Page 124 of The Arrow and the Alder

“She could have taken it from Basrain’s?—”

“I saw them, Alder!” Serinbor hissed, his spittle landing on Alder’s nose and chin. “I saw her in the glass with Massie, talking about some coat she used to glamour herself to look like you, which is how she tricked Josephine into following her outside where Massie was waiting…”

Alder released Serinbor’s tunic and stepped away, unbalanced. His world spun. “No…no—no—no—” He pressed his wrists to his brow before dragging them down his face.

The worst of it was, he couldn’t even ask why. He knew why. Evora had been in love with Massie once, long ago when he still worked for his mother. Evora had been distraught when Massie left the court, but Alder had believed—as all of them believed—she’d gotten over it and moved on.

Apparently not.

He might almost commend her for her patience and deceit if it didn’t affect him so directly.

“Where is he taking her?” Lord Hammerfell asked, breaking through Alder’s spiraling despair.

Serinbor adjusted his collar. “Süldar.”

Alder drew upright and looked hard at Serinbor.

“I don’t know why,” Serinbor continued, “and I wish I could tell you more, but that witch joined them and caught me listening, and she broke the connection.”

Alder’s eyes slid shut as he inhaled deeply. He was going to rip Massie into a hundred tiny pieces.

“There’s…something else,” Serinbor added, and Alder opened his eyes. “Rasia is gone too.”

“The best we can guess,” Sienne said—he hadn’t even realized she’d joined them, “is that she scried something amiss and followed Josephine outside to give her warning, but was caught.”

Alder wanted to run. He wanted to change form and sprint straight for Süldar, and as if sensing the direction of Alder’s thoughts, Serinbor looked straight at him, his expression saying every bit of:Don’t even think about it.You can’t face this alone.

Alder hated that Serinbor was right. Even if he did catch up to them before they reached Süldar, then what? He might be able to overcome Massie, but not the witch. He would need his uncle’s army, no matter how damned slow they walked.

Alder pulled his gaze from Serinbor and looked to his uncle. “Tell your men to get whatever sleep they can. We leave at first light.”

He expected Lord Hammerfell to argue—or even Serinbor. To push back against this quick turnaround, so it surprised Alder when Serinbor took a step closer to him, and said, quietly, “You really do care for her?”

Alder did not look away as he said, “I love her.”

Serinbor held his gaze. All of the years and so much pain mounted between them before Serinbor said, softly, and to Alder’s surprise, “Perhaps there is hope for Weald after all.”

Lord Hammerfell answered with a bemused expression, but he did not disagree.

Seph stepped through Süldar’s broken gate and into a courtyard left to mist and ruin. Statues stood about the old cobbles like ghosts of the past, and Seph spied depraved perched upon the broken turrets, like ghouls keeping watch over this court of nightmare.

One of Massie’s bone-masked kith shoved her after the witch, who strode determinedly through the courtyard.

Seph followed, with the impostor Alder keeping close behind.

They eventually passed through a pair of old and enormous doors that creaked as they opened into a round, cavernous hall, where dozens of floating lights illuminated an impossibly high and arched ceiling. Half-moons capped the tall, stained-glass windows lining the walls—all scenes of Canna, depicting every province, from tidal blues to weald greens to palisade white and silvers.

Seph remembered the tapestry at Basrain’s. Those images of a world lost, given over to depraved.

“Move it,” snarled the guard behind her as he shoved her forward.

Seph would have tripped, but Fake Alder caught her arm. His grip was strong and firm and steadying, and Seph jerked her arm away, glaring at him as if to say,Don’t touch me.

Fake Alder’s lips thinned, and he glanced away.

A grand and double stair rose before them, sweeping outward to where it joined at the platform above. The witch was nearly at the top, and as Seph ascended the marble stair, she could not stop thinking that this had been her grandfather’s home. He had lived here, in this once-magnificent castle.

This was her birthright.

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