“Knowing your mother, it would be easy.” He grinned.
We went back to train more, but I was distracted and couldn’t make anything move for the remainder of the day. After Tove had gone, I headed up to my room. I thought I’d check on Matt first, since the alarm going off had to have freaked him out, and Rhys was at school. I knocked on Matt’s door, and when he didn’t answer, I ventured inside, but he wasn’t there.
With the Vittra breaking in, I felt a little freaked about not knowing where Matt was. Before I decided on an all-out search of the premises, I went to my room to grab a sweater, and I found a note from Matt pinned to the door.
Gone over to Willa’s. Be back later.
—Matt
Great. I ripped the note down and went into my room. But I’d told him I’d be training all day, so he didn’t need to wait around for me. I could have really used some time to talk to him, since everything felt like absolute chaos, and he was hanging out with Willa, which didn’t even make sense. I couldn’t imagine what the two of them would be doing, spending all that time together. They should be hating each other.
I flopped on my bed and fell asleep pretty quickly. I didn’t realize I’d been that tired, but I guess using my abilities took a lot out of me.
FOURTEEN
stockholm syndrome
I’d gotten used to the defense meetings after the big Vittra break-in during my christening ceremony.
We met in the War Room in the south wing. The walls were plastered with maps. Red and green patches speckled them, indicating other tribes of trolls.
A huge mahogany table stood at one end, a drawing board behind it. Elora and Aurora, Tove’s mother, stood at the far side of the table. For some reason, they always led the defense meetings together. Aurora didn’t trust Elora to run the kingdom, but I still didn’t know why Elora tolerated Aurora taking any amount of control.
Chairs littered the rest of the room, most of them mismatched because they’d been pulled from other rooms to fill the space. Our mothers commanded the meetings, so Tove and I were always the first people in attendance. It worked to our advantage, and we hid in the back.
The usual twenty or so attendees were here: Garrett Strom, Willa’s father and my mother’s possible boyfriend; the Chancellor, a pasty, overweight man who stared at me in a way that made my skin crawl; Noah Kroner, Tove’s ever-silent father; and a few other Markis, Marksinna, and trackers.
Soon the room started filling up more than normal. People I’d never seen before filtered in, including a lot more trackers. None of the trackers took a seat, because that would have been impolite with limited seating. Duncan stood behind me, despite the fact that I told him to sit down three times.
Willa burst in a few minutes before the meeting was set to start, and she pushed her way through the crowded room. Her bracelets jangled as she stepped over a tracker, smiling brightly at me before flopping into the chair next to mine.
“Sorry I’m late.” Willa readjusted her skirt, pulling it down so it hit her knees. She brushed her hair from her eyes and smiled at us. “Did I miss anything?”
“Nothing’s happened yet,” I said.
“There are a lot of people here, aren’t there?” Willa glanced around the room. Her father looked at us, and she waved at him.
“Sure are,” I agreed.
The chair directly in front of me was empty, so Tove slid it back and forth with his abilities.
Crowds tended to overwhelm him. It was too much noise inside his head. When he drained some of his power by moving objects, it weakened his capacity to hear things and helped silence the static.
“Is it really a big deal, then?” Willa asked me and lowered her voice. “I heard you knew the Vittra that they caught.”
“I don’t know him.” I shifted in my chair. “I saw him when I was with the Vittra. It’s not a big deal.”
“Did you subdue him?” Willa asked, looking up at Duncan.
She was asking him directly, and not asking me if my tracker had done something. She—Willa—was treating people with basic human dignity, and it freaked me out.
Duncan puffed up with pride, then seemed to remember that I’d defended Loki. His expression shifted to shame, and he lowered his eyes. “I saw him knock another guard out, and I called for backup. That was all.”
“How come he didn’t knock you out?” I asked.
I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Duncan much since yesterday. I’d been wondering how they’d been able to capture Loki, when he could’ve rendered them unconscious with a single look.
“He didn’t think he had to.” Duncan looked proud again, and I let him. “My appearance deceived him, and the other guards tackled him.”
“What was he doing when you found him?” Willa asked.
“I couldn’t tell exactly.” Duncan shook his head. “I think he was peeking through a window.”