Page 28 of The Cost of Blood and Bonds

My throat burns, and I swallow it down. I nod once. It’s all I can manage.

I leave the infirmary, forcing my shoulders square and my pace even.

The city hums with midday traffic, carts grinding over stone, prices being called out, and the smell of spices hanging thick in the air. I sink into the normalcy and let it carry me home.

I push open the door to our flat.

“You’re late,” Gemma says, her voice tight with nerves.

She’s at the counter with her sleeves rolled up and a knife paused mid-chop, her eyes already searching my face.

“Finn, what are you doing home?” she asks.

I close the door behind me.

“Where’s Mom?”

“At the markets, she left before lunch to grab some bread.” Her voice tightens. “She should’ve been back by now.”

My breath goes shallow. I told the King it was a baker at the markets, gray hair, shawl, nothing memorable. A lie built to deflect. But Mom buys bread from that stall. If the King sends guards to watch the baker, they won’t just find the baker. They’ll find Mom.

My jaw grinds hard enough to ache. I handed him a lie that leads straight to the truth.

Gemma’s eyes are on me, waiting. The cold settles over me as the thought finishes assembling.

“She’s not here,” I say quietly, like saying it softer makes it less true, “because the King took her.”

Chapter 8

Finn

Heat presses in from all sides, but I don’t feel it until the yard starts to blur at the edges.

Hayes presses Rye back, controlled and efficient. Rye compensates with his right side still lagging. I should call it out, but the words sit heavy and formless behind my teeth, and by the time I reach for them, the moment has already slipped past.

A month. It’s been a month.

I feel my hand working open and closed, the yard fading, and I’m eight again, shaking in the corner behind the woodstove with a fear too big for my body. Mom took my face in her hands and pressed her forehead to mine.

“Finny,” she said, pulling me into her.

“What if we can’t keep them safe, Mama?” I asked through sobs.

“We’ll be all together, always.” She said it like a vow.

“Finn.”

I blink. Rye is standing in front of me, sweat streaking down his face, concern written all over it.

“You all right?”

“Fine,” I say automatically, but the word tastes wrong.

He studies me like he’s deciding whether to push. Hayes calls him back, and Rye goes.

I don’t follow.

We’ve run out of clean options, not officially; no one’s said it out loud. But I know this feeling, the one where you’ve burned through every lead and start circling the same ground. Grier’s rotated guards through the dungeons. Rosie’s pressed the noble houses until the smiles wore thin. We’ve checked routes, corridors, every place we can justify being, and nothing.