Page 45 of Keldori By Daybreak

“They’ve been lying to you,” Orla said. “They lied to all of us.”

Iseult’s eyes softened, and I wondered for a moment if perhaps Orla’s one-sided affection for Iseult wasn’t so one-sided after all.

“Tiernan.” Iseult’s leg reformed as she gathered your bearing. “You’re alive too? Then is my grandfather—”

“Galahad’s dead,” I said. “Ferrin killed him. He tried to kill the rest of us too.”

“Ferrin told me that you’re working for him.” She pointed a quaking hand at Ciarán. “You say Ferrin’s a liar, but obviously that was the truth”

“Technically, Ciarán works for me, but it’s a long story and one I’d rather tell you outside the Second Sentinel.”

“But you opened the Rift! The Frozen God is free!”

“That was Ferrin too!” I said.

“The Grimguard attacked my home.”

“That was more of a misunderstanding than anything, and nobody died!”

“And he just suggested knocking me out!”

“Only because we can’t beat Ferrin without you!”

“You’re lying.” Iseult’s voice wavered, and she climbed back to her feet. “It’s a trick.”

“Ferrin told you I was dead,” Orla said. “You know that was a lie.”

Iseult’s brow softened again when Orla spoke. She at least hadn’t dissolved me into nothing yet, and that counted for something. We were getting through to her, and Orla was right. Her being here was proof that Ferrin had—

Lied.

Ferrin had lied. But—

“Orla.” My stomach knotted. “Orla, Ferrin told Iseult you were dead.”

“Yes.”

“And he said the same thing to Tiernan.”

“He did,” Tiernan confirmed.

“So why did Cade know you were still alive?”

Heavy silence fell over the cavern, and Orla’s face screwed up.

“Oh. Well—” She struggled for an answer, but a quiet panic furrowed her brow, and her shoulders heaved as her breathing hitched.

Why would Ferrin tell Cade the truth when he was lying to everyone else?

An echoing laugh interrupted the uneasy quiet, and all the color drained from Orla’s flushed cheeks.

“That’s what I’ve always loved best about you, Just-Wren!” a voice called out from the entry tunnel. Green light flickered in the tunnel’s depths, glinting off the circular rims of Skal-goggles and playing with the upturned cockatoo hair of Ferrin Quillguard. “You notice the little things that no one else does!”

Ferrin stopped between the stone feet of the giant statue and crossed his arms as a second figure formed in the shadows behind him.

Cade stepped forward, less intimidating than Ferrin in his scholar’s robes that dragged in the dirt, but somehow so much more horrible.

11. Familial Psychology