The door opened, and my dad stood there, frowning. “You’re late.”
‘Not a word of this to Dad,’I warned Yan. My father would never let me leave the house again, and I needed the extra study time in the library to find Ariyon.
“Sorry, Dad. Got hung up at the library.” I reached up to smooth my hair and tried to control my breathing, but my father looked suspicious. “Then I went to Ariyon’s art studio. Then I ran home to try to make up for lost time.”
His face relaxed then. “Any luck with Ariyon?”
I stepped in the house, throwing my bookbag in the corner, and sat down to dinner. I told him what we’d learned today about Nightlings needing to feed on blood in order to stay powerful. Then I told him about the queen’s threat to cage me. It wasn’t something I felt I could avoid with my father, nor should I. It was a real threat that we needed to deal with together.
He chewed his sweet potato casserole slowly as he mulled over my words. “That was smart of you to offer a public apology and all of that, but if she says no? I have a plan.”
I raised one eyebrow at my father. “What plan?”
He looked at the front door as if he was double-checking that we were alone. Wiping his mouth with a cloth, he inclined his head down the hallway. “Come here.”
I followed him away from the dinner table and to his bedroom.
“Dad, what’s…”
He lifted his mattress to reveal a storage cavity where I noticed two backpacks. Each had a bedroll attached to the bottom and empty canteens hooked to the top. “We don’t spend much, so I was able to get these with my first coin payment.”
A small gasp of surprise escaped me. They looked brand-new and really nice. “Are they what I think they are?”
They looked like runaway bags.
He nodded and set the mattress back over them. “Filled with a pair of clean clothes for each of us, an extra pair of gloves for you, and some cured meats that I’ll switch out every month. Just fill the water canteens, put them on our backs, and walk into the woods.”
My throat constricted with emotion as I thought about how much thought he’d put into this. “I like it here,” I admitted. I didn’t want to run away.
He nodded. “Me too. But I’m not so comfortable that I’ll sit in a pot of water as it slowly boils me. If it looks like the queen is preparing to imprison you, we leave. I can find labor work anywhere. You can get a job at an apothecary shop in another town. Moonsreach is about three days’ walk from here, and I hear nice things about it from travelers who have passed through Isariah.”
My eyes felt like they were going to fall out of my head. “You mean we wouldn’t leave here and go back to Isariah?”
His lips pulled into a frown as he gazed at me. “First place they would look, hun.”
I swallowed hard and then nodded. “Okay, well, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Me too.”
We ate the rest of our dinner in companionable silence, both of us lost in our thoughts about the weight of the queen’s decision and how it would affect our lives.
Later that night, I was walking through the hallway back to my room to go to bed when there was a knock at the front door.
My father and I shared a look. It was late, so a knock at this hour couldn’t be good.
“Stay here,” he warned.
I steeled myself, eyeing the back room where his mattress lay and the two bags he’d packed underneath it. Is this what would eventually come of my life? I’d be on the run? Out in the woods all alone?
“How can I help you?” My father’s tone was clipped, and I couldn’t see whom he was talking to because I stood in the doorway to my room.
Yanric poofed beside me and landed on my shoulder.‘Queen’s Royal Guard is here,’he warned.
I stepped out of the hallway then, ready to help my dad if they were here to arrest him or something.
“We have a message from Queen Solana for Fallon Bane,” the guard said.
I entered the living room and met the guard’s gaze. My father peered over his shoulder at me, and I could see from the way he gripped the door handle he was coiled like a snake. He may not have magic, but he would fight to the death to protect me. I knew that.
