Chapter 28
Astrid
I don’t know how long I sit in Virek’s office and stare at the invitation on his desk, but it’s long enough that my back aches and the office has grown quiet.
The team has been mobilized, probably chasing down warrants and witnesses and tailing Lord Vardane.
I feel empty, like Virek drained me of what confidence I had, and I can’t even blame him.
If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want a rogue agent going after inklings as if they’re facts.
But I was so certain… From the moment I brought the prince into things, it felt like we were making progress for the first time in months. We were seeing which nobles are worried, which ones distrust each other, which ones paid more attention to us the closer we got to someone important.
How could I have been so wrong?
I slowly take a breath as I consider that question. I wasn’t entirely wrong.
Virek wouldn’t even have known to chase Vardane if not for us.
“‘He’s partially right,’” I mutter, repeating what Callum said about Virek going after Vardane. And Callum told me that Vardane has been moving money, enough for it to be suspicious. Spending money is different from moving it around. Move it enough, and it’s harder to tell if it disappears.
Vardane wasn’t in any way suspicious during the retreat at Fennor’s. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent, but he said little except to talk about his wife, and most of the time he seemed to be there because she urged him to get out of the house.
Lady Vardane pushed him to go to Fennor’s retreat with Blackmere and Crowell and Northam, all men who have been connected to each other.
She’s the one who wanted to test us tonight.
She doesn’t hold a seat in Parliament—her husband holds the title—but it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume Lord Vardane would support whatever schemes she has.
Unless Lady Vardane has been doing everything behind his back and he has no idea what her plans are. But now he’s trying to get out of the country, so either he knows he’s been found out, or he discovered what his wife has been doing and knows the evidence points to him.
Getting to my feet, I run a hand through my hair and start to pace.
There has to be a reason the members of Lords are suddenly nervous and calling each other. It doesn’t make sense for Lady Vardane to reveal anything that would implicate her, so someone else…
“Callum,” I mutter, slipping out of Virek’s office and scanning the room to make sure the bulk of the internal team is gone. Callum’s still here, and I head straight for him despite the wide-eyed look he gives me. “Who started the communication?”
“Storme, I’m not supposed to talk to—”
“Callum.”
He grimaces as he turns back to his computer, clicking to a few different windows.
His eyes jump about lists of names and strings of numbers.
“A lot of it started up around the same time, and without knowing what was being said, it’s hard to…
” He trails off and tilts his head at a map with a bunch of coded dots.
“Fennor was at the symphony.” After a few more clicks, he pulls up a picture of the theater taken from the view of the stage and grabs a stylus to write on an electronic drawing pad.
He writes names onto each of the boxes, starting with Fennor on the level below where the prince and I sat.
“I can’t pinpoint where they were sitting,” he says, almost to himself, “but this is who rents each box.” Then, as he consults a list on a different screen, he starts drawing arrows extending outward from Fennor’s box.
“And this is an estimation of whose phones were active first.”
“You’re terrifying,” I tell him and grip his shoulder as I stand to get a better look at what he’s telling me. Based on the arrows, it’s likely communication started from box to box first, then to people who weren’t at the theater. “Fennor is the one who started spreading the word.”
Callum blushes and drops his eyes to his keyboard. “Maybe. I’m not the one who finds the answers, Storme. I just collect the data.”
“Don’t downplay your importance, Callum Doyle.” I give his shoulder a squeeze. “If Fennor mobilized the nobility, then he must know something we don’t. Do you have a way to tell if he got a call or message before he started talking to the others?”
Callum hums and swivels to a different screen, his eyes scanning the information until he clicks on a line, highlighting it green. Then he pulls up what looks like a transcript of a conversation between Kennewick and Virek. Does he have one for all of our calls?
“Callum…”
“Pretend you don’t see that,” he mutters as he looks from one to the other. “Vardane made a call around seven fifteen tonight, but not from his usual phone. Fennor received a call around the same time from an unlisted number.”
I don’t want to know how Callum has access to all of this, so I’m not going to ask. “Are you telling me that Vardane called Fennor?”
“I’m telling you there’s correlation.”
My heart skips a beat. “Vardane knows the nobility will listen to Fennor, so he called to warn him that something’s going down.”
“Maybe.” Callum’s tone is full of warning. “None of this is actual proof, Storme.”
Since when have I needed proof to act?
Deep down, I know I’m right about this meeting tonight being important, even if I don’t have any way to prove it. But am I willing to risk my job—maybe my life—to ensure Candora doesn’t fall?
“You have that look again,” Callum says, staring at me warily. “The last time you looked like that, you turned down Torvik so you could be the queen’s bodyguard.”
I risked my life for months while protecting Freya. This isn’t much different.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Storme!”
“Do I have a way to keep in contact with you?” I ask Callum. “Virek disconnected me from the RIA network.”
He rolls his eyes, digs into a drawer, and holds a fist over my palm. “If anyone asks, you didn’t get these from me.” He drops two tiny earbuds into my hand and subtly smiles. “As long as you have a phone signal, I’ll hear you.”
“I owe you,” I breathe and press a kiss to his cheek, smiling when he squirms away.
“Yeah,” he agrees, then waves me toward the door. “Please don’t die.”
It’s after eleven by the time I get to the palace, and my heart beats rapidly as I make my way to the family wing.
I tried calling the prince on my way here, but he didn’t answer—he’s probably already asleep—but our time is up, and now I have to ask him to risk his safety for something that might not be something at all.
He’ll have every reason to say no, but the man I’ve come to know over the last several days won’t leave me on my own. Even if no one else does, he’ll have my back.
Though the palace is quiet except for a few Palace Guards who nod at me as I pass, the door to the sitting room that Hex and Sander share is open, and I step inside the empty room with growing trepidation.
The lights are on, so one of the twins must be awake, but that unanswered call taunts me as I come to a stop in the middle of the room and take in the two doors on either side of the room.
Sander’s door is closed. Hex’s is slightly ajar, his room brightly lit on the other side.
Stomach twisting, I slowly cross to Hex’s door and push it open.
Hex is…packing. There’s an open duffel on his bed, and I stand frozen as he disappears into his closet, returning a moment later with an armful of clothes.
“Are you going somewhere, Hex?” I ask in a whisper.
He startles, dropping the clothing and staring at me with wide eyes. I’ve never startled him before, and neither have I seen that guilty look on his face. “Storme. Er.” He looks down at the scattered clothes and scoops them up, haphazardly dumping them into the duffel. “Yeah.”
I can’t breathe. “Tonight?”
“I have to.” He swallows and looks down at his feet. “I’ll help you with whatever you need, Storme. Just, er, not tonight.” He grimaces before going back into the closet.
My words stick in my throat, but I force them out because nothing about what I’m seeing makes sense. “You promised me two weeks.”
As he returns, he clenches his jaw and looks at the door behind me. “I did, yeah. Like I said, I need to be somewhere, but in a couple days—”
“I need you today, Hex.”
There’s nothing but apology in his expression as he stares at me. At least he feels guilty. But when his eyes jump to his bag, it’s obvious that whatever is pulling him away is going to win. It’s more important than Candora.
More important than me.
“I solved the code,” I whisper, inching deeper into the room.
He frowns. “What? Oh, the card. You figured it out?” When I nod, he steps toward his bag, then looks at me. But it feels like he’s looking right through me. “What was it?”
“I got a card too.”
“Oh?”
Why did that sound like idle curiosity instead of a need to know? “We’re supposed to go to a building on Bond Street at two a.m.”
As his eyebrows dip low, he finally looks at me more directly. “We, as in you and the other RIA agents.”
That wasn’t a question, but it should have been. “No, Hex. You and me.”
“Alone? That’s ridiculous. You’ve told Virek about it, yeah?”
“Yeah, but—”
“What did he say?”
This is the last thing I want to tell him, but the words eke out of me because I don’t know what else I can say. “He said I’m chasing something that isn’t there, and he won’t risk agents on something unknown.”
He considers this for a moment, and I don’t like the way his frown grows deeper. Then he speaks, and my last shred of hope crumbles. “Maybe he’s right, Storme. Nothing you’ve found is actual evidence. What if we let Virek do his job instead of putting ourselves in danger?”
Something in me shatters. “Hex,” I breathe as tears prick my eyes. He was so protective earlier tonight, so ready to jump into action. And this is…something different.
Grimacing, he turns to his bag and starts folding things so they fit.
From the looks of things, he’s not packing for an overnight trip.
He grabs a few more items from the closet, zips up the bag, and slings it over his shoulder before he looks at me with that distant look in his eyes again.
“I’m sorry, Storme. I can’t help you. Don’t do something stupid because you think you know better. That’s how people get hurt.”
Then he leaves.
My heart cracks, and I sink onto the edge of the bed, pressing a fist to my chest as I fight to breathe through the tears I won’t let fall.
I can’t afford to break. Can’t falter. What’s happening with the anti-royalists is bigger than me and the realization that the feelings I’ve been harboring for Hendrick Alverra were never going to be returned. But I can’t…
Hex isn’t going to help me.
I’m on my own, like I always am, foolishly chasing what I know is right even when everyone else tells me I’m wrong.
What’s the point of fighting so hard when I’m forever doomed to fail?
I’ll never be good enough.
Should I even try?
A tear falls onto my thigh at the same time a memory runs through my mind. Words I never expected to hear: The next time you think you need to hold yourself back to protect a few fragile egos, don’t.
The prince said that to me when I adjusted my aim with the rifle to be off-center at Fennor’s retreat.
He also told me I was right when I said Fennor’s retreat was important, just as he agreed with me on everything else.
And when he said he’s on my side, he meant it. I know he did.
Even though he told me at the beginning of all this that I shouldn’t believe anything he did, he was more genuine over the last week and a half than he’s been in our entire lives. I believed everything he said to me.
I believed him tonight too because Hex has never been a liar. He can’t help me.
Hex was never going to help me because that’s not who he is. He’s a one man show with a hero complex and a bone-deep need to be the best, and if he came with me tonight, there’s a high chance that he would fail.
He doesn’t know enough to win.
He never did.
Taking a deep breath, I push down the hurt and confusion that builds in my chest so I can focus on the person who can actually help me succeed tonight.
The only person I trust wholeheartedly.
Sander.