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I could’ve choked on the words as they fell from my mouth with the bitterness they held. But I believed him, I actually believed him. Dukovich had so many opportunities to kill me, to kill Hyacinth—but he never did.

Pri ran a shaky hand through her hair and I watched as her eyes darted nervously around the room. “We need to get back to Locdragoon; Landers will know what to do. He’ll know how to fix this.”

“Landers is in Ithia with Cin and Andrues. And . . . is it really the smartest idea to bring him back there knowing what we know now?”

“I thought I could trust him, Ata. I knew who he was but the information he gave me kept us alive so many times. I thought I could trust him—thought he was on our side. Wren can talk to him. He can get him to tell us who he has spoken to besides me.” The words were frantically spilling from her mouth, her voice shaking as she mentally sifted through every interaction with him.

I grabbed her hand, pulling it into mine as softly as I could to calm her.

“Pri . . . what exactly did you tell him?”

She looked up at me with wide, rounded eyes.

“He knows that Dukovich is alive.”

Well that is going to be a fucking problem.

I stared back at her as the blood drained from my face.

“When did you tell him this?” I forced my voice to stay calm as I rose from the bed and began to pace.

This was bad.

This was very,very fucking bad.

If The Silliands and Ammord knew he was alive, that he was working with us, then any plans they’d made with him present, any information he had given us about their tactics would no longer be of use. This would change every strategy we had planned to go against them. I finally understood why he had glamoured himself for so many years, even if they now knew he was alive, they would not recognize him.

“When we were here last month. He said he and his men were gathering people that wanted to stand with us and needed something that would convince them to fight on the right side. I thought knowing their High Priest was fighting with us would help sway them—”

“Okay,” I interrupted before she could spiral into a complete panic. “Wake him up. We need to get out of Ammord as quickly as possible, I don’t care if it’s painful for him. When we get back to Locdragoon, we will send word to Landers and have Wren interrogate him in the prisons until he gets back.” Pri nodded, immediately tethering from the room.

I plucked a pillow from the bed and screamed into it.

We were so incredibly fucked.

“Rough morning I take it?” Dukovich’s voice rang through the room and I pulled the pillow away from my face to see him leaning against the door frame smiling at me.

I hadn’t heard him open the door through the cacophony of screams I had been unleashing.

He needs to learn to fucking knock.

I chucked the pillow on the bed and watched as Cyloe crawled from under the frame and lazily walked toward him, weaving in and out between his feet.

“We need to get you out of here,” I snapped, striding toward him. Wrapping my fingers around his forearm, I pulled him into the bedroom and shut the door at his back.

“Well, it must be my lucky day.” Amusement danced in his tone as his eyes flowed over the thin nightgown that covered my body.

“For once, can you at least try to be fucking serious?” I hissed, picking my leathers from the floor and stalking toward the lavatory. “I am changing, then we are leaving.”

I slammed the door behind me and pressed my back to the wooden surface, taking in a deep breath to steady the rising panic.

We just needed to get to Locdragoon.

Elric and Wren would know what to do, would help us figure this out until Landers returned. I stripped as quickly as I could, pushing into my leathers as I swung the door open and began shoving my items into my sac.

“What exactly is going on, Ataliia?” Dukovich questioned as he leaned against the stone wall, watching me scurry around the room. I stopped, turning to face him as I swung my bag over my shoulder and stretched my hand out toward him.

“Brakan knows you are alive. He may not have recognized you last night because he had only ever seen you glamoured until now, but he has known you are alive for a month now. We cannot risk him seeing you again, and we cannot risk staying in Ammord without knowing who he sold that information to.”