“I don’t know, Ryn,” I growled. “What happened? You were supposed to be guarding her door.”
Ryn’s face paled. “Krait—I went to take a piss. I was gone for five minutes.”
“A lot can happen in five minutes,” Sybilla’s rasped and strained voice cut in. “I should have locked the door.”
Hearing her take any blame made another snarl gather low in my throat.
Sybilla pointed at the men. Their faces were turning blue.
“Stop that,” she ordered.
“Why?” I retorted.
“Because I’d like to interrogate them tomorrow.”
Elsedora jogged down the hall in what she’d worn that evening, except with no shoes. Her eyes widened at the scene. “What in the Sources’ names…”
“El, take these men to the cell,” I reeled in my Shadows only enough to allow mynewly appointedsecond to step inside and take the rope from the ground. I could kill Ryn.
“Happily,” she said. She crossed the room and tied the men’s hands with frightening ease. She turned to Ryn with a narrowed gaze. “Answers later.”
“What will you do with them?” Sybilla asked.
“They will die,” I said plainly. “After we question them.”
“They attempted to killme.Don’t I get a say in their fates?” she retorted though her posture told me the wind had been knocked from her sails. It felt like she needed to pick this fight—like it centered her to have her claws out.
My teeth involuntarily ground together. “Fuck no, not in my realm.”
When I stepped toward her, she braced again—it made her look smaller. Her hands began to rise as though I would…
I frowned, and her eyes grew wider.
A learned reaction.
She thought I would lash out—hurt her too.
“You can’t go around killing anyone who tries to harm me. Your people need to trust this alliance. You kill them for attacking me, and you make them martyrs.”
I drew closer to her, and she took another step backward.
Now I was growing pissed. But not at her. At anyone who’d dared to touch such divinity, such power, with an unkind hand.
Ryn was still standing there with his hands loosely at his sides, body tense, when I glanced back at him.
“Help El get them to the cell. And have the maids bring a cot up to my chambers.”
“A cot?” he asked.
“Are you really asking questions? Go.”
I trusted my friend implicitly—he’d never slacked off or slipped up on anything this important. And the Central Queen had just becomeincrediblyimportant to us.
He nodded with a short “Alright.” Looking defeated, Ryn left the room without another word.
Sybilla’s breath finally slowed. As I approached, she gripped a bedpost, her knuckles white, but she didn’t try to back away from me this time. I leaned down as gently as possible, trying to remind myself that she was still in shock, still shaken.
“I don’t know who in your life gave you the impression that someone can hurt you without consequence.” I should stop speaking and let her be, but all I could see was red. “In my residence—if anyone so much as intentionally gives you a paper cut, I will let my Shadows tear them limb from limb. Slowly. Do we have an understanding?”
