She shook his hand. “Mireille Valois-Fortin.” Her mother’s true last name and her father’s last name. An honor to both sides of her heritage. If she was starting over, she might as well do it right. “Would you like to dance, Ronin Matakos?”
He swept her back into his arms, then spun her around the dance floor for hours, asking her a bunch of questions to which he already knew the answers and making her laugh.
But it was nice. The hope that theycouldstart over.
As long as they survived tomorrow.
She tried not to dwell on it. Tried to enjoy the first stress-free night she’d had with Ronin since he’d arrived.
She should have known it couldn’t possibly last.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Cassandra drummed her fingers on her chair, wondering what time it was. Wondering if she’d shown her face long enough to leave. She was anxious to get herself and her crew out of this dangerous room filled with their enemies.
No one had discovered Tristan’s presence, bless the Creator. She didn’t even know where he was. Probably still leaning against that column.
Ronin and Mireille twirled past her on the dance floor, laughing and smiling. It heartened Cassandra to see it.
She pushed up from her chair, intending to grab her friends and leave, when a gong sounded from the other end of the hall. The crowd stilled and the dancing pairs paused mid-step.
A hulking Brethren in a shaggy fur cloak banged the gong again. Four strikes. Eight strikes. Twelve.
Midnight.
Cassandra glanced toward Mireille, who shrugged. She didn’t know what was going on either.
Wormwood slithered out from behind a column and joined the Brethren at the gong.
Cassandra’s nerves prickled. Was he going to make another speech? Chant out a final prayer to Vestan? Close the festivities?
Her stomach fell when the Koenig appeared next to him.
With an iridescent white feather clenched in his fist.
Silence blanketed the hall.
“Well, friends,” Wormwood said, “it seems our challenger has tested the boundaries of her blood vow. Challenger Fortin! Come down here.”
Cassandra stepped off the dais, and a tense presence settled in behind her—Tristan. The Fae on the dance floor parted as she progressed toward Wormwood and the Koenig, her mind whirling.
She may have prowled through Aedelmar’s memories, but she hadn’tharmedhim. She couldn’t. The blood vow protected him just as much as it protected her.
She stopped in front of the two males, and Ronin and Mireille stepped up to flank her.
“Were you in that room at World’s End with the Koenig and Mistress Valette?” Wormwood asked.
Several Brethren snickered, elbowing each other.
The clank of their weapons chilled Cassandra’s blood. She didn’t have a single one on her person. Neither did Ronin nor Mireille. Tristan had the Typhon steel dagger he’d arrived with, but surrounded by a small army of armed males, it wouldn’t do much. And sure, Ronin and Mireille could call upon their wolves, but there were at least two dozen Beastrunner Brethren who possessed similarly powerful creatures.
Cassandra and her friends were severely outnumbered and underequipped.
“Answer me,” Wormwood barked, his obsequious mask slipping.
“Yes.” Cassandra squared her shoulders. “But he came to no harm by my hand.”
“How can we be sure though?” Wormwood hissed. “The apothecarist addled him. Who knows what you may have doneto him in that room? What stories you may have slipped into his mind?” The Brethren crowded closer as many of the regular prisoners—save Silas and the Kennel volunteers—retreated to the edges of the room. “A challenger without integrity does not deserve a fair appeal. And without a fair appeal, the Koenig is not obligated to honor his end of the bargain.”
