he straightened his bad leg. “But she’s right. We need to get out of here. It isn’t safe. Morien’s distracted”—now he winced from more than physical pain—“but he won’t be for long.”
“No fucking kidding. We’ve known that since—”
“There’s a Resistance against the Crown,” Somhairle explained. “I know it’s troubled Her Majesty for some time, but I never knew it was serious. We’ve just discovered that Prince Laisrean is helping it. If he is, he has good reason to.”
“Yeah.” Rags bent down, smeared his diagrams into nothing with his palm, then wiped the soot off his skin and onto the rug. “No offense, again, but your mother’s a power-hungry kidnapper who’s keeping fae kids hostage so her sorcerers can have near unlimited power. I’d say that’s good enough reason.” Rags took a deep breath. “We can’t leave. Not while those kids are still captive. They’re dying and it’s—” A glance at Tal showed he was watching Rags with a glow in his eyes, the first time he’d started shining again since they’d arrived at the castle and he’d sensed his people crying out for a savior. Tal’s gaze was so bright, so trusting. Rags’s skin burned. “Stop it,” he muttered. “Just—want to make a name for myself by breaking into a royal and royally-fucked-up secret castle chamber and steal the Queen’s greatest treasure. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not for you.”
“Morien knows there are traitors within the castle.” Somhairle glanced over his shoulder like he could see his half brother, or a ghost of him. “Knows that a prince was acting against Her Majesty. Security’s bound to be higher than ever. Besides . . .” Somhairle reached out with his good hand to touch the cloth on Rags’s chest. “We don’t know that this is enough to stop him from killing you—”
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe he’ll be busy checking on the other princes for a while, won’t bother with us right away. Probably wants to see how deep the conspiracy goes. That’d give us enough time to free the kids . . . if nothing else.”
Another flash of silver, this time in Somhairle’s eyes, as Inis returned, little cuts on her hands. By her side, Two was crunching happily on a mouthful of mirrorglass.
“Enough standing around. We need to—” Inis began.
“What the fuck?” Rags interrupted. Her eyes were glazed silver, too. Rags looked to Tal for explanation.
Tal nodded knowingly. “They are speaking with One and, through One, with her master. I do not know what they are saying—”
“Wait, you mean with Cab?”
Another nod. “I cannot eavesdrop. It is not my place, without a fragment of my own. But if they are communing, it must be important.”
“Sure. Important,” Rags muttered, left out as ever from the creepy-silver-connection cabal. He patted the thing in his pocket. Since his conversation with Tal, it had warmed to the temperature of his skin. Did that mean it was alive in there? That it was finally waking up, now that Rags had done something worth waking for?
Only a little longer, he thought in its direction.
81
Cab
Inis Fraoch Ever-Loyal? Cab thought the name, on One’s instructions, “as loudly as possible,” though it seemed like madness.
The silence that followed, long and awkward, nearly confirmed that.
Then, when Cab was about to open his eyes and ask One if pranks made sense at a time like this, he heard it: like a stretching of muscles. Like a cat rising in a nearby room, arching its back after a long sleep, yawning.
You. It was Inis’s voice and also One’s voice and also nothing like either. What is it you want?
Cab hadn’t expected her to be pleased to hear from him. There’s a way to help you. Free you from Morien’s control. But I’m with people who also need help—your help.
In some trouble of our own at the moment, actually, Inis replied. Clipped, irritated, sounding more like herself. Morien’s uncovered conspiracy at the castle.
The news hit Cab heavier than the blows from the Queensguard, and they’d threatened to split him open. A face sprang immediately to mind. Sil’s contact.
Einan was going to be furious.
We’ll come to you, Cab said. Making decisions without thinking, nothing like the good soldier he’d been trained to be.
Don’t come to the Hill. Even Inis’s caution sounded annoyed, like speaking in favor of Cab’s well-being rankled her. We can’t stay, we’re going— Shut up!
Cab got the sense that this last bit wasn’t directed at him. It had to have been one of the others in the room, either the