Page 111 of Silvercloak

Aviruna smiled thinly. “Strangely enough, his majesty forgot to give me that order.”

The door shut behind her, and Saff heard a deadbolt slide across the outside.

She still had her wand, but even if she could muster the strength to magic her way out of this cell, she knew deep down it was where she had to be. Because the Silvercloaks had failed to bring down the Bloodmoons, and that meant the assignment was far from over.

In that moment, lost and alone and afraid, Saffron—for the first time in a long time—did not have a plan. She did not know how she was going to salvage this, could not see the reroute, the clever sidestep, the winding mountain path. Even if a miracle occurred and Lyrian let her live, she knew another raid would be borderline impossible without a warrant. For a warrant, they’d need evidence, and how would she get within touching distance of such a thing now?

For the time being, she had been outplayed by Levan. By his cunning, by his raw power, by those tendrils of control he and his father had wrapped around the whole of the city.

I controleverything.

I always win.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, ORmaybe four hundred, Aviruna escorted Saffron to Lyrian’s office. The clammy pallor of Aviruna’s skin had made way for a relaxed grin, a looseness to her limbs, and the smell of blackcherry had only intensified.

Every step up the corridor felt like a march toward the hanging tree.

Aviruna knocked on the kingpin’s door, and it swung open.

At Saffron’s heel, Rasso was stiff, alert, white eyes wide and searing. When the fallowwolf saw Lyrian standing by the fire, he let out a low, threatening growl. It surprised Saffron—Rasso had belonged to the kingpin’s late wife for decades, while she had only known the beast for a couple of weeks. How swiftly the loyalties of magical creatures could shift in times of ruin, as the dragons had deserted the Rezarans all those centuries ago.

“Good luck,” whispered Aviruna in Saffron’s ear, and then she was gone, and it was only Saffron, Lyrian, and Rasso.

Her wooden pendant glowed a pure, poisonous green.

Saff searched the room for any signs that Mal and Merin were held hostage, but she didn’t find any evidence of struggle, no telltale scents of silk dye and spiced cookies.

Lyrian stared into the flames of the stifling fire, as though trying to read his fortune in the embers. His hands were clasped behind his back, wand protruding between snarled fingers. It was an arrogant pose, as though he did not believe for a moment that Saffron would dare attack him. Unless, somehow, impossibly, he still held faith in the brand.

“Are we going to go through the farce of pretending you weren’t behind this? Or are you just going to confess and let us be done withit? I can have Levanportariyour uncles here in an instant. It’ll all be over very quickly.”

“I wasn’t behind this.” Saffron only narrowly resisted the urge to fire a killing curse into his exposed back. “And fair trial is not a farce.”

He turned to face her, the light of the hearth casting a sharp shadow on one side of his hooked nose. “Fair trial? Does this look like a fucking courtroom to you?”

The seething hatred in his eyes was almost too powerful to look at head-on—so different from the cold, blank apathy of that first night. What was it about Saffron that unraveled something in these dark mages? Was it her refusal to cower and beg? Or was it what she represented?

Lyrian tucked a hand inside his cloak, and Saff caught a glimpse of Vogolan’s old tincture belt. The kingpin pulled out a vial of truth elixir and handed it wordlessly to Saff. She drank obediently, the now familiar syrup-sweet taste leaving a thick fur on her tongue.

“Did you leak the shipment information to the Silvercloaks?” Lyrian asked stiffly.

“No.”

“It wasyou. It had to be.” He searched her face. “You know, I have all the ideas for how to torture the truth out of you. I could tear the scab from your brand, for instance. It would hurt like hells, and you’d doubtlessly be honest then.” A heavy sigh, weighed down with exhaustion. “But I don’twantto. The older I get, the less bloodlust I have. The less I like to get my own hands dirty. Far better to summon Levan to do it on my behalf.”

Dread flickered like a flame behind her ribs, but she did not let it show on her face. She averted her gaze, looking instead at the miniature gold hourglass on his desk. The pearly grains of ascenite were settled at the bottom.

At her lack of reaction, Lyrian stared out of the window at the city he all but owned. The spires and peaks, the domes and lanterns, dust kicked up from chariot races, all its jewel-toned glory.

“I lost control on the docks,” he said quietly—so quietly she almost missed it. “Killing those customs officers was something like a reflex. A desire for a clean cut of the threads. But the rest … I saw red. Orwhite—blinding, blinding white. And for the first time in a long time, I lost control.”

Again, Saff said nothing, silence her faithful modus operandi.

Lyrian kept talking, every sentence more unexpected than the last. “It frightens me, how far I have strayed from the man I used to be. I was never meant for this life. But I fell in love with Lorissa, and she had all these big ideas, big dreams—she chose me and my unfaltering memory for a reason.”

Fear wrapped its branches around Saffron’s ribs. These were the sort of insightful words you shared with someone you were about to kill.

“We complemented each other so beautifully,” he went on. “But before I was swept along on her undertow, I was a humble amplicator.”