Page 86 of Sword & Sacrifice

Quentin looked at Emera, as if asking for permission. When she arched an eyebrow, he flinched and hunched his shoulders forward. “Yes, Your Majesty, that would be quite refreshing.”

“Excellent.” Silas turned on his heel and led the way down the hall.

A few seconds later, Quentin scampered after him. He looked around the barracks like he expected someone to jump out from the shadows and drag him into a torture chamber.

Langley walked a short distance behind them. Any time Quentin’s steps angled him closer to Silas, Langley cleared his throat, and Quentin hastily corrected his course.

“So,” Silas began, his tone casual, “You promised to explain.”

“Oh! Yes! It’s not what you think, Your Majesty,” Quentin insisted, surging toward him.

This time, a hand separated them, and Quentin quickly scurried backwards. Langley hadn’t drawn his sword yet, but the look he sent the potential-murderer said loud and clear: that was your last warning.

“What do you think I think?” Silas asked, acting as if there’d been no interruption.

“Umm, that I murdered someone.”

“You did lie to me about the key,” Silas reminded him. “If you’d never handled it before, you would have had no opportunity to melt it.”

Quentin was quiet for a long time.

Eyes followed them as they walked through the courtyard, the king and criminal casually strolling side-by-side. Although they’d delayed the news of the body found in the Vault, they couldn’t keep it a secret forever, especially since housekeeping needed to clean the scene. Rumors passed between the palace faster than a magical missive.

“I wish Jacoby had taken the key with him,” Quentin finally confessed.

Something scratched at the edges of Silas’ mind. Not quite painful, but unpleasant. He shook his head instinctively to dislodge the sensation. He had suffered enough headaches over the years he’d been ensnared in Alistair’s curse that a mild one barely registered as more than an annoyance.

“Why didn’t he?” Silas asked.

Quentin said nothing more, eyes darting self-consciously at their witnesses.

Silas knew it was a risk to have this interrogation in full view of the public, but he had a destination in mind. “Why melt the key instead of turning it in?”

“And say what? ‘Here, your majesty, I conveniently found this key in Jacoby’s things’?”

“Is that not what happened?”

Quentin snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.

An image flashed in Silas’ mind, Jacoby’s wrinkled hands clasping his in a painful grip. “You’ll do this one thing for me, won’t you?”

Silas frowned down at his hands, where he still felt the clammy phantom touch. There had been something odd about the imagined reenactment, though it’d been too quick to pinpoint exactly what. Do I need to get more sleep?

Every day since Archer left, Silas had woken up at dawn to join Griselda and the soldiers for morning exercise. Even if work kept him awake until midnight. The less time he spent lingering in an empty bed, the easier it was to ignore Archer’s absence. To pretend they’d only be separated for a few hours, rather than indefinitely.

There were fewer onlookers once they entered the palace, only some soldiers and the staff cleaning the hallways. Usually, the servants were quiet and unobtrusive, trying to go unnoticed so they wouldn’t disturb the nobility living in the palace. Either the nobles’ absence or the addition of new staff emboldened them, making them livelier as they worked.

Down one hall, a group of maids sang together as they scrubbed smoke stains from the walls and floor, a bawdy tune with lots of lengthy pauses and giggling. They were too absorbed in their work and their singing to notice Silas or Quentin.

As they neared their destination, Quentin’s nerves visibly worsened. The chains of his manacles clanked. Sweat plastered his pale hair to his forehead. Panic oozed from him, cloying and sick, until Silas wanted to dunk himself in the maid’s water buckets to clean it from his skin. “Umm, Your Majesty ...” he trailed off without asking where they were going.

Twice as many guards as usual stood outside the office door. One of them handed Silas a clipboard. He carefully wrote his own name, Quentin’s, and Langley’s in the entry log.

“Is this really necessary?” Quentin asked, his eye skating to the door and away repeatedly.

Silas’ own eyes ached from watching him. “I’m a visual learner. It will be easier for me to envision your version of events this way. I considered starting in the Records Room, but Mr. Morten’s crew is still clearing out the rubble.”

Quentin flinched. “The fire wasn’t my fault. I told them—”