Page 71 of Silvercloak

The King’s Prophet.

He did not seem at all surprised or perturbed by Saffron’s presence.

Had he known she would be there?

If so, what else did he know?

“You must be the fabled Silver.” He offered her a hand covered in jeweled rings, and she shook it. “Harrow Claver. Trulyensorcelledto meet you.”

“Saffron,” she replied. “Claver is a Bellandrian name, is it not?” Saffron’s father also hailed from Bellandry—from the northwestern town of Charlet, famous for pinewood liquors and romantic poets.

“Oh, yes.” A playful grin spread across his handsome face. “I’m a traitor to my home country. And my new one. All crowns, in fact. Thrones, conceptually. I have issues with authority.”

Levan appeared behind Harrow. His belt was undone, and he’d thrown on his black tunic so hastily that one side was raised above his hip, revealing a strip of pale, toned stomach—the very place she would eventually fire a killing spell. Saffron chastised herself for the flutter ofsomethingit sent through her traitorous body.

“So you’re together?” she asked.

“Hells,no.” Harrow clasped a hand to his chest as though mortally wounded by the suggestion. “I’ll never be tied to onevock. And besides, darling Levan here will never take another life partner. Not after what happened to—”

“Goodbye, Harrow.” Levan shoved Harrow over the threshold, and the prophet almost collided with Saffron.

“Oh, I see. I’ve served my purpose and now I’m dismissed?” Harrowtsked playfully. “Careful, darling. You wouldn’t want me towithholdon you, would you?”

And with that he strode down the corridor, humming a jaunty little tune before disappearing down the grand staircase that swept into the atrium.

“Fucking the King’s Prophet for information, are you?” Saffron smirked.

“The fucking is for pleasure. The information he gives freely.”

Levan finished buckling his belt, and Saffron had to swallow quite hard to banish the grooves of his hips from her mind.Saints,sheneeded to get to a pleasurehouse, or she was in real danger of mounting any particularly phallic lampposts she saw streetside. Magic—and the lack thereof—made all her variousappetitesswell and pulse.

“Why are you here?” Levan asked, neither irritated nor pleased at her presence.

At the question, Saff opened her mouth in the hope that a plausible excuse would fall out, but she never got the chance. From somewhere inside the room came Lyrian’s tinny voice through a wandtip.

“Et vocos, Levan Celadon.”

Levan disappeared back inside to grab his wand—Saffron dimly realized that he didn’t deem it necessary to be armed around her—then reappeared moments later. There was that scent again: leather and warm skin, lemon zest and peppermint leaves, plus the unmistakable underpinning of sex.

“Yes?” he spoke into the black elm tip, a single rough syllable.

“Vogolan’s missing.” Lyrian’s tone was strained, furious, but also … afraid? “I think he’s dead.”

Saff ordered her face into a plain expression.

“And why do you think that?”

“I had a tracing charm on him and it dropped last night. Now I can’t find him.”

Saffron’s mind reeled. How accurate was the tracing charm? Would Lyrian know his right-hand man had died in her chambers? Surely not, or he’d already have hunted her down.

A muscle worked in Levan’s jaw. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”

“It was you, wasn’t it?” A searing snarl of an accusation. “You killed him. You’ve always hated him, ever since—”

“Let’s talk about this face-to-face.” Levan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Without an audience.Et cludan.”

The connection between their wands dropped.

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