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Forty-Four

Tessa

“Can you get us out of here?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry. There’s not much I can do.” Morgan stood outside my barred cell deep beneath the earth. The sun did not reach here, not even in the Kingdom of Light. “He knows someone has been working against him, but he doesn’t know who. I’m fairly certain he thinks it was me. He’s given me very explicit orders about you. I’m afraid you and your sister are stuck.”

From the bed behind me, I heard my sister sigh. She flipped another page in her book. Nellie was accepting this whole thing a lot better than I was, but she’d been here for weeks. So far, no one had put a hand on her, but I didn’t trust that Oberon would hold back much longer, especially now that he had his bride back.

I lifted my tired eyes. The pity in Morgan’s gaze made my soul ache. She nodded toward the end of the corridor where five soldiers stood watch. They weren’t close enough to hear our conversation, but they would not hesitate to act if Morgan unlocked the cell door.

“And…the others?” I asked.

Morgan glanced over her shoulder at the door on the opposite end of the corridor. Through there, Val and Mother were trapped. I wished that I could at least speak to them, but the guards refused to let me.

“He’s not so focused on them. There might be a way to get them out,” she said beneath her breath. “There are some sympathizers who might take them in, but they won’t be able to stay there forever. Eventually, Oberon will find them.”

“Well, they can’t go into the mists,” I said quietly.

The revelation about the Mortal Blade had shaken me. It wasn’t real. I didn’t know if it ever had been real. And it meant the Mist King was alive. The very thought of him brought an angry flush to my neck. No wonder it had been so easy to stab him. He’d known what it would do to him. He hadn’t truly cared if he stopped me or not. He’dletme do it.

And he was still alive.

I hated that relief had been the first emotion to fill my chest when I’d heard those words. Pure, knee-bending relief. He wasn’t dead. He still breathed in the mists, his heart beating in that broad, muscular chest.

But he had still betrayed me.

Closing my eyes, I thumped my head against the bars and tried to shove thoughts of him out of my mind. What was he thinking now? What was he doing? Had he heard I’d failed and been caught?

Did he even care? He hadn’t told me the weapon was the Mortal Blade’s twin or that it even had a twin at all. Maybe he’d wanted me to come here and fail.

It didn’t make any sense, but none of it did.

“They’ll be all right,” Morgan whispered. “We’ll figure it out.”

“It’s hard to have that kind of hope. Oberon threatened to kill them, and the wedding has been rescheduled.”

“I heard.”

“Two weeks from now.” I waved at my dirt-caked body. “Apparently, he wanted to do it sooner, but he doesn’t like the state of me.”

“You’ve had a hard time of it, love.”

Love.

My heart squeezed. I swallowed down a lump of nausea, trying to force my lips to form the words. “Have you heard from him?”

Had Kalen visited Morgan in her dreams?

“No,” she said tensely. “I doubt he wants to speak with me, knowing I told you the truth about him. Besides, if I got caught communicating with him, Oberon would realize I’ve been the one helping you. And then he’d try to force me to talk. I’m strong, Tessa, I am, but...I’ve experienced his torture before. I did not fare well.”

“You have?”

She nodded grimly. “A very long time ago.”

Morgan didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t want to push her to share things that were that painful. Even now, after being reunited with Nellie and finding out she’d been alive all this time, my heart still felt like a shattered mess I’d never piece back together. Anger was a formless monster inside of me, its teeth snapping at Oberon, at the Mist King, at everyone except Val, my mother, and my sister. And it wanted blood.

“Did you find out how all this happened?” I tipped my head toward Nellie. My sister didn’t have the answers herself. King Oberon had taken her the very same day he’d taken me, only hours later. She had no idea why.