Page 151 of Fall of Ruin and Wrath

“Not going to happen.” Grady leaned against the ledge of the breezeway I sat on. I’d drawn him away from the wall, and was in the process of attempting, and failing, to convince him to leave Archwood. “I can’t believe you would ask that of me. Better yet, I can’t believe you would even waste your time asking me this when you already know what the answer is going to be.”

“I had to try.”

“More like you had to piss me off,” he retorted. “If you want to leave, then we can hit the road right now, but you won’t since you’ve got it in your head you need to be here when the Prince returns.”

I really should’ve kept my reason for staying to myself. It hadn’t helped matters. “I’m not trying to upset you.” A warm breeze caught a shorter strand of hair that had slipped the pins, tossing it across my face. “I’ve already upset Naomi today.”

He crossed his arms. “Is she leaving?”

I nodded. “Hopefully, but she’s angry. She has every right to be. I didn’t tell her everything about her sister.” I leaned my head back against the pillar of the breezeway. “And I can’t find Claude anywhere. Have you seen him?”

“No.”

Throughout the day, I’d tried to get my intuition to tell me where Claude might be, to tell me anything, but there was nothing but those three words repeating.

Something isn’t right.

Worry gnawed at me as I stared at the manor walls, my thoughts going to Prince Rainer’s visit. “Don’t you think it’s strange that the Prince of Primvera showed only after the others left?”

“I think everything is fucking strange right now.” He squinted, watching one of the stable hands brush down a mare. “Especially this stuff with you possibly being acaelestia.”

That was another thing I should’ve kept to myself, because Grady had looked at me like I’d grown a third eye. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around it, and I couldn’t fault him for that, but I thought of what I’d seen in that mirror. I wasn’t so sure that the brief change in color had been my imagination.

If it hadn’t, what was it?

But that wasn’t really important at the moment. The vision was.

I swung my legs off the ledge and stood. “I’m going to try to look for Claude in his study once more,” I told him, brushing off the bottom of my tunic. “And if I find him, I’m going to try to convince him to cancel the Feasts.”

“Good luck with that,” Grady replied.

“I’ll let you know if I find him,” I told him, hesitating. “I wish you— ”

“Don’t say it, Lis.” He backed up. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

I sighed, nodding. We parted ways, him heading back to the wall and me going inside. I made my way to Claude’s study, hope sparking when I saw that the door was ajar. I hurried forward, pushing it open. I came to a complete stop.

Claude wasn’t in his study.

His cousin was.

Hymel’s head jerked up from where he sat behind the Baron’s desk, slips of paper in his hand.

Something isn’t right.

“What are you doing in here?” I blurted out.

The splash of surprise quickly faded from his features. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m going through the stack of letters.” He lifted the parchments he held. “Which happen to be notices from debtors, namely the Royal Bank.”

My stomach sank as I glanced at the ever-growing stack. “What do they want?”

He looked at me as if I had asked the silliest question, and I had.

“How late is he?” I asked. “And does he have the coin to settle his debts?”

“Not too late,” Hymel answered, tossing the parchments onto the desk. “And there’s enough coin. Or will be.” He looked up at me. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for Claude,” I said, deciding that the prevalent financial issues were something I was going to have to stress over later. “I can’t find him.”