palace. “Those are the mages?”
Holden couldn’t find his voice, so he nodded.
“I didn’t think—they look so—” She stopped with a shiver. Holden knew just what she meant though. “Come on, it’ll do us no good to get caught out here.”
Even as she said it, doors opened at the other end of the garden and a phalanx of guards came out, pistols drawn. Tallia grabbed Holden by the elbow and dragged him through an arch to another part of the garden, full of fruit trees and ordered beds of herbs, down a ramp to a small doorway at the end, set under the palace. No guards stood by it, and when Tallia tried the handle, it wasn’t locked.
Tallia eased the door shut behind them and slid a bolt across. “Kitchen door, only gets locked last thing, after the cooks have gone to bed.”
The narrow corridor was brightly lit from brass lamps hung along the walls.
“How do you know all this, and where are we going?” And Ilsa, what was he going to do about Ilsa? She’d betrayed Van, and Josie. But she was his wife, and he had a duty.
“We’re going to see if we can get Van and Josie out. I used to work here. My father was a patrolman, I told you that. He got me a job in the palace. Working for Rillen. It didn’t work out.”
“Tallia—”
She turned away with a set look and led him on. Not about to be drawn, not yet. She pushed open a door, soft and quiet, and looked around before she waved him in after her into a cavern of a kitchen.
Cooks and maids and waiters ran to and fro in the steam, a chaotic mess of shouts and arguments and fragrant spices. No one seemed to notice two extras. Tallia pulled Holden into a quiet corner, squashed up together by a larder.
“We’ll be safe enough here for a while.”
Her eyes were very wide and dark as she looked up at him, her mouth quivering. Holden was tempted, so very tempted, to kiss that quiver away, to have her smile at him. He controlled himself with an effort, with the cold dash of Ilsa in his thoughts.
“And then what?” he asked. “Ilsa, how could she, why did she? Van Gast saved us from the bond, freed us. Without him we’d—”
“Without him, you’d never have seen Josie again. Revenge, that’s what this started out as. I think it grew from there though. I think Ilsa found out who she really is without the bond, and it’s not someone you’d like.”
“How do you know this? You’re wrong, you have to be.”
She couldn’t be right. Mistrust was what had brought them all here—he wasn’t about to make the same mistake Van Gast had. Ilsa wouldn’t, she couldn’t. How would she know this Rillen anyway? It was Tallia, it had to be, making up lies to confuse him, playing them all off against each other.
“How do I know? Because I have eyes, because my little magics run that way and I see the strands that bind, and pull apart. Because I know about you and Josie, and I know that sailors gossip worse than women, and even if you haven’t told Ilsa, one of them has, same as they told me and Gilda Van’s secret name. They were talking about it in the mess. Because Ilsa loves you, or thought she did, because the bond once told her to. You were all she had left, and she wanted to make Josie hurt like Josie hurt her when she tumbled you, only now she doesn’t want you anymore, but she’s still bent on hurting Josie.”
Holden couldn’t look at her, at the pity in her dark eyes, the sad twist of her mouth. He’d wanted Ilsa to be happy, but she hadn’t been. He’d wanted to make things good between them, but couldn’t, and he hadn’t known why. She’d been loving at times, cold at others. And that coldness had started when? He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure she knew about him and Josie—he’d certainly never said, other than to say he’d known her years before. He’d wanted Ilsa to be happy because that was his duty, because he was responsible for her, but he didn’t know what it would take to make her happy, hadn’t known what she wanted. Because he’d been afraid to ask, afraid of what the answer would be.
It couldn’t be true, she couldn’t have done this, condemned Van Gast and Josie