Page 151 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
Every part of my body was hanging on by a thread—from the air in my lungs to the blood in my veins. Especially my eyes as I whirled on Amelia once more, confusion and anger blurring until all I could see was a wall of black and red adamant. “You’re aHobgoblin?” I screeched.
My best friend sighed, popping the last piece of chocolate into her mouth before she floated the wrapper away on a phantom wind. It spiralled over the edge of the platform like a leaf falling from a tree, and the lava below hissed as the flames devoured it.
“Well, I’m certainly not a fucking human,” she replied, licking the corners of her mouth clean with a tongue that suddenly looked a little too long. “My old man couldn’t get as close to you as he needed to get the information for the job, so I came to the rescue.” She sketched a bow. “You’re welcome.”
I blinked a few times, stupefied. “Job?” I exclaimed. “I was your best friend!”
“Oh, please.” Amelia waved me away, her expression as animated and overly dramatic as always. “Did you even think of meonceafter Prince Charming whisked you away to his House?”
Irritated as I was, the question loosened another chunk of guilt free from the graveyard of mistakes I kept locked inside of my heart. She was right. I hadn’t thought of her at all after leaving Belgrave, but that only stirred up more of the confusion lingering like a cloud of smoke in my head. We had beensoclose. We spent so much time together. Her family knew mine. She was my only friend in the entire world for a long time, and vice versa, yet we had nothing in common.
My best friend—and I hadn’t missed her for a second after leaving home.
“Exactly.” Amelia shrugged with her shoulders and hands. “Don’t take it personally. That was the job. I had to follow you around, make sure you stayed alive, and report back on your magical abilities. Which, spoiler alert, were practically nonexistent your entire life because you are actually the mostboringperson on the whole planet.”
I felt a tingling sensation beneath my skin as if my soul was separating from my body, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do to defend the connection.
“What did you say to Brynn?” I demanded, eyes narrowing.
I noticed it then. For the very first time, there were faerie traits in my best friend’s demeanour; the way she smiled like a serpent, the nonchalant gestures, the callous expressions reshaping her rounded features, and the pitch of her laughter an octave too high for a normal human being.
There was an evil glint in her eyes as she taunted, “You should really be more concerned about whatshesaid tome.”
“Alice?” I pressed, barely able to string a proper question together.
Amelia picked some melted chocolate out from underneath one of her nails with her teeth. “Not related,” she said offhandedly, as if pretending to have a sister for the last couple of decades was really no big deal. “A glamour here, a glamourthere. I had to get deep enough to stick around for the long haul, you know?”
Swaying on my feet, I nodded foolishly, light as a feather and yet impossible to lift. Desperate to avert my gaze from the face pictured next to mine in the photos of every birthday party I’d ever had, I looked away only to find that Wrenlock was standing next to me with his attention on the owner of the bookstore, still chained on the ground.
Wrenlock was staring at John Dante—staring like he knew him.
I shook my head, trying to remember which direction was up and which was down as my entire universe tilted on its axis. The worst part was that John returned Wrenlock’s familiar stare, but to my knowledge, they’d never met.
Has Wrenlock ever been to Belgrave? Has John done something to the Court of Fire?
“Why is one of you in chains and the other isn’t?” I questioned, fatigue slipping through.
“Simple,” an unfamiliar voice replied, booming throughout the volcano. “One committed a crime and the other didn’t.”
There was no opportunity for me to enquire after the details of the crime. Lucais climbed to his feet with a sense of urgency, hands still bound in irons, and two guards closed in around him as the doors opened on the far side of the volcano and a tall, broad-shouldered man with flame red hair strode into the room with a huge smile on his face.
“Aura! Lucais!” He clapped his hands, and the sound was like volcanic lightning. “Wonderful to see you both conscious and standing upright. That will save us time.”
“I have a bone to pick with you, Owain,” Lucais seethed.
The High Lord of the Court of Fire.
Owain shuddered theatrically, his dark eyes alight with a wild thrill. “Then by all means, Your Highness, let’s open the closet, shall we?”
fifty-five
Insignia
“John Dante is in custody under suspicion of treason. The sacred insignia on his privately owned establishment in the mortal realm was vandalised, and John failed to take the appropriate measures to correct the situation,” the High Lord recited, answering my question. “Furthermore, he has been accused of aiding and abetting known rebels acting against the interests of this Court, using a second privately owned establishment in the mortal realm for the purposes of conducting meetings, facilitating unauthorised inter-realm transport of prohibited persons and prohibited goods, and he has refused to give up the locations or identities of his accomplices.”
I glanced at Lucais. The Court of Light insignia had been scratched off the rosewood on Dante’s Bookstore, but—
He warned me not to look at it for too long, lest ye see the flame start to flicker and ye lose yer wits.
