The sharp doubt in those words made him tense. Yrene hadn’t trusted the servant girl for an instant, making up tasks that would keep her away, but for Kadja to do this—

“With you gone, my lord, I … I took the night to visit my parents.”

He tried not to cringe. A family. She had family here, and he’d never bothered to ask—

“And can your parents swear to the fact that you were with them all night?”

Chaol whirled. “Yrene.”

Yrene didn’t so much as glance at him as she studied Kadja. The servant girl withered under that fierce stare. “But I suppose leaving the door unlocked for someone would have been smarter.”

Kadja cringed, shoulders curving inward.

“Yrene—this could have been from anything. Anyone.”

“Yes, anyone. Especially someone who was looking for something.”

The words clicked at the same moment the disarray of the room did.

Chaol faced the servant girl. “Don’t clean any more of the mess. Everything in here might offer some proof of who did this.” He frowned. “How much did you manage to clean already?”

From the state of the room, not much.

“I only just started. I thought you wouldn’t return until tonight, so I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.” At her cringe, he added, “Go to your parents. Take the day off, Kadja. I’m glad you weren’t here when this happened.”

Yrene gave him a frown that said the girl might very well have been the cause of this, but kept her mouth shut. Within a minute, Kadja had left, closing the hall doors with a quiet click.

Yrene ran her hands over her face. “They took everything. Everything.”

“Did they?” He limped to the desk, peering into the drawers as he braced a hand on the surface. His back ached and writhed—

Yrene stormed to the gold couch, lifting the ruined cushions. “All those books, the scrolls …”

“It was common knowledge that we’d be gone.” He leaned fully against the desk, nearly sighing at the weight it took off his back.

Yrene carved a path through the room, inspecting all the places she’d ferreted away those books and scrolls. “They took it all. Even The Song of Beginning.”

“What about the bedroom?”

She vanished instantly. Chaol rubbed at his back, hissing softly. More rustling, then, “Ha!”

She emerged again, waving one of his boots in the air. “At least they didn’t find this.”

That first scroll. He rallied a smile to his mouth. “At least there’s that.”

Yrene held his boot to her chest as if it were a babe. “They’re getting desperate. That makes people dangerous. We shouldn’t stay here.”

He surveyed the damage. “You’re right.”

“Then we’ll go directly to the Torre.”

He glanced through the open doors to the foyer. To Nesryn’s bedroom.

She was due back soon. And when she did return, to find him gone, with Yrene … He’d treated her abominably. He’d let himself forget what he’d promised, what he’d implied, in Rifthold. On the ship here. And Nesryn might not hold him to any promises, but he’d broken too many of them.

“What is it?” Yrene’s question was barely more than a whisper.

Chaol closed his eyes. He was a bastard. He’d dragged Nesryn here, and this was how he’d treated her. While she was off hunting for answers, risking her life, while she sought some shred of hope for raising an army … He’d send that message—immediately. To return as fast as she could.

“It’s nothing,” Chaol said at last. “Perhaps you should stay at the Torre tonight. There are enough guards there to make anyone think twice.” He added when hurt flickered in her eyes, “I can’t appear to be running away. Especially with the royals now starting to think I might be someone of interest. That Aelin continues to be such a source of worry and intrigue … perhaps I should use that to my advantage.” He fiddled with the cane, tossing it from one hand to another. “But I should stay here. And you, Yrene, you should go.”

She opened her mouth to object, but paused, straightening. A steely glint entered her eyes. “I’ll take Hafiza the scroll myself, then.”

He hated the edge to her voice as he nodded, the dimming of those eyes. He’d done wrong by her, too. In not first ending things with Nesryn, to make it clear. He’d made a mess of it.

A fool. He’d been a fool to think he could rise above this. Move beyond the person he’d been, the mistakes he’d made.

A fool.

53

Yrene stormed up the Torre steps, careful not to crush the scroll in her fist.

The trashing of his room had rattled him. Rattled her, too, but …

It wasn’t fear of harm or death. Something else had shaken him.

In her other hand, she clutched the locket, the metal warm against her skin.

Someone knew they were close to discovering whatever it was they wanted to keep secret. Or at the very least suspected they might learn something and had destroyed any possible sources. And after what they’d started to piece together in the ruins amid Aksara …

Yrene checked her temper as she reached the top landing of the Torre, the heat smothering.

Hafiza was in her private workshop, tutting to herself over a tonic that rippled with thick smoke. “Ah, Yrene,” she said without looking up while she measured in a drop of some liquid. Vials and basins and bowls covered the desk, scattered between the open books and a set of bronze hourglasses of various time measurements. “How was your party?”

Revelatory. “Lovely.”

“I assume the young lord finally handed over his heart.”

Yrene coughed.

Hafiza smiled as she lifted her head at last. “Oh, I knew.”

“We are not—that is to say, there is nothing official—”

“That locket suggests otherwise.”

Yrene clapped a hand over it, cheeks heating. “He is not—he is a lord.”

At Hafiza’s raised brows, Yrene’s temper whetted itself. Who else knew? Who else had seen and commented and betted?

“He is a Lord of Adarlan,” she clarified.

“So?”

“Adarlan.”

“I thought you had moved past that.”