It’s hard, telling them about Siga. Reliving the joy of finding the seal after our hard work locating it—achieving what felt like an impossible task—and then the betrayal of the smugglers and the fight with the clerics. Harman listens with a slight frown, but when I’m done, he pats me on the arm.
“I know it feels hopeless right now,” he says. “But I’ve heard a hundred disastrous debriefs about how a mission failed. The only way to deal with it is to pick yourself up and look ahead to the next task.”
“I know you’re right,” I say miserably. Leon’s already tried to make this point. “But the seal was our only lead on the artifacts. I’ve sent messages to Fairon and Esther to see if Filusia or the Hand can help search for the others, but we’re still starting ten steps behind Caledon for the last two.”
“And maybe if you’d left the seal where it was, Caledon would never have found it anyway,” Alastor points out. I nod. This depressing fact has also occurred to me.
“Tactful as ever, Al,” Harman sighs. “Except I’m sure Caledon would’ve located it eventually, with or without our help. He’sbeen working on finding the tokens much longer than we have, and he has the resources of an entire country behind him now.”
“Which is why removing my aunt from power is more important than ever,” I say. “If we can’t find the tokens faster than Caledon, we need to slow his search down. Oclanna’s given Caledon the use of the royal armies and free run of our territories. If we take those away from him, his task gets a lot more difficult.”
It’s not just about slowing him down. After what I saw at Siga, it’s clear I’ll need an army to stop Caledon, and I need it fast. The only way to guarantee that is by claiming the throne the right way.
There’s a distant knock on the front door of the house, and Leon’s soldiers stiffen, but Harman waves his hand to indicate we shouldn’t be worried. There’s some voices downstairs, and a single set of footsteps climbs to our floor.
A man with salt-and-pepper hair and a crinkle around his eyes appears in the doorway.
“Will!” I gasp, jumping up to run and hug my old friend.
“Hello, Morgana,” Will says warmly as he pats me on the back.
Harman smiles. “I’m glad I kept it a surprise. Now it’s something to cheer you up. Will’s been helping us here in the city. He found this place for us, for one.”
“Guinna downstairs is the daughter of an old pal of mine,” Will explains as Stratton gives up his chair to let Will sit down.
“Not just any old pal, a palace guard William knew back in the day,” Harman adds. “As a Hand informant and someone who used to work in the royal court, I figured he’d be very useful helping us find sympathetic people in Elmere. He’s evenmanaged to link us up with the security of some nobles so we could talk to members of the court alone.”
“It’s just been a lot of talking really,” Will says. “Plenty of folk who worked under your parents’ reign aren’t keen on the way things are going. I was one of them once, so I’m a safe person to open up to. But how are you, my girl? Harman and Alastor here have been filling me on all your adventures.”
I grimace. “Adventures” seems too light a word for it. When I was living with Will at Gallawing, there’s no way I could’ve envisioned all I’d go on to see and do.
“Things are very different since the last time I saw you,” I say carefully. “I’mdifferent.” I study his face, wondering if he can see the missing piece of me, if he can sense the girl he once knew is now carrying around darkness at her core.
“Of course you are,” Will says with a gentle smile. “Hard times call for us all to change, but if it helps us to survive what gets thrown at us, then I call that growth.”
I nod slowly, his words helping me see things in a new way. The girl who came to this city all those months ago could never have coped with the battle at the river Siga, or saved Leon by sacrificing a piece of her soul, or been tortured by the Temple and lived to tell the tale. But I can, and I did.
I sit up straighter as Harman and Alastor start to talk about their work over the last two and a half weeks, involving a host of names I don’t know and covert meetings in unfamiliar places.
“…And she said the best black market dealer in Filusian items was a man called Johnny Pockets on Wetworth Close,” Alastor says.
Harman clears his throat. “While I’m sure everyone wants to hear about our new friends, Al, why don’t we just skip to the part where we found the proof Morgana needs?”
I smirk at Leon.
“Alastor’s rubbing off on him,”I say across the mooring.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Right,” Alastor claps his hands. “We found the man who gave Oclanna’s assassin the knife he used. He didn’t even smuggle it in from Filusia—he forged it himself, copying the Filusian style.”
“And he’ll attest to the fact the same knife was used to frame Leon?”
“Yes, now he’s confessed to Alastor, he’s willing to swear to it as long as we keep him safe from Oclanna and out of the hands of the authorities.”
I’m pleased. The testimony of a crook wouldn’t hold much sway in other circumstances, but with Alastor’s power to prove he’s telling the truth, his confession is useful.
“What about the monarch’s council?” Leon asks. “Did you find someone willing to back Ana’s challenge?”
