“What’s the other option?”I asked.
“The alchemist laboratories at Pyrehold.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, remembering the place where I’d encountered that horrible darkness.
“That’s theeasyoption?”I said flatly.
“This is no easy task,” Kael said, clearly missing my sarcasm.“Pyrehold is where the kingdom locks up its worst offenders.Its defenses are substantial.Those laboratories conduct experiments on the prisoners, second only to Thornfell Keep in sheer horror.We’ve long suspected that this was how they learned to corrupt the Emberborn.”
“Why would you send me?”I asked.“Surely you could send someone with a powerful Ember like Chronothene.They could just stop time and walk in and out.”
Mireth looked directly at me.“What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room.Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Recently we’ve noticed a disturbing phenomenon.It appears to be related to what you experienced during your visit to Pyrehold with Darion.A passage in this book has shed some light on the situation.”She tapped the book’s spine.“Some of our Emberborn members have found it harder to draw on their Embers in certain places.Sometimes they can’t at all.This book discusses an experiment—a serum that enables Sentinels not only to detect Embers but to nullify them.They drain the energy in the Embersphere so Emberborn can’t draw on it.They call it a null field.”
“And you believe that experiment was successful,” I said.
Mireth nodded.“You noticed all the Sentinels surrounding Pyrehold, correct?We believe those Sentinels are creating a null field.We believe that’s what you encountered when you reached out with your Veilsense.”
The memory sent a shudder through me—the darkness that seemed to embrace me still lingered in my mind.I let out a humorless laugh.“So you need a good old-fashioned thief.”
“Exactly,” Mireth said.She looked deadly serious.“This is of the highest importance.If Tarnasau perfects this, the Order will fall without a single sword drawn.We’ll be defenseless.”
It also meant Elena would be trapped here without her Ember to protect her, and Darion would be powerless.
“I understand,” I said, with all the weight that the moment required.
Was this what had tipped the scales in my favor with the council?Had Kael voted for me to join the Order despite his objection because he knew they needed my skills?Was I simply a lamb being sent to the slaughter?
“The security inside must be rock solid,” I said.“I assume there’s a plan?”
Kael cleared his throat.“I have a contact at the prison.He’s a spy for the Order and has agreed to help once you are both inside.”
“Both?”I said.
“They won’t let you just walk through the door,” Mireth said.“That’s where Darion comes in.”
My stomach dropped as I turned toward Darion.The look on his face was complex—a combination ofI’m sorry I got you into thisandWe can do this together.
“I’ve got a plan for how to get us in,” Darion said.“And Sprocket has a plan for getting us out.”
“I don’t like it,” I said to Darion after he’d walked me back to my chambers.“So much could go wrong.”
“There are a lot of risks, but we’ve been over everything, and this is the only plan that might really work.”
I couldn’t argue with either of those statements.But I still didn’t like it.
“I don’t trust Kael,” I said.
“Kael is an old friend,” Darion said.“I know he’s not always the easiest person to like, but he means well, and there are few people in the Order whom I trust more than him.”
“But does he trust you?He almost didn’t vote me into the Order even though it was you who invited me.”
“You absolutely deserved to be voted in.But Kael may have had a point—I was too close to you.He was right to question it.And in the end, you convinced him you belong here.”
I wanted to argue my point further.I wanted to explain that there was something about Kael that bothered me and that thus far he’d done little to earn my trust.But I didn’t think saying that would accomplish anything.
