Page 111 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

Old Ones, does Finn know? Another, more agonizing possibility slivers through the bruised center of my heart. Did my mother know?

Wolf rubs a hand over his stubbled jaw, avoiding the branching scar there. His eyes rake over me, and I can see the moment he makes a decision. The tension in his shoulders releases, and his hard glare unwinds into familiar shadows. “You’ve never left Dyfflin, have you?”

“I don’t see how that—”

“Itmatters,” he insists, and there’s a raw exhaustion in his voice that makes my fingers ache to reach out to him. “Yes, you’ve seen what the High King does here, but you have no idea what goes on outside. How tightly the gardai control any letters or information about what happens past these city walls, especially since the uprising.”

Wolf’s hands make quick work of the final wraps of the bandage around my side. He tucks the ends into the wrappings so they won’t come loose. “Talon knows. All our leadership does. Fang. Others. Me.” He glances up at me, those eyes like coals. “Finn suspects, I think.”

The still air grows sharp edges between us. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“Knowing any of this is dangerous, Maeve. Not just for you but for all of us. For everyone you love. Trust me on that, if nothing else.”

His eyes search mine, conflict warring in their depths.

“Plenty of the nobles are with us—Saraid’s family is one of them,” Wolf admits. “They’re delaying draining their Well as long as they can to buy us more time for this fight. And she’s our best chance of putting a queen on that throne who could help us save what’s left of the Seven Wells. No one was willing to put her in even more danger than she’s already facing in the Assay by making her our assassin, too. It’s taken us five damn years to be ready to fight. To organize, so we won’t just be another failed uprising.”

The very thought makes my chest ache. “People still deserve to know the truth.”

“Telling the people about magic has always been our plan,” Wolf says intensely. “But we need to do it at the right time. So that when that fire catches, we’re ready to fan the flames and wage a real war—a war we canwin.”

“And can we?”

That last word crackles, vibrating in the fragile space between us.

We.

Wolf’s eyes smolder. A dark flash of hope streaks across his expression, and there’s a brush of longing where his gaze holds mine.

“We have to find a way to divide the nobles who support the High Queen.” Those eyes wander, just for a fraction of a second, to my lips. “There are more of them than there are nobles who support us, so we can’t take them on united. We have to cleave them apart.”

“A schism.” I breathe the word. A divide they won’t be able to bridge again. “But how? None of them seem to care about their daughters dying in this contest, so what else could…”

The idea slams into me with vicious ferocity so hard, it steals my breath as I look up at him.

“You have an idea?” Wolf’s lips curve, and a glimmer of pride sparks in my chest.

The noble daughters in the Assay die with dignity—or at least, what their familiesseeas dignity. Fighting for a crown. For power. For everything that keeps themthem.

What if one of them dies without dignity?

What if one of them dies fortreason, and the High Queen is the one who sentenced her?

“I might,” I venture, keeping the words soft enough that he takes a half step closer to hear. Warmth pools low in my stomach at the sight of him moving nearer toward me. “But this plan might cost you something.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Wolf takes another half step toward me, his eyes boring into mine like I’m a puzzle he can decipher if he just tries hard enough. “Tell me.”

The quiet command in his voice stirs something in me.

“What if one of the noble daughters were to get caught with that vial in your pocket?”

I reach out before remembering—his jacket’s on the table. There’s nothing but hard muscle beneath the soft, worn shirt across his chest where my hand brushes, and his gaze heats at the contact.

A flush creeps up my neck.

Touching him was a mistake.

I rip my hand back, curling my fingers around the edge of the table.