Page 108

“Really? All of them?”

“Yes!”

“So when I tell you that you are, in fact, Fae, you will suddenly be counted among them?”

Scarlett felt as if the air had been knocked from her lungs for the second time that night. “No. That’s not possible,” she whispered in horror.

“It is, Scarlett, and you are.” Sorin kept his distance, clearly unsure what she would do next.

“No,” she said again adamantly.

“You denying it does not make it any less true,” Sorin answered.

“Shut up!” Scarlett snapped. “Just…shut up.”

Scarlett squeezed her eyes shut tight, her hands clamping over her ears, trying to drown out the roaring in them. Her mind was reeling. Fae. She was Fae. She couldn’t possibly be. Her mother had been a healer. Her father had been a sailor. She grew up here, not in the Fae lands. Here. In the Black Syndicate, with the other children. She was one of them, dark and wild and different. They were all different.

Calloused hands gripped her wrists, and she opened her eyes to find Sorin standing before her.He gently pulled her hands away from her ears. “Breathe, Scarlett. Your heart rate is too fast.”

She closed her eyes again and drew in a deep breath. With a voice that was hollow and empty, she opened her eyes once more. “You promised you would find the light, so right now, I need you to do that, Sorin. Because my faith and trust in you is about to go out. You are the general of the High Force. How can you possibly not know about the missions they are carrying out at night?”

“I tell you that you are Fae, and you ask me about that?” When Scarlett did not reply, he sighed. “I am never at the castle at night, Scarlett. I have never been sent on a mission with them. I did not even know they had been sent on missions. That has never been discussed or revealed to me. To be honest, I have hated nearly every second of my time here, so I did not care what they did outside of the time I was there training them. I never planned to be here this long.”

“But you are the general. How do you not know what your men are doing?” Scarlett argued.

“I was only just made general, and I think it was a gesture made to keep me from getting restless because they want me to stay. I have information they desire.” He paused, as if trying to decide if he should say the next thing, but continued. “They know about the other territories I told you about last night. At least Lord Tyndell and the king do. Lord Tyndell asked me to train the High Force against more than human and Fae threats. They are currently learning how to defend against vampyres.”

Scarlett’s eyes widened. “Like Nuri?”

“Yes, but I cannot get Lord Tyndell to understand that a mortal army would never defeat any of the territories. Even the Night Children, who possess such little magic, are faster and stronger and more cunning than mortals. The Night Children are feral and savage. There is a reason the Witches and the Earth Court separate them from the mortal lands,” Sorin said.

“I don’t think that you are training them entirely to go to war with the other lands,” Scarlett said slowly. “Maybe eventually, but…”

That was a thought she needed to mull over a bit more.

“I need to go take my tonic, but tomorrow…” Scarlett said, pulling her wrists from Sorin’s grip and stepping back from him. “Tomorrow you are not going to the castle, so figure out whatever you need to tell them to explain your absence.”

“You shouldn’t take your tonic. It suppresses your magic,” Sorin replied, watching her carefully.

“All the more reason to take it,” Scarlett shrugged. “I cannot deal with that right now.”

“Scarlett, your magic is not a bad thing—”

“I cannot risk whatever my magic is getting in the way of things. Not with everything else going on. I cannot process this right now.”

“It is part of you,” he tried again.

But she cut him off once more. “Not tonight, Sorin. I have too much to sort through. I cannot do this tonight.” She could tell he didn’t like it, but he gave her a slight nod. “May I stay at your apartment again tonight?”

“Of course you can, but why am I not going to the castle tomorrow?”

“Because tomorrow, Sorin, I’m taking you to the Black Syndicate, and you can prove to me that I can trust you.”

CHAPTER 31

SCARLETT

“Excuse me?” Nuri asked, venom in her words.