Lysander worriedly licks her face, but after realizing his master is going to be just fine, he bounds up the stairs in pursuit of something. A flash of pink darts past the spot where I kneel beside Meredy—Nipper, dashing after the bear.
“Someone pushed me down those stairs,” Meredy wheezes when she can finally take a breath. I’m relieved that she doesn’t seem to need a healer, as she shrugs off my attempt to help her up. “Two men—I’ve never seen them before. There might be more. Come on.”
We start up the stairs, but we’re only halfway when Lysander’s loudest roar fills the halls, sending the whole palace into chaos.
Meredy and I are the first to arrive at the scene in the upper hallway, a windowless place with few torches along the walls. This particular path isn’t often used, I suppose. In the dimness, we’re greeted by the strangest sight I’ve ever witnessed.
A fair-haired man whimpers and writhes, lying prone on the floor with Lysander’s front paws pinning him down. Every time the man moves too much, Lysander opens his mouth and drips thick, fishy drool onto the man’s face. For a heart-stopping moment, I think the man is Devran—they have the same haircut, the same narrow face—but this man’s eyes are a pale blue, not hazel, and he doesn’t have Devran’s traces of a beard, either.
I still trust Devran about as much as I trust this stranger, but for Valoria’s sake, I’m relieved it isn’t the rebel leader under Lysander’s paws.
Several feet away, a second man struggles against Nipper, who’s wrapped her tail around the man’s neck like a scarf. His trousers are filthy and ripped, and I’m pretty sure I recognize the bite mark in his left leg. He’ll be starting to sweat any moment now, if I’m right.
The whole situation would be almost comical, if not for the vials of liquid fire potions stashed inside the baskets the men brought in—no doubt posing as farmers making a delivery. I check the vials for cracks, then carefully put the baskets in a corner where no one will trip over them until the potions inside can be properly stored.
They were going to set the palace on fire.
“Who let you in?” I demand of the criminal watched over by Lysander. The other is about to be rendered useless by Nipper’s poison unless someone intervenes, and I don’t make a point of saving people who want to kill me and my friends—at least, not saving them from a little pain. “Are you one of Devran’s men? Or do you work for someone else—the group that tried to set fire to the school?” I press,though I doubt I’ll get answers without a little help from my grizzly friend.
As if on cue, Meredy says calmly, “Lysander, you have my permission to bite his arm. Just a little one. Go ahead.”
The man shrieks, not unlike a Shade, as the bear opens his mouth obligingly.
Meredy stops Lysander with a quick motion of her hand. “Got something to say to us after all?” she asks as Valoria, flanked by Bryn, Sarika, and a host of guards, comes running into the hall.
What little color there was in Valoria’s face when she found us quickly drains away as she spots the baskets of liquid fire.
“Explain,” she says frostily to the men, ignoring the discomfort of the one in Nipper’s grasp even as sweat rolls down his face and soaks through his shirt. She nudges one man’s leg with her cane impatiently—the leg Nipper bit—and it’s enough to make him start talking. Or at least babbling somewhat coherently.
Our suspicions are quickly confirmed: They’re some of the arsonists who tried setting fire to the temple. They tell us repeatedly that Devran’s demonstrations are too docile, pathetic, and that the person who let them in was one of Valoria’s maids. But they won’t tell us what else they were planning, or whom they were working for. Valoria’s face regains color as she listens—too much color, even, until the red in her cheeks looks downright dangerous.
“Are there more of you here? Anyone else lurking about?” the queen demands.
The men shake their heads, but she seems unconvinced, and rightfully so.
“I could have Lysander take a couple nibbles out of them,” Meredy suggests sweetly. “That’s what got them feeling chatty in the first place.”
No one but me seems to notice the worried look Valoria gives Meredy, not even Meredy herself. Valoria finally shakes her head in answer, though disgust for these intruders is evident in her gaze as she directs her guards to free the men from our beasts’ hold. “Let them rot in the dungeons until they’re ready to talk.”
She nudges one of the men with her cane again, this time out of spite.
Danial steps forward to direct the guards. “After a few days in solitary, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, they’ll be ready to talk... even to me.” He frowns, lingering near Valoria as if debating saying something more.
“What is it?” she asks, adjusting her glasses and looking at him with concern.
“My wedding is a few days from now. Or it’s supposed to be. But now...” He spreads his hands in a helpless gesture. “Maybe we should wait. Maybe this isn’t the right time.”
“If you don’t have your wedding when you planned it, you’re just letting them win,” I cut in, thinking of how crushed Simeon would be if his big day doesn’t happen when he’s expecting it to. “Right, Valoria?”
“Right. General, you’ll recruit extra security for the wedding—guards you hand-select, ones you trust, and I’ll do the same with the cooks and the serving staff. This celebrationwillhappen on time, as you deserve,” Valoria says, although a bit wearily, as she watches the two would-be arsonists get dragged away. “I haven’t even had a chance to take the soldiers apart with Noranna, or else I might suggest using them for—”
“Majesty,” a woman in a courier’s uniform calls, sounding slightly winded. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I bring news from Lyris.”
The woman holds out a wrinkled scroll, which Valoria hastily reads.
Once again, all the color recedes from her face as she whispers, “Ezoran ships have been spotted on their way to Lyris. There’s no denying it—they’ve been making their way east for some time now, and if they stay on their current course, their next stop will be Karthia.”
Meredy and I are shocked into exchanging a look.
