Not casually enough. Einan’s acting background made her better for this job.
“Right, friends. Three of them. Two of them pretending to be servants. I’ll learn more, find out what I can, and report back when I’m able. The usual signal. Which you don’t know, because you’re new, but you don’t have to. Our mutual connections will understand.”
There was a lot more Cab felt he didn’t know. He didn’t see why it mattered what the prince had been wearing. Why the contact had bothered to mention it. Unless it was the color, red, that mattered.
Only one person in red came to Cab’s mind, accompanied by a cold, grim weight on his chest. Morien the Last.
If the youngest prince had come to the castle with Morien, then his three friends might well be the thief, the fae, and Inis Fraoch Ever-Loyal.
Close enough that Sil could help them with their mirror problem.
Cab couldn’t ask the Resistance to risk all a second time, not when they’d lost so many of their forces taking him.
But if they had a chance to free the other masters of the Great Paragon, shouldn’t they try?
It wasn’t Cab’s decision. Sil would know what to do.
“Listen,” the contact continued.
Cab was listening. But it was to One’s voice, clear as sentry bells: Break it up with the big boy. Company’s coming.
Cab held up his hand, one finger to his lips. To his credit, the contact had excellent reflexes. Dropped into a silent crouch the instant Cab signaled him for quiet.
In the cemetery outside, the rhythmic crunch of heavy boots, faint but unmistakable.
Queensguard, Cab mouthed.
The contact nodded, whispered, “Get out of here. No, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Back door. Stick to the shadows, and don’t get caught.”
Cab didn’t know how the contact would be fine but didn’t hang around for clarification. He knew a clear order when he heard it. When corroborated by One, he had no reason to disobey.
73
Rags
Inis was spitting mad when Rags and Shining Talon got back to Somhairle’s quarters, though apparently she didn’t like being told she was actually spitting.
Both Inis and Rags held blindfolds to their chesst. Rags lay on the floor to get ahead of what felt like imminent collapse. Reckless this, foolish that, and a whole slew of new vocabulary words Rags figured meant “stupid” but with extra syllables.
“If you’d quit hollering about us leaving the room, I’d have the chance to tell you what we found when we did.” In comparison to the rows and rows of fae bodies—twenty-seven by Rags’s count, in lines of three, with bare slabs waiting for more—Inis’s fiery eyes didn’t give him pause. What scared him was a bunch of fae hooked up to mirrors, trapped between them, eyes open and seeing nothing, skin so pale their black bones showed through.
What scared him was the noise Shining Talon had made, a broken gasp, at the sight. It was like he’d broken. After weathering the extinction of his people and making peace with them putting him to Sleep, this was the final blow.
Shining Talon hadn’t said a word since Rags had hauled him out of the secret fae torture room, or whatever it was, back to where Somhairle and Angry Inis were waiting.
It was terrifying, and Rags had to make it stop.
“You have every right to be upset,” Somhairle told Inis. “It’s awful for you to be back on the Hill, and we’re all grateful that you’ve come.” A pointed look at Rags, like the prince thought he could perform gratitude on command. “However, I think we need to hear what Master Rags has found.”
Somhairle’s kindness stung worse than Inis and her shrieking. Rags would’ve withstood the headache if it meant fewer soft words and concern for his well-being when, yeah, he deserved shouting. With Shining Talon too distressed to back him up, he was as alone as he’d been before he’d awoken the fae.
Even though he’d been steeling himself against this moment all along, he didn’t want it to come.
“We went snooping under the Hill.” Rags glanced toward Shining Talon, checking to see if he’d chime in, share some fae insight. He was seated in a chair, his silver eyes blank. Two had left Inis’s side to twine around his ankles, and Three was perched nearby on the mantel over the empty fireplace. There was something tender about the way the fae creatures clustered close. Like they needed to protect their own.