“Often I think Sorley might have the right idea, keeping away from the capital. Something about too much armor and weaponry spoils the ambience.”
Had he noticed her discomfort? Or was this a test? Every conversation at court was a little battle.
No matter how much Somhairle wanted to believe his brother was one of the masters, Inis couldn’t allow herself to forget Laisrean’s position.
“Some might call that talk treason,” Inis murmured.
“Would you?” Laisrean stared at her—through her, she felt—and she had to look away or risk him seeing her, not the glamour she wore. He was squinting again, as though he could pick out places where it had faded or faltered.
“I’d not say a word.” Inis tutted at Two, who rose and stretched lazily. “I ought to give you some privacy with your good brother, Prince Somhairle. I’ve been most uncouth.”
She ignored the princes’ protests, walking too quickly away from the roses and the memories, the leather cords of friendship Laisrean still wore, the real possibility she was about to give herself away.
Friendship with Tomman or no, Laisrean hadn’t stood between his mother’s Queensguard and the Ever-Loyals.
No one could stop the Queen from getting what she wanted. Inis’s blame was misplaced, and she knew it. But her cheeks were still flushed, her throat tight, her eyes burning, when she made it back to Somhairle’s rooms to find that Shining Talon and Rags were gone.
72
Cab
Cab spent the day proving useful around the theater. “Have to make some excuse for you to hang about,” Einan had muttered, giving him a less-fancy shirt to wear from her collection before introducing him to the owner of the Gilded Lily. According to a faded poster by the front door, it was the oldest entertainment establishment in Northside.
It looked and smelled like it.
“He might not be that smart,” Einan had explained, referencing Cab, “and it’s best if you don’t talk to him at all, it only mixes him up, but he follows orders and can lift heavy objects. Didn’t you mention we were short a stagehand?”
Carrying props, splashing paint on backdrops, and carting costume chests from one side of the old building to another kept Cab occupied, kept him from worrying about nightfall.
Because when night fell and Einan took to the stage, Cab had to meet with one of Sil’s contacts. Her most important contact. Einan didn’t trust him with this responsibility, made that clear by storming out of the room in an actress’s melodramatic huff after Sil proposed the plan.
Cab didn’t blame her.
But he wanted to do this for them. For Sil, who’d saved his life and granted his freedom. For Einan, who’d taken him in. (However grudgingly.)
For all the innocents he’d once hoped to defend.
When he’d fled the Queensguard, he’d lost the part of himself that had made him join Queensguard in the first place: the strength and the will to protect. The massacre on the Hill had taken that from him. He hadn’t fully realized it was missing until he’d felt it slip back into place.
That evening, as he dressed for the part, One told him, This is very dangerous.
Cab shrugged into a bulky coat, another Gilded Lily costume special, and turned up the collar. No wonder I like it.
The plan was simple, but it had plenty of room for failure and loss. It had been almost a month, Sil said, since they’d been able to meet with their contact from the Hill. They needed to learn what the Queen was planning. What new tricks Morien had up his red sleeves. They needed to know how many other fae had been excavated and what fae secrets had been discovered.
Cab hadn’t asked who their contact was. Sil hadn’t offered the information. The less he knew, the better.
Meet him—or her—at the designated spot. Get the information the Resistance needed to keep limping forward. Leave without being caught.
He could follow those orders.
There was someone waiting for Cab beneath a streetlamp when he rounded the corner, approaching the address he’d been given. It was close to the theater, which had drawn a respectable crowd.
One kept to the shadows, which was easy in the dark.
Also, she explained, it’s my specialty.
Cab approached the waiting figure. He’d been rehearsing internally the line he was meant to recite. How to make it sound casual and organic in case of mistaken identity.
“Could use a light,” he murmured, stepping under the lamp.
“Dark times,” the young man agreed. “So could we all.”
When he turned, Cab saw that he was dressed like a gravedigger in a