She held his eyes but couldn’t hold back her obvious shudder.
Helda’s magic was black.
It was Helda’s magic that spirited Maddie away.
So it would be Helda’s head that rotted on a spike at Rimée Keep, the Queen’s palace in Snowdon.
Apollo would take it there himself.
“They’ve hurt him,” Apollo guessed quietly.
“She showed me a mirror. He was in it,” she snapped. “And yes. Every day. On the hour. Every hour. They hurt him.”
Apollo felt Frey draw close but he didn’t take his eyes off Franka.
“So you schemed to trap your brother, shift blame should this plan be discovered?” Frey asked.
“No,” she replied. “The Keer parcel had to be laid somewhere in the house. A Keer parcel is easily detected as it glows when the magic outside is trying to pierce the enchantments protecting a location, so it had to be well-placed. Calder informed me there was no room for me.”
She sent a bitter look to Calder, who Apollo already liked but he grew in Apollo’s estimation greatly, seeing it was clear he had no wish for Franka to be under his roof.
Her eyes came back to Frey. “So I shared what was happening with Kristian and begged for his help. He didn’t want to do it,” she hastened to add. “But, I…he…” She swallowed. “My brother has a soft heart.”
Her eyes went to her brother and she swallowed again.
Then she whispered to the floor, “He’s always had a soft heart. It doesn’t fit a Drakkar.”
“Congratulations, cousin, with that, you’ve spoken more truth tonight than you have since you emerged bawling from your mother’s womb,” Frey drawled and she turned bitter eyes to him.
“They have my Antoine,” she hissed.
“And did it occur to you that if you came direct to me with this problem, we could see about getting him back?” Frey returned.
“And why would you do me any favors?” she spat.
“Because I understand what it means to be in love but, cousin, you surprisingly forget. I owe you a debt,” Frey replied.
Her face grew cold as she slipped her mask in place.
“I’m not in love,” she snapped.
“Tell yourself that, Franka,” Frey said quietly. “But you do not commit treason for a heady cl**ax and we both know it. It’s just that you only know it deep inside, where you’ve buried any emotion that might make you resemble a human being.”
She glared at her cousin but there was more that they needed to know.
“You sent the informant,” Apollo remarked and her eyes came to him.
But she said nothing.
“You knew I’d sent my apologies for the Drakkar gale and to lure me there, hoping I would bring Madeleine, you sent the informant.”
She lifted her chin and confessed by saying, “Hope prevailed. It worked.”
Apollo drew in a sharp breath and made note to send his men on a hunt.
The informant would not earn a spike but he would earn a noose.
Franka tired of their discourse and demanded, “What do you do with Kristian and I now?”