Page 116 of Silvercloak

Yes.

He killed someone very important to me.

She doubted Levan would hold Vogolan’s murder against her.

His brow knitted together. “What about my father? Did he hur—”

“He didn’t hurt me, no.”

Because I unmade the world instead.

“But what—”

“There’s no time,” Saff insisted. Slow, calculated footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. Dread smoldered in her lungs. “He’s coming. Saints, I can’t leave. I’m sorry, Levan. I’m sorry this happened.”

Levan finally registered the peril of the situation. He spurred to life, gesturing toward the wardrobe next to his plant-smothered writing desk. “The armoire.”

She clambered into the too-small space, enveloped by Levan’s clothes. They smelled of him, of lemon and mint and clove tea and leather belts and warm skin. Folding herself into a cross-legged position, Saff patted her lap and Rasso leapt into it. The tight space was cramped and breathless.

Then came the knock at the door.

With a final fraught look, Levan pressed the armoire shut, leaving a tiny sliver of the scene visible where the wooden panels didn’t quite meet.

Levan opened his bedroom door, and Lyrian stood on the other side.

The kingpin’s son stood almost a foot taller than his father, and yet there was something in Lyrian’s quiet, coiled fury that made fear leap in Saff’s chest.

Levan’s wand had rolled under his bed, out of reach.

He was unarmed.

“So it was you,” the kingpin said quietly, almost regretfully, to his son. “You killed Vogolan.”

Levan balled his wandless hand into a fist at his hip. “He hurt too many people. Gratuitously, just for the thrill of it. Alucia. Saffron. And you know perfectly well what he did to me—or at least I think you do. Enough was enough.”

Alucia?

The life partner Harrow had alluded to?

And what was hedoing? Was he taking the blame willingly? Protecting her?

Why?

“How did the brand not kill you for the very act?” Lyrian muttered, staring at his son’s chest.

“Precisely,” Levan said with an air of triumph so convincing Saff almost believed him herself. “The fact I’m alive means Vogolan was a liability, and I acted in the Bloodmoons’ best interests. If you don’t believe in me, believe in your own magic.”

A stunned expression bled across Lyrian’s face, as though several more epiphanies were occurring at once. It was the way Saffron likely looked when the timeweaving pearls had finally strung themselves together, and it made her deeply, deeply afraid.

“All along,” the kingpin whispered, the words stitched with raw emotion. “It was you all along.”

“Excuse me?” Levan said, confused—but also, Saffron thought, alarmed.

“How could I have been so blind?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

Lyrian shook his head ferociously. “You can overpower it.”