Page 173 of Flame and Sparrow

“She earned their trust, stole from them, and then fled back to this realm,” I said. “That’s why they chased her down. That’s why they killed her.”

Shock glazed his eyes over as he shook his head and got to his feet, pressing a hand to his mouth. He seemed as confused and overwhelmed as I’d felt when Dravyn first told me.

It could have been an act.

I knew that.

But I desperately wanted it to be real—because if he wasn’t acting, then I was not the only one my sister had kept secrets from, at least.

He eventually returned to my side, bracing an arm against part of the attic’s exposed framework. “How did you come by this information?”

Slowly, little by little I opened up to him as I always had, telling him some of the things I’d learned. Not everything, as I would have months ago. Just enough to keep the words—and some semblance of our old friendship—flowing between us. If I was going to find any allies in this realm, I still believed he was my best chance. And whatever I decided to do next, I needed an ally in this place.

After I’d finished speaking, he was quiet for several moments, tapping his knuckles lightly together the way he often did when he was thinking. “What proof do you have of Savna’s supposed crimes, aside from what the God of Fire told you?”

I opened my mouth to reply—only to close it quickly, realizing I didn’t really have an answer.

“The gods could have been lying to you,” he pointed out.

“Dravyn wasn’t lying.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I…” I got to my feet as if to leave, even though I had nowhere to go. “I just know. He wouldn’t have lied to me about something like this.”

“You trust him that much? Even after he sent you away?” His tone wasn’t combative or mocking, as Andrel’s likely would have been; it was merely concerned. Confused, perhaps.

But for all of the uncertainties surrounding my time among the gods, I wasn’t confused about this.

Dravyn and I had both kept too many secrets from one another from the beginning, but things had been changing. Trust, and maybe something deeper, had been building between us.

He hadn’t lied about my sister.

I knew it as surely as I knew I was breathing.

“Karys…” Cillian began, only to trail off. After several more false starts, he finally found the words he wanted. “You’ve been gone for what feels like forever. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think it’s possible for you to be entirely in your right mind, at the moment. I’m not sure you were when you came back last time, either.”

A prickling heat itched over my scalp. “I’m more in my right mind than I’ve ever been before.”

He shook his head as I began to pace restlessly. “You know the gods play tricks. You just spent months in their realm…you don’t think they tried to trick you while you were there? That maybe they used some sort of confusing magic or illusions against you? Not even once?”

I didn’t have to think about it.

I knew for a fact they had.

I hadbefriendedthe very goddess known for her ability to control the appearance of things, to shift them—and she had used her magic to trick me. Though again, it had been at the beginning of my journey. Things had changed.

Ihad changed.

My pacing came to a stop. I knew I trusted Dravyn, yet I couldn’t find the words to explain why, to refute the things Cillian was voicing.

“You ate their food, I assume?” Cillian continued, gently. “You drank their wine? Hell, even just the air in that place is likely disorienting to our kind once you breathe it enough.”

Maybe it was harder to dismiss his arguments because his concern felt so genuine.

But it was a misguided concern.

Wasn’t it?

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