The room that would have been ours.
It was gone now.
I pushed the thought away and buried it deeply, for fear the weight of it would snap me in two like a piece of tinder. I buried it with all the other things that would never be ours.
A jagged line of stone scarred the center of the main house. Spires on either side remained untouched. Inside the front gates, all of Tor’s Watch was transformed. The arbor that had once been heavy with flowers was barren with winter, and armed soldiers were the ones beating a path through it now. The king ordered Paxton to take Oleez and the children to Raehouse while he took me to the vault. I shot Paxton a condemning stare—Lydia and Nash were his kin—but it was an empty warning. He knew the rules I had to abide by. His gaze met mine, unmoved, his expression hard, his thoughts probably set on his lucrative rewards. He jumped at the king’s orders like a boneless bootlicker. A hot coal smoldered in me, and it took every bit of my strength not to fan it. I had to gain the king’s confidence, to make him believe his words and logic were winning me over. And gaining the king’s confidence meant not digging out Paxton’s eyes with my bare hands. I tossed a smile at him as he left. I guessed it worried him more than my glare.
I was grateful when we descended into the tunnel. It was the most unchanged. Here there was no summer or winter, no broken stone blocks tumbled in my path, only torch-lit darkness and the musty scent of despair, and that was a scent I was used to.
The armed entourage marched ahead of us toward the vault, their heavy boots echoing through the stone cavern. I wondered what had happened to the poisonous dogs that were kept at the far end of the tunnel. Killed by the king’s men? Or perhaps the family had taken them into the vault? That thought lifted me. I would love to see them loosed on my current companions, even if I was bitten in the attack.
Why Montegue thought my voice would make a difference I wasn’t sure. Did he think that the word of a powerful distant kingdom could penetrate impossibly thick steel? Or maybe he was simply grasping at anything. Desperation can make the most calculating logic flee. Impatience burned in his expression and steps.
After I’d spent ten minutes calling to every possible Ballenger, my pleas only met with the persistent silence I had expected, Montegue screamed, pounding on the massive door, sweat beading on his forehead. His fury caught me by surprise. He turned away, combing the hair from his eyes, his face a knot of rage.
I looked at the expressions of the stoic guards holding long, sharp halberds in case the Ballengers emerged. They showed no surprise, and I wondered how many times this scene had already been played out. How man
y times had he pounded on the door and how many threats had he already hurled? If they were trapped, why did he care so much? They weren’t going anywhere. He could starve them out.
“I am the King of Eislandia,” he growled, almost to himself. “They’re going to regret this.” He stomped away, ordering me and the whole entourage to follow.
By the time we reached the T of the tunnel and turned down the next one, his heaving breaths had slowed and he had regained his composure.
“We need those documents,” he said calmly.
“You mean the plans for the weapons? I already told you, I destroyed them.”
“There are others. Different documents. Ones that were in the scholars’ quarters. They’re missing.”
My scalp prickled. The papers in the scholars’ quarters? Was he talking about the ones Phineas had told me to destroy? How would he even know about those, especially if they had disappeared? How could he—
A cold weight settled in my stomach. I quickly composed a few words, trying to keep them casual. “There are papers and ledgers all over Tor’s Watch. How would you know if a few were missing?”
“A servant told me.”
I looked sideways at him, my pulse speeding. “Oleez?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain even. My head pounded like drums at the gallows as I contemplated even the smallest lie. “I think she was the one who was responsible for cleaning their quarters.”
“Yes, Oleez told me they were missing. She noticed as she was straightening up one of the studies.”
Oleez was in charge of the main house—it consumed her days. She never went to Cave’s End, much less to straighten papers, of that much I was certain, and then I thought about another piece of paper—the one I had stolen at the arena from the king’s vest pocket. I chewed on my lip, then took a chance and cast my net a little wider. “What makes you think the papers are important? Did … Devereux say something?”
His steps slowed and his brows rose in a question. “You’re on a first-name basis with General Banques now? He must have taken a liking to you, after all. Count yourself lucky.”
I molded my face into indifference, but my mind reeled. Devereux was Banques? I was fishing, but I hadn’t expected this, not to find my game so far up the chain of command.
Zane had said it was Devereux who gave him money to hire labor hunters. Devereux Banques. The so-called general was doing the dirty work of stirring up trouble? He was sneaking around back alleys, preying on the citizens of Hell’s Mouth and the Ballenger family months ago. Before he was a mighty general, he was just a lowly back-alley thug with a satchel full of cash.
And he worked for the king.
Images flashed behind my eyes, doubts and pieces falling into place—using labor hunters and fires to create unrest and keep the Ballengers scrambling, choosing a settlement site that would antagonize the family, attacking settlers in the dark of night to implicate the Ballengers and bring down the wrath of the Alliance, the assault by Fertig and a well-trained gang that sounded alarmingly similar to these hired mercenaries, and finally, Beaufort looking back over his shoulder expecting someone to come to his rescue. He was waiting for the king—the sly king who feigned innocence at every step, the king who wanted respect and wouldn’t incriminate himself by rescuing a criminal. The king who was a more cunning liar than Beaufort and Banques put together. The cold weight in my stomach turned to ice in my veins.
We had caught the wrong dragon.
Montegue stopped walking and looked down at me. His eyes were clear. Knowing.
It was too late to backtrack, to pretend that I hadn’t figured it out. That would be a lie, and he would know.
“Leave,” he ordered the guards. He watched them scuttle away, leaving us alone, then turned back to me. His perusal was suffocating.