Caelar turns his back on me, walks to the door, and stares outside. I can’t see anything past him.

“The rebels won’t win this war,” Tylan says, drawing my attention back inside.

I meet his eyes. “People said that about them taking the palace.”

He lifts a shoulder as if to say, That’s true. “The high nobles won’t approve the daughter of Zarrak unless she hands over the garistyn. She’s had two weeks to do that. She hasn’t, and she’s losing support every day.”

I frown. Garistyn? I’ve heard that word before. Back in Spier when I was shadow-reading with Kyol, I think. Jielan mentioned it. It has something to do with a king or Descendant.

“They haven’t told you about that, have they?” That’s from Caelar. He doesn’t add anything else, doesn’t turn around or move. He just stands there, staring outside, and an uncomfortable feeling gathers in my gut.

“What’s a garistyn?” Paige asks the question. I’m grateful. I don’t want to show curiosity or weakness or anything in front of these fae.

“Kingkiller. You can’t kill a king without consequences,” Tylan says. “They’re Descendants of the Tar Sidhe. You might call them ‘holy.’ The fact is, the high nobles won’t approve Zarrak unless she turns the garistyn over to be executed. She’s protecting the Butcher of Brykeld.”

My stomach sinks. I’m almost dizzy because I think he’s telling the truth. Lena mentioned it before. She was annoyed because the high nobles were insisting she tell them who killed the king. I didn’t realize it was this important, though, and Tylan has it wrong. Aren didn’t kill Atroth. Kyol did.

“Jorreb had nothing to do with the king’s death,” I whisper.

“Some people say the nalkin-shom killed him,” Tylan continues. “The silver walls didn’t protect him. She fissured into his bedroom. Her touch poisoned him, they say. She weakened his magic, and while he was distracted and vulnerable, she sliced open his throat with invisible metal from her world.”

I attempted to slice open Lord General Radath’s throat with shrapnel that was embedded in my arm. The silver walls didn’t protect him because I was fissured to the palace via a Sidhe Tol. Someone’s twisted up and mangled all the details of that day. I never even touched Atroth. I almost don’t mind fae believing that I did, though. It’s better than their knowing Kyol killed him.

“You’re going to tell us how to get into the palace,” Caelar says from the doorway. He leaves without giving me a chance to respond, not that I would have answered the way he wanted me to.

Tylan watches him go, concern in his eyes. It vanishes when he realizes I’m watching him.

“Paige,” he says, extending his hand.

“Can I have another minute?” she asks.

He looks at me. “Just a minute. I’ll be close by.”

“He trusts you,” I say, after Tylan leaves.

“About as much as I trust him,” she says. “He’ll be right outside.”

I lift an eyebrow. That doesn’t exactly sound like a vote of confidence.

Paige runs a hand through her perfectly chaotic hair, and an edarratae flashes across her face. She scoots closer to me, lowers her voice to a whisper that I can just barely hear.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you before,” she says. “I’m not relying on what the fae tell me. They don’t know Lee speaks their language. He’s translated what they’ve said in Fae. That tip was anonymous, and they honestly believe the rebels killed those humans.”

“Lee speaks Fae?” I ask.

Paige nods. “I made a deal with him. If he told me what he overheard, I wouldn’t tell the fae about the serum.”

The serum again. She really doesn’t know the consequences of what Lee did to her.

“Lena would have used the serum against Caelar,” Paige continues. “I couldn’t let that happen, so I told Tylan about it. Lee was pissed, but…Well, I convinced him to get the serum.”

Is she blushing? There’s not much light in here, and her chaos lusters make it hard to tell for sure, but I’m almost certain her cheeks are pink. When we were at the palace, she said she and Lee hooked up after her sister’s wedding. In Paige-speak, that means they slept together. I think she slept with Lee again to convince him to get the serum. If there wasn’t a hint of pink on her cheeks, I’d say that was a whorish thing to do, but Paige never blushes when she talks about sex. She really is into him.

She clears her throat. “Lee was supposed to just walk in and walk out with it. There wasn’t supposed to be a fight.”

“Is Lee here?” I ask, hating that any feelings she might have for him are likely to end very soon.

“Yeah, he’s…” Her gaze flickers to the left. There’s just a wall there, but I have the impression Lee’s somewhere in that direction. “He helped Tylan bring you here. I’m not sure if that was his choice or not. He’s not acting like himself. He’s quiet and angry, I think. I need to talk to him.”

“Paige,” Tylan calls.

“One second,” she says over her shoulder. Then she turns back to me. “Look, I know you wouldn’t join the rebels just because you’re in love with a guy, and I was thinking. I’m certain the Court fae didn’t kill the humans in London, but I’ll admit that there’s a chance that maybe the rebels didn’t kill them either.”

“Paige,” Tylan says again.

“I have to go, but…These fae aren’t bad people, McKenzie. I promise.”

TWENTY-FOUR

I LET MY head fall back against the wooden beam. I’m so thirsty. The remnants haven’t given me anything to eat or drink. They keep asking me how to get into the palace. They think I know the shifting pattern of safe fissure zones Kyol devised. I don’t, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell them.

I think about what Paige said, that these fae aren’t the bad guys, but it’s hard to believe that with my stomach cramping from hunger and a headache pounding behind my eyes. The latter is from dehydration. The In-Between will do that to you if you’re not careful, and I can’t remember the last time I had something to drink.

I’m pretty sure it’s well past 5 P.M. on Friday by now. I’ve missed my meeting with Jenkins. Maybe I can convince him something came up, that I came down with the flu or had a death in the family. Of course, before I can convince him of anything, I have to get out of here in one piece.

I’m staring off into space when there’s a noise from a few feet away. It’s the same noise I’ve heard more than once since I was brought here, a tiny little squeak. For all I know, we could be in the middle of a forest. It could be one of a million animals I don’t know the names of, but on a whim, I make a clucking noise. Immediately, two bright blue eyes peer in the crack between the ground and the wall.

No fucking way.

“Sosch?” I whisper.

The eyes blink.

It’s him. It has to be him.

I make a kissing noise. His whiskers twitch, and his head turns to the left, then to the right, as if he’s checking traffic before crossing a street. After a quick chirp-squeak, he scurries under the wall and into my arms. Which is kind of awkward considering my wrists are shackled together.