Page 88 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

Cas freezes.

I sigh. Izamal’s turned it into a fight.

“No, it won’t,” Cas says silkily. “But tell me, when did you know she was a fifth-ringer?”

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Alcanar Vale was hiding in the fifth. He’d have his daughter with him.”

Cas’s eyes narrow, and I jump in. “I’m sorry,” I say to Izamal, “for deceiving you about being a third-ringer. And everything. I—”

“Was only trying to save my traitor father, yes, I think we’ve heard,” says Cas nastily in a high-pitched voice.

I clench my jaw and scrawl out the key for the code on a paper I shove in Cas’s face as I jump up, my chair screeching back. “Here’s the key. Good luck.”

I shove out the door, stomping into the hall. The warm, dry air wraps around me like a blanket, and the anger fades.

Footsteps follow me. “I accept your apology,” Izamal calls.

I tense. “I meant it. I am sorry, for everything.”

“I know.” His golden eyes are steady, seemingly calm, but there’s something else there. “You seem to have landed on your feet.”

He’s angry. Is he accusing me of something? I drag him into an empty room filled with dust motes and training mats. “I thought they’d throw me in the fifth’s prison, to be honest. I think it’s because Dalca wanted me to talk to Pa.”

Iz shakes his head. “He keeps you in the palace, he sits you by him in front of the whole city. How do you think this ends?”

I scowl. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t think he cares for you, for any of us. He’s afraid for his own skin.”

“This isn’t about feelings, Iz.”

“Isn’t it?” A wry grin splits his face, but doesn’t meet his eyes. “Just—don’t make the same mistake Nashi did.”

Nashi? What does his sister have to do with anything? “What do you mean?”

“He fell for her, too. But Nashi was nursing a little crush on an ikonomancer, a girl from the fourth. She thought he was a good man, so she turned him down gentle. A few days later, she fell.”

“Iz—”

His voice is hard. “Don’t tell me he’s a good man.”

“I wasn’t going to. Are—are you sure it wasn’t—”

“Of course no Wardana will say it wasn’t an accident.” He looks skyward, as if I’m being obtuse, as if the truth is obvious.

It reminds me of Dalca.You’re naïve.Am I? “Don’t worry about me. My heart’s not on the table. I’m helping Dalca because our goals align. Even if he just wants to save his skin—even if he just wants to save his mother—if he succeeds, that still means the Storm gets pushed back.”

Iz’s seriousness disappears under a familiar, smiling expression. A mask I’d never realized he was wearing. He claps me on the back. “Okay, okay. Just making sure. I am glad you aren’t rotting in a cell.”

“How’d you get away, anyway?”

“Doubled back, pretended I heard the alarm and was there to help. Shockingly useful, the uniform.” He plucks at his blood-red lapel. “Had to cut down on trips to the fifth, though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Enough of that. It’s behind us now.”

“What about the—” I make a fist and raise it.