Page 20 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Not Jesmine’s. No, these were here, in the hallway outside.

One was Raihn’s.

Fuck.

I yanked my hand away from the device, and the silver collapsed back into countless shards, falling again into a neat pile. I winced at the metallic sound they made crashing against the wood.

I swept them up and shoved them into my pocket, my eyes glued to the door.

The two voices grew closer. The other, I realized a few seconds later, was Cairis’s.

“—long to find it,” Cairis was saying.

Footsteps. Down the other staircase. My escape route.

“Has the guard gone through all this yet?” Raihn asked.

“Not yet.”

“He made a lot of changes to the place.”

There was a strange note to his voice at that—one that seemed obvious to me, but that Cairis breezed right by.

“They’ll start in on these rooms as soon as they’re done with the upstairs studies,” Cairis said.

“Anything useful?”

“Nothing new. We already know who we need to kill. The hard part is getting to them. But getting rid of Misrada will help with that. Septimus seems confident.”

“Well, as long asSeptimusis confident.” Raihn’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “At least that will get some of them out of our way.”

The footsteps grew louder. I shrank back as I watched the sliver of light beneath the door—watched shadows flicker across it.

I stopped breathing. I shrank back against the wall, trying to put as much space between me and them as I could.

But they just kept walking. “This place was kept out of the way,” Cairis said. “Maybe he kept the good shit down—what?”

My short-lived breath of relief stilled.

One set of footsteps—Raihn’s—had stopped.

“What is it?” Cairis said, again.

“Nothing. Just curiosity.”

Raihn was a good actor. He always sold his lies well.

“You go ahead,” he said to Cairis. “I’d like to look around in here instead first.”

Fuck.Fuck.

“You want me to call someone to help you?”

“Honestly, I’m dying for a little privacy. Want to hear myself think for once.”

Cairis chuckled, and I glanced frantically around the office. The only hiding place was under the desk. A comically terrible choice. Still, it was better than nothing.

As I ducked down beneath the desk, I caught one final glimpse of all my father’s work—papers and diagrams that showed exactly how much he loved his kingdom, and how much of his blood and sweat he poured into building and protecting his empire.

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