Golden briars surge out of the ground, sending pieces of the stone floor flying. I fashion my thorns sharp as daggers and explode them all around Caspian. A prickly cage spikes into the wall, imprisoning him, the thorns all inches from his skin. He flinches back, throat bobbing. His fear only fuels my anger.
“All this time, you’ve known who I am. What I am,” I breathe, words choked with sorrow and rage. “Youknowwhat my family means to me. What my mother means to me. How could you keep this a secret?”
“Because he’s never been on our side,” Dayton growls. “Ezryn’s right. We should gut him while we have the chance.”
“Silence!” I yell, and my voice booms through the entrance hall. I point at Caspian. “Be honest, Caspian. Because right now, the only reason I can think why you wouldn’t tell me is because everything has been a lie. Whatever goodness you have shown me was all fake. Whatever feelings you made me believe you had—”
“It’s not fake, Rosalina,” he breathes. Caspian closes his eyes and sighs. “Yes, I’ve known the whole time. I’ve spoken to your mother in the morning, then come and listened to you cry from missing her in the evening and I never told you.” He shoots a glare toward Papa. “If it were in the Fates’ designs, I never would.”
A scream erupts from my throat, and I shoot my hand forward. One of my thorns grows longer, jerking right against his Adam’s apple. “You lied to me!”
“I never lied to you,” he whispers. “I just never shared.”
“A lie by omission.” My emotions roil in my chest: hurt and betrayal and anger and, somewhere deep underneath them, relief becauseshe’salive, she’s alive, she’s alive!
The wolves flank me, and I lace my fingers through Kel’s fur on one side and Farron’s fur on the other, the juxtaposition of cold and heat shocking.
Caspian breathes shakily through his nose. “Listen, Rosalina. It does you no good to know this truth. It will only torture you. Your mother is imprisoned. She has been for decades. There isnoway to break her out. It would be suicide to even consider it.” His eyes flash. “I will not tell you how to find her, not even if my life depends on it. For what awaits down in the depths where she is kept is a fate worse than death.”
I snarl and throw my hand forward again, inching that thorn harder and harder against his neck. A drop of blood blooms on his skin, and he sucks in a breath.
One more push and …
Someone puts a hand on my shoulder. I turn to see Papa. His face is so pale, eyes sunken. I drop my hand. My golden briars wither, and Caspian falls to the ground, clutching at his neck.
Papa needs me right now. Caspian is …
Caspian is no different from what he’s always been. A spider, spinning truths, waiting for any stupid fly to stick to his words.
I meet Caspian’s shining gaze. “You have until tonight to tell us everything you know or else I will let my mates decide what to do with you. A Princess does not treat with traitors.”
Arm around my father, I stride from the entrance hall, leaving Caspian to the wolves.
CHAPTER 27
Farron
Ifeel oddly light as I walk through the halls, hands in my pockets. Of course, my heart aches for Rosie, for the betrayal she was so certain would never be done to her. But my mind, on the other hand, feels alight.
The Queen is alive, and Caspian knows where she is.
It’s like finding a textbook that’s fallen through the cracks, the one that has exactly the chapter you need. Or finally translating the last cipher and the whole puzzle becoming clear. The information ishere. There are answers to be had.
It’s just a matter of clicking the pieces into place.
After Rosalina gave her ultimatum, the Prince of the Below had skulked off, and the rest of us had separated.
No one will go looking for him, I know that. Dayton hates him, Rosie’s furious, and Kel’s loyalty has been proven misplaced once again.
So, if anyone’s going to turn the Prince of Thorns to our side, it’s going to have to be me.
I remember when he cornered me at his birthday party down in Cryptgarden.You and I are alike, Farron,he had told me. I hadn’t wanted to believe it. Wouldn’t accept that I could be anything like that traitor. But now I understand that it goes beyond who lives above or below the surface.
Maybe Caspian wasn’t wrong.
I’m not sure why I decide to try the library first, but that’s where I find him. He’s lying on a table, staring up at the mural on the ceiling, and tossing an apple up and down in the air.
He doesn’t fit here, his sharp edges too shadowy for the brightoranges and yellows of the library. I quiet my steps so as not to alert him to my presence and lean an elbow against a bookshelf.
