Jaik looked stunned, as if the hug had rendered him helpless when fists couldn’t. “This was never going to be permanent, Alina, we wouldn’t let them do that to you.”
Alina laughed so hard at that, her eyes teared up, and I ached with guilt.
Later that night, I was the one who noticed that Honor had gone missing. As much as Jaik always seemed attuned to her presence, he thought that she was going to train with Arren. But when I found Arren lounging in front of the fire with his best friend, the whiskey bottle, I knew Honor had given us all the slip. But why?
Branok would jump right to the worst conclusion but I found her loitering on the bottom floor of the castle. She still couldn’t go in or out, none of us could, and I tried to make sense of where she was going.
She put her hand on the doorknob to the basement, then let go of it again. She clutched a bottle of pink potion in one hand.
“Honor.”
Her cheeks stained red when she saw me, and she gave me a wide eyed look that looked guiltier than a cat in a koi pond.
“What are you doing?” My voice came out gentler than I meant it to.
She shook her head, but her expression had softened in response as if she were surprised. “I went down to the basement sometimes in the other house. That’s why I survived the blast. I keep thinking about what happened underneath my parent’s house. I don’t know if I can ever go back there. Even though it’s my sister’s home.”
“Your home too, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Not according to the law.” There was a bitter edge to her voice.
“The law is not the only thing that matters.” I studied her. “You wanted to come down here so that you could feel the nightmares all over again.”
“When you say it like that it seems crazy,” she said.
“Everything you do seems crazy, Honor.”
A frown dimpled the space between her beautiful eyes. “How did you know what I was doing?”
I sat down on the stairs. I didn’t know why something about Honor seemed to draw my long buried memories. “My father used to lock me up in his dungeon.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s never been happy with me. It’s always been a good thing in his view that there were two of us. But he used to joke that we’re really just one decent son split into two bodies.”
“Did he ever lock Branok in the dungeon?”
Instead of answering, I mused, “Maybe I’m being dramatic. The truth is that it was a separate dungeon. He wouldn’t have put me in with the common prisoners because someone might have seen me down there. Not that many people ever escaped my father’s prison alive.”
I glanced up at her and answered the question she hadn’t asked yet. “It stopped when Pend declared for security reasons he would keep all of our prisoners for us. Joachim got a special dispensation to keep Lucien this time.”
“What was it like?” Her voice was gentle as she came and sat on the step beside me. Her hand fell on my knee and she seemed to reconsider asking questions. “I’m sorry. It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t mind talking. I want you to feel like you can talk to me.”
But I couldn’t make myself go on. Sometimes it felt like there was a wall between me and other people when I tried to tell them something that had hurt me in the past. It wasn’t as if not talking about it was making anything better though.
If talking to Honor could help her feel better about the darkness and her own past, then I wanted to be there for her. I just couldn’t quite force the words.
Instead, I offered her my hand. “Come on, let’s go meet the others before they notice you’re gone.”
She favored me with a smile that melted something inside my chest and took my hand, though only for a second. I could still feel the warmth of her palm against mine. Together, the two of us walked out of the darkness and into the bright light of the hallway.
“There’s something I wanted to look for in the library. Can I join you in the dining hall in a minute?”
“Why don’t I come with you? You know the library is my hunting ground of choice.”
I had the distinct impression she didn’t want me along with her, and that made me suspicious. I wanted to give Honor the benefit of the doubt, but that wasn’t possible if she was lying to us all.
Honestly, the fact that she was lying to me bothered me far more than it should.
We went into the library and she rummaged through some books before she pulled out a stack of music books and carried them to the table.
I watched her curiously as she began flipping through the pages. I wanted to know what instrument she played, but she seemed so intent, I let her be. Never interrupt a girl when she’s reading.
I wandered along the stacks, looking yet again for something we could use to stop the hybrids. When she whistled softly, I turned back to see her smoothing a page with her delicate hand. As I got closer, I realized that it was a loose piece of paper, creased between a few pages in the book.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A spell,” she said. “We’ve been trying to figure out what enchantment Lucien used on Alina, but we haven’t been able to make any progress. I was thinking about it. Lucien Finn was a fiddler, right? A musician.”
“Among his many disreputable qualities,” I agreed. “Fiddlers are the worst.”
“Well, maybe he had a magic musical spell that he used on her and then none of you would know anything about it.” She fixed me with a mocking look. “Given that none of you are disreputable in the least.”
“There aren’t any music spells,” I said.
“Aren’t there?” She arched her brows and tapped her fingers against the page. “We should try this one and see if this is the spell that Lucien put on Alina. What do we have to lose?”
“My dignity,” I suggested, because Branok would think it was ridiculous to try a random spell that was probably made up by a child doodling in between music lessons.
She ignored me, though, still studying the spell. I signed and leaned over her shoulder so I could read the page. Her hair smelled like honey and apples and the faintest tinge of smokiness beneath the sweetness, and I forced myself to focus on the words even when she moved distractingly. She was always moving, fidgeting. Apparently all the training in deportment they gave noble girls hadn’t made much of an impact on Honor.
I’d already read the spell over her shoulder, but I didn’t move away as I added, “There’s no reason to think this is a real spell. Enchantments are made for things like fighting or controlling people. Not inconsequential things like understanding their feelings.”
“Trust me,” she said. “If Lucien really was in love with your sister, then maybe the spell that he put her under was inconsequential as you said it. Maybe to him her feelings weren’t inconsequential. And that means the spell he used was harmless.”