Page 23 of Thorn Season
“You and the young Capewell seem concerned for one another. Garret, wasn’t it?”
“Garret is...” Guilt stalled my tongue.Garret is not a Capewell, I’d almost said.
I told myself I wasn’t defending the Hunter; I was defending the person who’d tried to protect me tonight. But Keil’s Wielders had beaten Garret—hadenjoyedit—for a reason.
Because Garret had deserved it.
“Garret is none of your business,” I said instead, flushed with equal shame and indignation. “The Capewells won’t give you whatever it is you want. Not for me.”
“Don’t feel too wounded, my lady.” Keil crossed his arms. “I hear the Capewells wouldn’t sacrifice a hot bath to save one of their own. But your father is one of the few outsiders who can access Capewell Manor. And now, the only one with incentive.”
Capewell Manor.
I tasted bile.
“What you wish to retrieve is at Capewell Manor,” I said. “You’ve ordered my father into the heart of the Hunters’ territory.”
“Yes,” Keil replied, unflinching.
He was going to get my father killed.
My specter coursed fast, pooling at my fingertips. The bandage cushioned the bite of my nails as my right hand curled into a fist.
Again, Keil noted the movement. But this time, he uncrossed his arms and widened his stance. And I knew he wasn’t waiting to intercept my fist. He was offering me easier access if I chose to strike him.
He was waiting for the blow.
I slowly inhaled. “You seek something from the Hunters,” I said darkly. “You possess the uncommon advantage of knowing where to find them, as well as a team to confront them. Yet you would rather ransom an innocent man’s daughter to get what you want.” I forced my fist to uncurl, my specter to settle. “I will not bruise my knuckles on the face of a coward.”
Keil’s expression became unreadable. The torchlight sputtered behind him, gilding his armor and playing through the bronze in his hair. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “your father is not as innocent as you’d like to believe.”
I drew up at the cruel accusation. Father had never involved himself with the Hunters. And he never would.
“Perhaps,” I echoed, fury blistering over my better judgment, “whatever the Capewells did to you was no more than you deserved.”
Keil went rigid, and my specter lashed inside me with self-reproach. I’d gone too far.
But rather than the anger I’d anticipated, Keil’s face crumpled with something like sorrow. “You’re not what I expected, Lady Alissa.” He spoke tightly, as if the admission pained him. “I’m impressed.”
I looked him over—the first Wielder I’d ever truly met—and blew out a breath of sour laughter. “And I am profoundly disappointed.”
Keil offered a sad smile, then paused with one foot out the door.
A feather-touch trailed my scalp, and I gasped as my hair came loose, dark waves spilling like silk around my shoulders. My hairpins glinted through the air and assembled in Keil’s waiting hand.
“Forgive me, my lady.” He nodded to the keyhole. “For the lock.”
My mouth was still hanging open when the door clicked shut.
7
Ipaced between the curved walls, my skirts dragging dirt toward my heels. With each turn, my hatred for Briar Capewell grew.
Not only had she failed to conceal the Capewells’ service to the Crown—a secret her ancestors had kept for two centuries—but the wretched woman couldn’t even be content with executing my people. She had to steal from them, too.
And now these Wielders had entangled Father in her mess.
My specter throbbed, and I let it stream in ribbons around me to ease the internal strain.
