Page 52 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

“You heard me.” A taunting arch lifts their brow.

“You think I want to be here?”

“I think you wanted your sister alive, no matter the cost.” Talon doesn’t flinch from the daggers in my stare. “I get that. Really, I do. But guess what?Thisis the price. Buck up and pay it.”

I swallow down the bitter burn of Talon’s words, frustration simmering in my bones as I grab another cup of wine.

“The least he could do is give me some fucking information.” The words come out hard, but I keep my voice low. The Whisperers must have a plan beyond killing the High King—if they want me here as a distraction for the prince, is it because they want to puthimon the throne instead of his father? Whatever they’re planning, they’ll want to make sure the mages can return and bring magic with them. But would that mean another drawn-out uprising, or a quick coup?

Do the Whisperers think the Martyr would ever come back? Do they even know for sure if she’s still alive, after twenty years of exile and no word about where she went?

Even if all I want is to get back to Finn, the truth is that a part of me I can’t ignore any longer also itches to know what kind of world, what kind of people, my sister is working with. Because there’s no doubt left in me, after the way Wolf’s gaze turned dark and secretive at my question about whether Finn is fighting with them. She’s working with the Whisperers somehow. Just like I am now.

Talon’s brown eyes shift in the candlelight. The warmth vanishes as a strange, weighty sadness pulls across their face, and they glance away.

“He won’t let himself make the same mistake twice.”

Excuse me? “What isthatsupposed to mean?”

A guard with cold, hard eyes raps the hilt of her sword against the wall next to the red curtain, and the clatter cuts through the din of whispers and gossip. Her black-and-red uniform is like flame in shadow through the flickering candlelight as she snaps an order to the room. “In your places.”

Talon takes the cup from my hand and places it on the table. “Don’t finish that,” they warn. “Cymrean wine is stronger than you think, and there’s a staircase waiting past that curtain to take you down to the throne room, where the rest of the court is waiting.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” I wrench the cup back and swallow it down in one gulp.

An older noblewoman herding a young girl with skin the color of cream a few feet away gasps. The girl in her charge is barely five feet tall but drips with emeralds and what must be achingly heavy braids of woven gold draped around her narrow neck and shoulders.

“Gran, can I have a cup?” Her voice reminds me of a lamb, sweet and soft.

Talon stifles a snort next to me.

“Out of the question,” the older woman snaps, glowering at me as she hurries the girl away. It’s as if just being near me might besmirch a girl who barely looks old enough to be named as an heir, let alone marry one. The girl is brave enough, though, to risk a glance back at me, past the old woman’s silk-clad arm, and offer a small, quick smile, her eyes lighting with laughter.

Talon grabs my arm, steering me to the end of a short line of six noble daughters gathering in front of the curtain, and nods to the guard as if they know her.

She nods back, eyes sweeping over me, hard and quick.

“I’m not a mistake.” I choose my words carefully, so none will betray us if anyone overhears and reports us to the Lady of Shadows—the High Queen’s lethal spymaster.

“I wasn’t talking aboutyou.” Their voice drops just lowenough for me to hear them. “You’re not the only one with lives on the line if you fail.”

Without another word, Talon steps back through the curtain and disappears into the shadows beyond. For the first time tonight, I’m alone. My stomach somersaults; I run a hand along the midnight shimmering silk, smoothing out creases that don’t exist.

One by one, the six noble daughters in front of me approach the curtain. I follow at a small distance behind—red velvet, thick and lush in the glow of the candlelight, fills my sight.

The guard at the edge of the curtain takes the small folded card that the noble daughter at the front of the line offers and pulls back the curtain to read it out. “Eavan of Antrim,” she announces, voice loud enough to surely reach every part of the space beyond.

The tall noble daughter with red hair—the one from the hall outside the baths—steps forward as the guard pulls the curtain back for her and walks through. While her shoulders appear as bent and weary as before, I think I catch her eyes snap with a determined light I didn’t see there earlier, and the crowd beyond the curtain cheers.

Still, my spine stiffens, remembering her pleas, her willingness to take help from Oona, the noble daughter whose estates used Cymrean mercenaries to crush dissent during the uprising.

I know what happens when nobles band together.

People like me end up as their sacrifices. And a famine would be no different.

What if there was a way to divide them? A way to set them at each other’s throats, even at the High Queen’s so that the idea of annexing our isle looked anything but easy?

My blood races as the whisper of an idea takes shape in my mind.