Page 42 of Ascendant King

Jangling her wrists to indicate the chains, she said, “I can’t.”

“Try,” I said firmly. “We’re not unchaining you.”

She snorted but managed to get her hands around the glass. When she raised it, her hands trembled, a few drops of juice spilling over the edge before she brought it to her lips. It was gone in long swallows.

“So. House Morrison finally decides to attack us, and they do it by having you commit suicide.” I let my hands hang between my knees where I crouched.

Elizabeth considered the empty glass, and I could see the thoughts in her head. It could still be a weapon, even if using her magic right now was suicide. The iron would cause her own power to blow back, explode. If it didn’t kill her, it definitely wouldn’t hurt me.

“House Morrison doesn’t know I’m here,” she said. “They don’t realize I’m gone.”

“King Morrison doesn’t care that you’re gone?” I said skeptically. “You aren’t the remote lost in couch cushions. You’re his second. You’re like a daughter to him.”

The last was a little knife I couldn’t help but twist. She waslikea daughter to him, but she wasn’t actually his daughter.

Elizabeth grimaced. “King Morrison is dead.”

For a second, I stared at her blankly. My mind connected a hundred dots at the same time.

“Youaren’t the monarch. So who is?” I asked. “Phelan?”

When she didn’t answer, I knew more. The Morrison spymaster had sat in his web of information, deciding who knew what and when.

“You aren’t here for Morrison. You’re here for yourself.” I drew the empty glass away from her and handed it back to Gabe, who left the entryway.

Elizabeth looked away.

“What do we have that you want?” I looked at Cade as I asked. I might be addressing the question to her, but he was the only one who might have an answer.

He shook his head, equally mystified, although his blank expression didn’t say as much.

“Phelan killed King Morrison and took the crown. Why?” I asked. “How?”

It had taken Leon eleven years to collect the power he needed to become king. Phelan may have been planning it for just aslong, but there was no way claiming a crown was just cutting off the old king’s head like the Queen of Hearts.

“Where is she? I searched all the prisoner rooms. Whereisshe?” Elizabeth’s voice rose. “I thought you must have her trapped in your room as a sex slave, but she’s not there. Is shedead? Did you kill her?”

Elizabeth’s voice rose, and she lunged forward. Cade stepped back, away from the flailing chains, but I didn’t have anything to fear from iron.

Nia grabbed the chain from the back, pulling Elizabeth off me, and she fell to her knees again.

“Where is Summer?” Her voice was broken.

“Not here,” I said honestly. “She left as soon as we reached Los Santos. We’ve been looking for her because the city isn’t always safe, but she’d planned this a long time before she met us. We didn’t kidnap her. We were her getaway van.”

Elizabeth looked up at me, her expression clouded by disbelief.

“The bank’s been robbed, money’s in the bag, and she’s in the wind. We were just her way out.”

After a long, drawn beat, Elizabeth seemed to come to a decision. “King Morrison wanted to come to Los Santos and tear the city apart looking for her. We thought House Bartlett wouldn’t care, but Phelan was concerned about the safety of the plan. If we used that much power in one place, it would be obvious to the other houses that we were doing something strange. They would discover the spliced magic.”

I remembered the confusing multicolored magic that most Morrison mages had. The room under their house where they kept their mages who had fallen to madness lived in my nightmares. Although in my imaginings, it was always rooms and rooms of Cade.

“So hekilledhis king?” I asked. “Because he didn’t want the magic found out?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “And he put out a higher bounty on unaffiliated mages. He needs more magic. I knew I had to get Summer safe. If she’s still alive, she’s the only threat to his power.”

“Because she’s the legitimate heir,” I said. “We don’t have her. And, unfortunately, now I can’t let you leave.”