Page 93 of FoolSilver
Aelindor and Nikolai were locked to Xander and the President of New Columbia across the floor. I could feel howbadly they wanted to cross to me and understood exactly why they couldn’t—someone had to keep our enemies penned. Caspian had no such leash. He’d already slipped the knot of foreign women around him and was cutting a line through the guests toward me. I gave him the smallest shake of my head, and he held where he was.
“Did you know I’d be here, Desta?” I kept my hands on her arms, kept her engaged. “God, it’s good to see you. Did you come from the Haven?”
My eyes snagged on Drakken across the room. Still with Delia—but he wasn’t looking at his date. He was looking at me, and his face had gone dark. Of course it had. Desta was draped in Xander’s colors, and from where Drakken stood, it must have looked like I was huddled in close with the enemy, trading whispers.
There was no time to explain that the woman in my arms was a girl I’d swung a pick beside in the Crimson Ridge mine.
“I came for you, Max.” Her eyes shone. “Saint Xander found me out in the Scorched Wastes, half-dead, and he carried me home. He’s a great man. A great leader.” She turned to look at him, and her whole face changed—lit, reverent, the way a believer looks at their deity. She’d never once looked at Kaid or any of us like that. “I’d have died out there without him. We were too late for Kaid.” A shadow crossed her features, there and gone, and then she was bright again while the old grief drove through my chest at the loss of Rogue and Kaid. “They searched for you for days. You were already gone.”
Lucky, then. A few miles the other way and I’d have been the one he collected. I let go of her arms.
“The boys didn’t make it,” I said, almost on autopilot. My mouth tasted like sand.
“Maybe that’s a kindness.” She said it gently, like she was comforting me. “They never would have fit, Max. Not in the world that’s coming. They weren’t like us—you and me.”
I stared at her. It wasn’t only the silk and the soft hands. Somewhere between that swamp and this ballroom, the girl I’d known had been swapped out for a stranger wearing her face.
“They’d have fit fine.” My voice came out harder than I intended. “With us.”
I made myself move on. “Have you had any word out of the mine? Did anyone else get out?” I kept the next part light, like it cost me nothing. “I’ve had no news of Missy since the day we ran. I don’t even know if she’s alive.”
Every word out of my mouth was carefully chosen. I no longer trusted the woman in front of me. She’d been in his house too long.
Desta stepped close, and I bent to her height to let her reach my ear.
“Missy isn’t in Crimson Ridge anymore.”
I went still. “Then where is she?”
“The Haven.”
“With you?”
She nodded. “And with the Saint. He treats her like a princess.”
“Did he bring her tonight?”
“No. It isn’t safe. We left her behind.”
“Why wouldn’t she be safe with me?”
“Because the heirs aren’t what they pretend to be.” She said it like she was sorry to be the one telling me. “I’ll explain everything when we’re somewhere safe.”
“I don’t exactly trust them either.” I dropped my voice. I, Max Morning, could be a convincing actress when I needed to be. “But they’ve been good to me.”
“Only because they want to use you.” Her hand tightened on mine. “You have to trust me, Max.”
I nodded like she’d reached me. “You left her behind. Who’s with her? Who’s taking care of her?”
“Elite guards. Day and night. They watch over her like she’s a jewel.”
Jewel, my ass.
Guards posted day and night meant Missy had tried to run and failed, and now they kept her prisoner.
Desta had wrapped a cage in pretty words and handed it to me like a gift. I wanted to put my old friend’s teeth down her throat. Every soft word out of her mouth was a fucking lie, and the betrayal went in deep and kept cutting.
“Where, though?” I asked. “The capital? The palace?”
