“Academy,” Wycke offered. “I didn’t get any deceitful feelings from him.” He should know, having spent his whole life surrounded by courtiers, the most deceitful creatures in the realm.
Saris patted his shoulder. “Sometimes, it’s the ones we trust the most who betray us.”
“He didn’t betray us!” Jess cried again.
“Then why isn’t he here, getting his own cell?” Saris barked, then quieted.
“I… I don’t know.” Jess stared down, absently rubbing the image of an elf on her arm.
Wycke couldn’t help staring. “Jess? Would you come here a moment?”
Jess backed Saris away with a growl and approached Wycke’s cell.
“Hold out your arms.”
She did as told.
Wycke stared at the inked images: elves, mermen, sorcerers, centaurs, fairies. And not the fanciful depictions the human realm favored, but how they really were, except for something likely meant to depict a hellhound. “Do these pictures have meaning for you?”
Jess shrugged. “Piers drew them. Me and my coworkers inked them.”
Wycke ran a finger over the likeness of a raven on the back of her wrist. On some level, Piers had known of his homeland.
Jess turned, tugging her shirt up to expose her back. A black dragon with hints of deep blue covered the skin, talons outstretched, maw gaping, eyes red.
“Move along,” the guard shouted, pointing down the narrow corridor.
Jess lowered her shirt.
“I have to go.” Saris gave Wycke’s shoulder a quick squeeze before letting go. “Please take care of yourself. This isn’t over yet. Don’t give up.” Slowly, slowly, she backed away. Head high, she said to the guard, “Lead on.” She, Jess, and the guard disappeared down the corridor.
Two distinct clangs sounded from slamming doors, so the women weren’t kept together. Might be a good thing, given their bickering. Why betray them? The elf had appeared genuinely smitten by Jess. The attraction should have prevented him from causing her harm.
Then again, hadn’t Wycke’s own attraction led to harm for Piers, however unintended?
With them all captured, who could possibly help? Chynne? Did Wycke trust the cat/spider/snake/whatever, who’d been familiar to the vilest woman ever to exist? How could Wycke trust him? Well, no, he couldn’t, not when Wycke sat here while Chynne wandered free in the realm.
“Prince Wycke?” A hulking figure stood at the door.
Wycke’s heart gave a happy lurch. “Sir Broderick? What are you doing here?”
Sir Broderick bowed his head, the white in his dark hair showing more. He’d been middle-aged when he’d become Saris’s guard. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect Her Majesty. My commander relieved me of the duty when she disappeared, or I would have prevented her arrest.”
Wycke hadn’t even thought of repercussions to the innocent. “How long were we gone?”
“Two days.”
Two days. Wow. “Only a few hours passed in the human realm.”
Broderick gave a sad smile. “Going to the human realm is forbidden without the high king’s approval, and I should have prevented her from leaving. She is my duty.”
Wycke snorted. “Is there anyone who believes Saris doesn’t do precisely as she wants?” Except escape.And Broen had approved Wycke’s travel, sort of.
“Until lately? I always wondered when the cage would close in too much, and she’d fly.”
So, Wycke wasn’t the only one to see his sister's growing need for freedom.
“I’ve come to warn you,” the grizzled guard said.
