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“I will let you know,” Silas responds, a bit of defensiveness to his tone. “But I can’t force her to leave without arousing suspicion.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t matter. You don’t need a secret identity this time…We could just take her, rather than trying to maneuver her,” Ravin muses.

Secret identity. This time. My suspicions are more deeply confirmed by the second.

“If I kidnap her from the protection of the academy, Kaelis will know it was me.”

“She’s a wild card. I’ll make him think she ran away of her own accord.” Ravin says it as if he knows me well enough to convince Kaelis of this.

“She wouldn’t leave his side.” Silas is convinced.

“Oh?” Even Ravin hears it in his voice. “Does she genuinely care for him? Is it really love?”

“I don’t know. Everyone seems to think she does.”

“I heard the opposite.” Ravin hums. I hate the sound.

“Either way, Kaelis won’t believe you that she ran. I’ll be forced out of the academy and Kaelis’s good graces, and you’ll lose your easy path into your brother’s domain.” Silas dances with his words. An obvious, careful calculation.

“And we can’t have that.” Ravin sounds a touch frustrated. “Then perhaps, as another Major, you can lure her in.”

“I can’t get close to her without arousing the suspicions of your brother. I’ve tried. She ran from me the one time our paths crossed,” Silas outright lies.

“Try. Harder.” Ravin’s words harden into a deadly edge. “You made her dance for you once, do it again. Make her slip up so we can be done with this charade once and for all. Why Father hasn’t done it himself is beyond me…”

“I’ll do my best,” Silas says dutifully.

“Remember, Silas, what’s at risk if you fail me.”

Footsteps approach quickly. I dash behind a corner ahead. By my luck, Ravin doesn’t see me as he departs. Silas doesn’t follow. I know I should leave it be, but…

Frustration and anger get the better of me.

“You…” I push open the door slowly. He lowers his hands from his face.

The man looks as if he collapsed into a chair and had yet to find his legs again.

But I’ll give them a reason to feel like jelly.

“I knew there was something familiar about you when we first met. But it wasn’t because of Arina’s descriptions of you, was it?

” My heels click as I cross the room. Silas doesn’t move.

“It’s because of you that I was in Halazar, wasn’t it? ”

He doesn’t say anything. He just keeps staring at me with those guilty eyes. I grab his collar, balling it in my fist. I can’t hoist this mountain of a man, but he’s also not resisting me, either.

“I rotted in there,” I snarl, our noses nearly touching. “I almost lost everything and everyone I cared about, for good. Because of you. ”

“Yes, it was me.” Resignation fills his voice.

“You let me tell you my history like you didn’t know it.

Were you just laughing inside the whole time?

When you offered to help me the night we met, was it just the start of another betrayal?

” I let him go with a noise of disgust, half throwing him back into the chair.

He falls like a rag doll. “And Arina…when I was gone, she was a loose end for you in the academy. You sent her to the workshop of the Fool and got her killed.”

“What?”

“No one knows the academy like you do, Silas. You knew of it—that’s how you knew to find me. You told her to go there, didn’t you?”

“Arina was sent to the mills. She escaped, right?” He seems genuinely confused, frantic. I hate him for it. How dare he look like he cares—like this wasn’t all a ploy. I hate myself for still wanting to believe him.

How could I be so stupid?

“She wasn’t at the mills; she went into the room you found me in and never came out. Just like you wanted.” My voice trembles as I try not to scream.

“I warned her not to go too deep!” He repeats one of the first things he said to me. I believed it then, I don’t know why.

“It’s because of you she’s dead.” My words are daggers, and I see the moment they strike him in the chest.

Silas lets out a soft gasp. “Dead? No. She…she didn’t escape?

She’s not at a mill?” I go still at his genuine horror and surprise.

“Clara, I did the opposite. I warned her not to go too deep into the academy. I don’t even know of a ‘workshop of the Fool.’ Honest!

All I know is there are some dangerous things in the depths of that fortress, and saving you was the first time I have ever dared to venture beyond the door.

But Arina, she’s—she’s…” His throat closes with a choking noise.

I look away, folding my arms. I’m not ready to give him comfort. Not over Arina or anything else.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “For Arina. For it all…”

“Spare me.”

“I am.” He hangs his head.

An icy silence passes. In this moment, I’m back to all the quiet hours we shared in each other’s company as I was rebuilding my strength. The nights we ran into each other when I was out and about in the academy.

“Why didn’t you tell Ravin about the townhome?” I ask softly. I have a thousand questions now for Silas. But that’s the one I keep coming back to. “Why lie?”

“He’d kill them if he knew. Or use them to get to you again.”

“That didn’t stop you the first time.”

“I didn’t know you then,” he admits. His words are laden with genuine remorse. “It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized you…you’re not…Your sister wasn’t just biased; you’re trying to help people.”

“Obviously.” Or, I was. Once. Now…Now I don’t know what I am anymore. Trying to help others took everything from me. Now maybe I want to fight only for myself. “So you grew a conscience in the past year?”

“He has my family,” Silas blurts.

“What?” That brings my attention back to him. “I thought you didn’t know what happened to them. More lies?”

Silas flinches but continues, “Ravin, he’s the one who has my family. He tortures them. Threatens to kill them, or worse, if I don’t do as he says. I’ve seen them. He’s made me watch.” Silas’s eyes glisten with tears. “I was going to tell you everything as soon as we had another moment alone.”

“Why not tell me earlier? How can I believe you now?” I ask, despite wanting to. “After all you’ve done?”

“I knew you wouldn’t trust me. Especially when I explained everything…”

“Accurate,” I mutter.

“So I was waiting until I had something to prove myself to you—that I’m on your side.” Silas produces a slip of folded parchment from the pocket of his coat.

I take it with two fingers, still regarding him warily as I unfold it. It’s schematics, hastily drawn. “What is it?” I ask, even though I already recognize it.

“Drawings of the mechanics of the king’s box—where he keeps theMajor Arcana.

I know this castle as well as I know the academy.

While everyone was distracted with the event tonight, I snuck into the king’s private study and picked the lock on his desk to get the schematics and made a copy.

If you’re going to get those cards, you’ll need to unlock the box first, and you won’t do it without knowing how it works. ”

It’s impossible to conceal my surprise at the remark, even though I try.

While my voice is level when I speak, I know my brows have shot up.

I can’t decide which catches me more off guard, that he managed to figure out my plot, or that he’d dare do something as risky as sneak into the king’s personal quarters.

“What makes you think I’d try to steal them?” I ask.

“Ravin told me what happened when you met with the king on All Coins Day—to see the cards instead of asking for true nobility, or a guarantee of lands, or a pardon, or something else, when you could’ve had anything, ” Silas explains.

“I can only fashion one explanation: you wanted to see where he kept them. And, knowing what I know of you, it’s easy to imagine why that would be important to you. ”

I purse my lips. A denial would be insulting to his blatant intelligence, but I’m not quite ready to confirm. I ask, “Did you tell Ravin of this theory?”

“Of course not. I told him I had no idea why you’d ask for that when he inquired.

” Silas sways slightly, glancing away. He looks wounded and on the verge of defeat.

Perhaps that’s why the anger in me is beginning to ebb.

“Clara, I never…I didn’t—don’t want to hurt you, or Arina, or any of your friends.

It was never about you. I just want to keep my family safe.

I don’t want to let him control me anymore, but I… Please, help me keep them safe.”

That’s why. Once he truly learned about me, and the club…

and realized maybe we could help. Maybe he’d even realized before, when he was pretending to be Griv, but was in too deep.

This isn’t about me, or him. He’s doing this for his family, and that is the closest to trust I might give to anyone right now.

“Did you tell him our name?” I whisper, still staring at the drawings.

“What?”

“Arina’s and my family name—our real one—did you ever tell Ravin?” Our eyes lock.

Silas shakes his head.

“If you’re lying to me…”

“Arina swore me to secrecy. I kept my promises to her.” He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t waver. I sigh, and my shoulders ease away from my ears some.

“Where are they?” I finally ask, putting the schematics in my pocket. Twino’s mind is much more suited to this sort of thing than my own. He’ll be the one to validate Silas’s offering—he saw the king’s lockbox, too, after all.

“What?”

“Where does Ravin keep your family?”

“If I knew, I’d use my card to go there and take them.”

“You said he made you watch.” I’m wary about catching him in a lie.

“He knows my magic. He always moved them before, and after.”

“Right.” I tap my fingers on my biceps and give him a hard stare.

Silas holds it. There’s a glint in his eye I don’t like. “Remember, the first night we met? You said anything I wanted to repay me for helping you get out?”

I’m already cursing under my breath.

“I want this,” Silas finishes.

I sigh heavily. “ Fine. I’ll help your family.”

“Really?” Despite him calling on my offer, he seems as surprised to hear it as I am to say it. “You will?”

“Yes, but—”

“Clara?” Kaelis calls out, voice laced with a mix of concern and urgency.

“We’ll talk more later. And if you step one foot out of line or even blink in a way I don’t like…” I hastily whisper, pointing my finger at him.

Silas holds up both his hands. “I swear, I’m on your side now, forevermore.”

With one more hard look and a whirl of skirts, I stride out the door. “I’m here.”

“There you are.” Kaelis breathes an audible sigh of relief. “Father is asking for us.”

“Excuse me?” I blurt as Kaelis takes me by the hand. “Us? Specifically?”

“I don’t know, either,” he manages to say before we reemerge into the main hall.

It feels as if all eyes immediately swing to us.

I stand a bit taller and try not to look suspicious.

What else was back in those halls? Would there be an excuse for me to have been there?

Or will Ravin automatically assume I was with Silas?

Even as my thoughts spiral, I keep a placid smile on my face.

Kaelis guides me by one hand, and with the palm of his other on the small of my back, up to the very head of the table, where the king sits flanked by Ravin and a young man with nearly white hair who must be the third-born prince.

The youngest brother keeps his head bowed, finger trailing along the edge of his goblet, almost bored.

King Naethor stands, commanding the room. We both bow as we come to a stop before him. With a hand on each of our shoulders, he turns us to face the nobles. Nearly everyone has taken their seats.

“Lords and ladies, my loyal subjects. I would like to formally present to you my son’s intended.

Lady Clara Redwin.” Murmurs and some polite applause follow, a reaction I’m getting used to from the nobility.

“Their love burns as brightly as the Ace of Wands. It is as overflowing as Cups. This union is as sharp as a Sword and roots as deeply as a Coin. Come the new year, we will welcome her into the Oricalis family. Before this time next year, we shall all lift our Four of Wands to a royal wedding!”

The clapping is more committed this time. I force myself to smile through my shock, glancing over at Kaelis. Surprise is mirrored in his eyes as well.

Our mission to solidify our relationship in the eyes of the court is no doubt accomplished. But now a bigger question looms.

Why is his father helping us?