We went through the specifics of the plan.
Tesa met my gaze. There was always that question in them, as if she were on the verge of knowing me, and beneath it was the trust that I was going to get them out. Tesa’s old faith in me,borrowed from an earlier time. She must not remember, not in mind nor in body, the end of her previous faith.
She turned and went, Riven at her shoulder.
I watched them go the way I always watched the people I sent into difficult situations, with part of my mind already calculating what to do if they didn’t come back out.
The math of it all grew complicated. Tesa had to be protected for Ander; Tay, Lidi, and Maris had to be protected for Cara. She was my higher priority, but Tesa had strategic value as a Nightwalker who understood the palace. I’d be grateful to have them all at the safehouse then, better yet, the rebel camp, though having them near Corbyn came with its own problems.
And there were other things, emotional things, underlying the strategy.
Az was at my left. Dairen, my right.
“Stay ready.”
At least this part was simple.
The queen’s tower rose from the eastern wing. It was older stone, older magic. It smelled to me of blood, and I was never sure if that was my imagination or if, just as the queen’s thrones were built from dragon’s bones, the castle was built from blood.
We went down the halls, up the servants’ stairs.
There was a ward in the hall. Dair’s nostrils flared, breathing in the magic. Like a guard recognizing a face but knowing it out of context, it hesitated, but we passed through.
“I don’t like this,” Dair breathed, barely a whisper. “We are going to have to get out of the capital before the queen rounds us all up.”
“Cara will fly, and we will go,” Az murmured back, brimming with confidence in her that I would’ve usually found gratifying.
Though the only confidence I should have in her was in her willingness to drive a blade into my back. The thought curdled in my gut.
“She’s a clever, distrusting mortal. That’s why you love her.”Shadowbane’s voice was an unhelpful growl.
I stuck a finger into my ear, as if to plug it; usually, he took the hint.“I’m in the middle of a highly dangerous mission for yourclever mortal.”
“You’re standing in a hallway eavesdropping while someone else does the work. You have time to listen. Not that you ever do. Or the girl wouldn’t have needed to stab you.”
I gritted my teeth.
Through the crack of the door into the hallway: footsteps, steady and unhurried, the measured pace of a Nightwalker escort. Good.
Dairen tilted his head. Listening. The footsteps continued, rounded a corner, went quiet.
We waited as she and Riven reached the guard, talked their way past him.
Then, a crash.
A voice I didn’t know, sharp and sudden. Riven’s voice rose over it, too controlled, speaking with the flatness of a man trying to unwind a situation.
Then the scream, and I was already moving.
The door to the connecting passage was ten feet behind us. I covered the distance and had it open before the echo had finished, and Az and Dairen were with me before I’d cleared the frame.
The servants’ corridor beyond was narrow and dim, and at the far end of it, a guard was running toward the commotion with his hand on his sword.
He saw Tesa coming out of the room ahead of him and stopped. “Tesa?”
His voice had the relief of someone who has been frightened and has seen a calm, familiar face. His sword hand dropped as he closed the distance.
Her expression didn’t change.
