “How about you? Where’s Blaze?”
“Out in the Highlands,” I say. “We found a tunnel that leads from there to the dungeons in the academy.”
Beaufort nods like that’s a perfectly good explanation. And for a moment we all just stand and stare at each other until finally Fly coughs.
“So Bardin really was telling the truth,” he says, sounding kind of amazed. “The Empress really does want you dead.”
“Like every other student from one of the other realms who’s shown promise in this academy.”
“Actually,” Clare interrupts, her cheeks blazing when everyone focuses her way, “I don’t know, Briony. I could be wrong. I was just thinking, considering what we learned back there in the secret part of the library, whether it’s more complicated than that.”
“There are no secret parts of the library,” Fox says.
“That’s what I thought too,” Clare tells him, “but I was beginning to suspect she was holding something back from me, and then Briony showed the library her lumomancy and a whole new room opened up to us.”
Fox’s eyebrows raise up his forehead. He once told me he spent a lot of his empty hours and lonely time reading, and I guess he’s as familiar with this library as Clare is.
