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She snapped her mouth shut. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you …’ He faltered, raked an aimless hand through his blond hair, and started over with a mirthless chuckle. ‘Are we supposed to believe that you're happy to just hand Thysandra over to the empire again? After the lengths you went to to get and keep her here?’

Naxi looked even more innocent. ‘There are lives at stake, aren't there?’

Lyn’s eyes had narrowed to such thin slits now that I doubted she could still see anything, and Tared’s eyebrow was creeping closer and closer to his hairline. I looked at Creon and found him studying Naxi with an unexpectedly dark frown on his face, his eyes black as the night, his jaw hard with some unspoken worry. He did not look my way to meet my gaze.

Something nervous stirred in my guts, but Rosalind hesitantly said, ‘I suppose we could send a message to the city and see what they say, at least?’

‘Oh, no, no,’ Naxi brightly cut in, all honey-sweet pink and cornflower blue as she threw us another bright smile. ‘No, I think the best option would be to bring her here first andthensend a message. That way we can hand her over immediately and spare everyone outside the agony of even more uncertainty. Lots of grief happening in this camp right now, you know?’

‘Naxi …’ Tared seemed unsure whether he should laugh or give her a good shake before wasting another word on the matter. ‘Are you very sure you are not trying to help her escape again?’

‘Yes!’ She gave a little pout. ‘I'm trying to help you, I swear. On my … on my tits.’

Finn burst out in mildly hysterical giggles. Tared, exchanging a baffled glance with Lyn, repeated, ‘On yourwhat?’

‘Well, you're supposed to swear on something dear to you, aren't you?’ Naxi merrily said, returning his look of suspicion with a perfectly innocent one. ‘I'm not planning to betray you all to the Mother, Tared. I'm ademon, not a traitor.’

An abrupt understanding rose on Rosalind’s face.

‘You’re hiding something all the same,’ Lyn said, eyes narrowed. ‘And this would hardly be the first time you’re making questionable choices where Thysandra is considered. So as long as we don’t know how harmful you’re actual plans may be—’

‘They’re not’, Creon curtly interrupted.

I wasn’t the only one who whipped around to look at him. His expression hadn’t loosened, an odd tightness there that only emphasised the sharp edges of his jaw and cheekbones … but there seemed to be no doubt in his features, nothing but that oddly grim resolve.

‘Creon?’ Lyn said, frowning.

‘We should give it a try, at least.’ He was trying – very clearly trying – to sound casual and conversational about the matter, and I wasn’t sure if anyone else realised how hard he was failing. ‘The Mother might not be interested, but if she is … It would make our job tomorrow much, much easier if a bargain forbids her from using her hostages as a human shield.’

‘Yes, obviously,’ Lyn said, rubbing her eyes, ‘but Naxi …’

‘… is fine,’ he finished with the most meaningless shrug in the history of shrugs. ‘Just play along. We all have the same goal here.’

Naxi beamed at him. Lyn’s glower turned even more suspicious; Agenor looked like a male about to come up with a long and exhaustive monologue of objections. But Tared rose from his chair before anyone could speak, threw Naxi a mildly exhausted look, and said, ‘In that case, I’ll just go and get Thysandra while you demons play your demon games.’

Tared? TrustingCreon?

I forgot to worry about demon scheming for a moment.

‘Lovely’, Naxi cheerfully said, pretending not to notice his annoyance. ‘Do you mind if I’m coming along?’

Tared huffed a laugh, grabbing his sword from the table before offering Lyn a hand. ‘I’d take the Mother herself with me before bringing you along to that cell. And maybe the rest of you should make a start on reaching out to our allies in the meantime, if we want them to be here before tomorrow morning.’

The next moment, the he and Lyn were gone.

Chapter 30

Somethingwas going on.

If Creon’s silence hadn't been enough of a sign, Naxi’s decidedly conspiratorial smiles at him would have solidified even the vaguest of suspicions. She skipped around the tent looking oddly like Edored trying to keep a secret, giggling in response to every question asked of her. I tried to get something out of Creon and received nothing but some murmured platitudes on those damn demons and this one in particular – nothing that could begin to explain the haunted look that refused to leave his eyes even after his endorsement of the plan.

Had we been alone, I would have pressed. But my parents were sitting next to me, and even if they hardly qualified as parental figures in any traditional sense, I felt like it would berightly frowned upon if I were to climb into my lover’s lap right before their noses and kiss him into compliance.

It wouldn't do much, anyway. Creon never became more talkative in my father’s company.

So we collectively wrote a letter to the Mother instead, debating every word and period of the bargain she would have to make in order to receive Thysandra back into her entourage. Having finished that task, we set to listing the many magical rulers we'd have to reach out to, just to make sure we didn’t overlook even a single name in the chaos of the day; we hadn't even finished the first half when Tared and Lyn returned, a stoic-looking Thysandra in alf steel between the two of them.