Page 66 of Ira

“Right, we’ll probably need to sit down with the king to lay it all out,” Tallulah mused. “What about the other ex-Hunters in the realm, though? It feels a little uncomfortable to hide this from them.”

Ophelia exhaled heavily, as the invisible divider between the original ex-Hunters and the new ones grew a little thinner. There was no question that Austin and Verity would be informed, but what about Jade, and Patrick, and the others in Elverston House? Iris was still a little bit of an unknown, but I think we’d all decided to trust her.

And then there was Cora. She’d come over here with Sebastian and her brother—they had been deemed negotiators, but she wasn’t. She’d come because she wanted to, and it seemed like she was fitting in well, but her brother’s betrayal had changed the way everyone saw her now.

“Sebastian sticks pretty close to Cora when he’s in the realm,” Astrid pointed out.

There was a general murmur of agreement, though no one seemed wholly comfortable with it. It was difficult to get a read on Cora these days, and it made sense for her to seek out a familiar face in Sebastian. Even if she was fully on our side, itwas a big ask to put this secret on her shoulders when she was regularly in his company.

“I’d like to tell Iris myself,” I said quietly. “Please.”

Ophelia nodded, clearly wanting to ask why but deciding not to.

There was no way that Moriah Nash was coming out of this scandal untouched. If I was going to be the one who sent her parents to prison, the least I could do was tell Iris that myself.

“What about Verner?” I asked. “When can I see him?”

“Let me talk to Allerick,” Ophelia said gently. “I’m sure it won’t be too long. Just… give things some time to settle down. We’ll figure it out.”

It was the least comforting answer she could have given me.

Chapter 23

The following week felt like a year. No one would let me see Verner. No one would tell me where he was.

The self-doubt was starting to creep in a little now. Maybe he was avoiding me. Maybe, after speaking to the king and the captain and whoever else, he didn’t want to be with the woman who’d ruined his reputation.

And I was almost certain I had. His name was definitely being whispered at court, but he was nowhere to be found. And everyone stopped talking as soon as they saw me coming.

The guilt was eating me alive. If I could see him, I could at least apologize, but I also didn’t want to force my presence on him if he hated me now.

Maybe I should write him a note? Then again, I wasn’t sure I trusted anyone to deliver it. Ophelia and Astrid had both beencagey when I’d asked questions—possibly because they didn’t want to undermine their partners.

I’d spent days trying to get answers out of them, which had conveniently kept me too busy to sit down and have some of the difficult conversations I needed to have with other people. But I wasn’t doing that whole avoiding-tricky-topics thing anymore. Today was the day that I put on my big girl pants and went on my apology tour.

Hopefully it would keep me busy enough that I wouldn’t spend my time obsessing over Verner and wondering if he even liked me anymore, and if he knew that Ilovedhim, and maybe I should have told him that.

The vegetable garden looked even better than when I left it, and I made a note to thank Patrick and ask if I could learn from him. If he wasn’t mad at me, that was. I didn’t really know how these guys would react to everything, but ultimately, I had put them in a difficult spot with my lie and they had every right to be annoyed about that.

“Meera!” Jade exclaimed, throwing the door open and jogging down the stairs. Had she been watching from the window? I let out a startled sound as she threw her arms around me before belatedly remembering that people didn’t usually stand there like a statue when they were being hugged.

God, I was so awkward.

“Hi,” I said lamely, patting her on the back. “How are you? Sorry it took me so long to visit—”

“Oh my god, don’t apologize.” She grabbed my arm, towing me toward the house. “You’re, like, a celebrity. Astrid told me what you did.”

“Did she?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah. I’m not meant to tell anyone else yet, which has been killing me. I think she was just feeling me out, trying to decide if I’m trustworthy or not, you know?”

That did sound like Astrid logic.

“Want some tea? I just put the water on to boil. And we can talk privately in the kitchen.”

“Sure.”

From the front door, it was a straight line down to the kitchen at the back of the house, and meant passing by a lot of the common areas on the ground floor. It was the first time I could really see how different the place looked now—it was busier and brighter. There was morestuffeverywhere. Clothes lying on couches, and books haphazardly left wherever someone had been sitting to read them. Ten new people had meant a lot morestuff—and a busy time for Astrid, sourcing it all—and the house felt more alive than it had in a long time.

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