Page 55 of Thief of Souls
“Doing a little fishing.”
“And?”
“It appears I caught a shark.” I can’t keep the grimace off my face.
He drags me beneath one of the gardens stone follies. Everybody can see us and from this distance it probably looks like we’re arguing. Perfect.
“Who? What?”
“I think I know who took Soraya,” I blurt, and then tell him everything. “If the seneschal is covering it up, then he has to be obeying Malechus’s instructions. But why would the Prince of the Blood Court kidnap my sister? How does the seneschal know?”
“You don’t think Malechus found her out?”
“Unless she made her move on her target and was caught….” I think about the rumpled sheets, the blood…. “No. She hadn’t made her move yet. She wouldn’t have returned to the room. She wouldn’t have left her locket in the room…. When she strikes, she’s always packed those belongings she wants to keep and spirited them away. She grabs them, runs, and she’s never seen again.”
Keir brushes a long pale curl behind my shoulder. He tugs at the chain around my throat, and the locket that’s hidden beneath my bodice spills free.
A crescent moon and three stars.
Soraya’s locket.
I hastily stuff it back inside my dress. I found it in my trunk along with all the other jewelry he’s had commissioned for me, but something made me put it on today. “I’m just keeping it safe for her.”
The amber heat in his eyes flares a myriad of colors. “Sometimes I don’t understand the relationship between the two of you.”
“That makes two of us,” I grumble, but he lets me tuck it away.
I hate the way he looks at me as if he sees right through me.
Grabbing a fistful of pretty pink skirts, I pace to the edge of the folly. “Malechus has to be our chief suspect. But what would he have done with her?”
“Dungeons?”
“I checked,” I admit. “It’s why I was late.”
“His rooms?”
“All feature glass windows,” I reply. “I wafted past them the second night and saw His Highness in bed with a blonde. He doesn’t have Soraya stashed beneath his bed.”
“She’s not dead,” he points out.
“Then why did he take her? What purpose does she serve?”
“Maybe she was discovered,” Keir points out, “and Malechus seeks to learn who sent her?”
Plausible. But again, there’s been no sign of her in any of the cellars I’ve found. All the usual places are devoid of stubborn wraiths.
“We know who took her,” Keir says with more gentleness than I’d expect. “We know the horn is in the maze. We just have to find the both of them.”
“What happens if the horn’s the easiest object to find?” And there it is. The question I’ve been trying not to think about.
Our eyes meet.
“I’m fairly certain if you find the horn first,” he drawls, “I’m not going to know about it until after you’ve rescued your sister.”
I can’t stop myself from wrapping my arms around me.Guilty. I shrug. “I’m the only one she has to watch her back.”
His voice roughens. “Would she do the same?”
