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“Idril is never awake during daylight hours.” He cocked his head. “You still didn’t answer me.”

Arrik slid a hand through his silvery blond hair, which was unbraided and loose for once, watching Wren with an expectant expression on his face, waiting for her to answer his question, though she had several dozen of her own—how had Arrik taken care of the guard stationed to watch Wren whilst she got some fresh air, for one?

He is a prince, and he is adept at blackmail.

“I’m worried about a friend,” she admitted, choosing to be honest. She collapsed back onto the log with a huff of breath, trying not to show how much he’d rattled her. Though she sucked it back in when her husband easily sat himself down beside her.

Like they were friends.

Not enemies.

“The one from the dungeons?” he surmised, either oblivious to how uncomfortable his newfound proximity had made Wren or simply uncaring. “The mad boy?”

“He isn’t mad. I think.” Leif was different. Interesting.Special.

“You think?”

“He makes more sense than everyone else.”

“Then perhaps he trulyismad,” the prince said, plucking a leaf from a nearby bush and running his thumb over its wavy surface. Wren resisted the urge to laugh; his gaze softened when he saw the proof of it on her face. “It is good you have a friend. You need people you can trust.”

She ignored that and how it warmed her slightly. “How did you know I meant Leif? It could have been anybody.”

It was Arrik’s turn to laugh. “Because something tells me there are not many within the rebellion who like the fact you are with them. But you saved the boy—Leif—from the dungeons. You could have left him, but you didn’t. There’s nothing quite like true selflessness in the face of danger to tie someone’s affections to you forever.”

“You…are unexpectedly shrewd,” Wren said, adding it to the slowly growing bank of information she had concerning her husband. He grew more dangerous by the minute.

“Unexpectedly? You don’t expect me to be this observant?”

“I don’t think I expected much of anything from you other than being a bloodthirsty beast.” Arrik didn’t flinch at her assessment of him, and she shrugged. “Why would I think anything else? All that mattered to me was getting away from you. I never saved Leif so that he felt indebted to me. I saved him because it was the right thing to do. How could I leave him to you? To Soren?” Just the thought made her sick. The Verlanti king was a monster.

Arrik stiffened and dropped the leaf. It was clear from his body language that he didn’t like being lumped in together with his father.

“That’s true,” he admitted, his tone dark. “If it hadn’t been for the fact Iwantedto get you out of the palace, I would have mercilessly interrogated the boy to find out anything you might have shared with him whilst you were both prisoners. That’s why I thought you took him with you, if I’m being honest. It’s whyIwould have risked my own escape to save him.”

“And therein lies the difference between us, plain as day.” Something about that reassured Wren—to know that she hadn’t lost sight of what made her a good person. Yes, she had thrown her hat into the ring with her enemy husband, but that didn’t mean she had stooped as low as he’d gone to achieve his goals.

She’d drawn lines that she wouldnevercross.

She was not the same as Arrik.

There was still hope for her to get out of this with a shred of integrity left.

“What is it you need from me anyway?” Wren asked, when silence stretched out between them for a beat too long.

“Tell me about Lord Idril and Vienne. What have they been planning?”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “What doyouknow about Vienne?”

The smallest of smiles. “I know that she’s your aunt, and I know that she’s running the rebellion.”

“Is she working for you as a spy, like Josenu?”

“No. But she does incredibly useful work that benefits me, nonetheless.”

“So you have no plans to…” She squared her shoulders. “You have no plans to hurt her, do you?” She might not have seen eye to eye with the woman on many issues, but she was still, at the end of the day, her family. Vienne was the only one who could share stories about her mother’s past, and would have Wren’s best interests at heart outside of the rebellion.

Or, at least, Wren hoped that were the case.