“You really don’t know?” Derek eased off, sitting across from her.
“I don’t know what I don’t know?” Florence thought about the self-posed question and struggled to see if she’d said it right. “What am I to know?”
“Your friends stole the Rider’s glider we pulled from the wreckage of that airship crash.”
“I didn’t know you had the glider.” Out of everything to focus on, she picked the fact that the Alchemists had taken one of the gliders? “Where did they go?”
Florence folded her fingers together, gripping them tightly. They’d left her behind. It was all for what she said. Maybe she’d been right, maybe she’d been justified, maybe she still was, but none of that expunged the pain at the thought of being left alone.
“Well, with a Dragon glider, they could’ve gone anywhere far and fast.” Derek leaned back in his chair, terribly amused by the situation since he lacked all emotional investment. “But the morning watch says they charted a course skyward for Nova.”
“Impossible. Arianna would never go to Nova.” Florence couldn’t believe it.
“Think what you will… But that happens in the dawn, and now, the Vicar tells me that we must increase our preparations. We must remain diligent, she says, because one ‘never knows when the resources we need could come’.”
Florence knew for all the help she’d been, the Vicar wasn’t talking about her. It’d take a greater force to sway the tides in the favor of the fledgling rebels. A force that might be mustered by a Wraith, and a Dragon.
“We should get to work then,” Florence resolved with a small smile. “There’s much to be done—just in case we have the opportunity to overthrow a King.”
“Just in case?” Derek grinned. The man clearly believed she knew more than she did. But all Florence had was her intuition. Then again, when it came to Arianna, her intuition was rarely off.
“Just in case.” She gave him a small wink and looked over all there was to be done.
43. Petra
It was the second time she’d been summoned to the Rok Estate in a few month’s time. It wasn’t that Petra didn’t enjoy inspiring frustration and anger in the man who was supposed to be revered as her supreme ruler, because she did—she enjoyed it a lot. Shameful amount, really. But she just had other things to do.
Running a House, managing nobles, and overseeing the wellbeing her family was enough to fill anyone’s plate. Throw on regicide and treason while trying to broker deals with—apparently—the most temperamental Fenthri there were? She barely had time to sharpen her claws these days.
She clicked her tongue off her teeth, pulling lightly at the boco’s feathers, guiding it with her knees to bank toward the landing area for nobility. Other giant birds milled about, some saddled, some not. Their iridescent feathers shone in the midday sun.
With the buffeting of large wings, her cerulean mount landed with a dignified caw. At least Petra found it dignified. She didn’t speak boco, and some of the other birds ruffled their feathers at whatever it was her Raku had said.
Petra patted him lovingly on the bill. “You annoy the feathers off these gaudy chickens.”
She might not speak boco, but she suspected Raku understood her language as he cooed gleefully in reply. Spinning, she adjusted the thick beaded necklace that ran down front and back, sauntering into the Rok estate as though she already owned the place.
“I haven’t met you before.” She gave a wide smile to the Rider who was escorting her to Yveun Dono’s infamous red room. The thought of it made her yawn. He did it to be intimidating, but it made him predictable and dull.
The real way to intimidate people was to capture their imagination. The imagination was far more wicked than anything someone else could think up because it knew every insecurity to play off. Yveun Dono was too overt. House Rok sharpened their blades, but not their minds.
“We have not had the pleasure, Petra’Oji.” Nothing about the Rider’s tone made Petra think that meeting her was a pleasure. She raked her fingers through her golden curls, drawn back and pinned away from her face.
“You have two whole beads I see.” She made a scene of fussing over them. “What an accomplishment.”
The man almost swatted her hand away. He might be new, but he was trained enough to avoid making that mistake. If he struck her, she would kill him. Not even Yveun Dono would bother denying her that duel.
“Dono, I have brought Petra’Oji,” the Rider announced as they crossed into the threshold of the red room. The man strode ahead of her, assuming the place at the side of the King.
Petra tilted her head. Now this was too delicious not to comment on. “Yveun Dono, did you change staff? Or is our dear Leona sick?”