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“Lockpicker.” He set his hands on my shoulders, apologetic but unyielding. “We can’t win this battle today.”

Defeat hummed through me as Lye urged me up the stairs, away from my chance to meet the translator.

And away from understanding, and destroying, Erik’s plans.

13

My tailbone throbbed and I felt sticky with sweat, but I hid my misery. After all, it was my request that had landed us in the flea-bitten corridors of Talon Inn after dusk.

Raff is rarely pleasant, Lye had said as we’d left the workroom, but he’s usually more reasonable. I suppose a cheering audience is bound to make anyone feel extra cocky.

Then we should return tomorrow morning, I’d said, before the workers arrive. If he would only hear me out, he might agree to get me a meeting after all.

Though Lye had scrunched his nose, doubtful, he’d indulged my desperate hope. And now, as we faced these twin doors, he gave me a wry look.

Because, as the jolly woman behind the counter had told us, these two adjoining chambers were the last rooms available.

“So.” Lye adjusted his bandolier. “Have you decided which of us will have the pleasure of your company tonight, Lockpicker, or shall we battle it out for your entertainment?”

My mouth twitched with a faint smile. “I’m afraid I’ve already made my choice.”

“I see.” He sighed dramatically. “So will you two put a sign on the door for when I can’t come in? A little ribbon on the handle, maybe?”

I laughed under my breath as Keil rolled his eyes and steered a groaning Lye toward their door.

The moment I entered my sparsely furnished room, my smile faded.

I’d failed today. I’d employed my best courtier’s tactics, I’d fought a Wielder, and still, I’d failed. An inner voice told me I would fail tomorrow, too. And now I had to face a truth I hated to admit.

That I couldn’t return home while Erik was in power . . . and I desperately wanted to. That I wanted to wake up to the ceiling mural Father had painted in my bedchamber; that I missed Tari and Amarie so powerfully that it was a physical pain; that the idea of never breathing Verenian air again felt not like freedom, but rather like a new kind of imprisonment—just one in which I was locked on the other side of the bars.

I’d always expected to one day be ripped away from my home. But I’d never once imagined that my home would be ripped away from me.

I tipped my head back, eyes shut, hating that Erik had managed to hurt me this way. By making me crave the place from which I’d forever wanted to escape.

Visiting Banarrat might now be my only shot left at understanding, and unraveling, his plans. At taking that first step back toward home. But with fresh defeat weighing on me, and no evidence besides my own hunch that Banarrat was even linked to his plans, I had to confront the harsh reality that this might be it. That my closure was here, in this empire far from everything I loved, where I could Wield freely . . . and yet live forever like someone lost.

A knock-knock sounded from the adjoining room. I opened my eyes to find that the chamber had darkened, the sconces creating little halos of light along the walls.

I straightened, clearing my throat. “Come in.”

Keil slipped inside and leaned back against the door, arms crossed. A little smile pulled at his mouth. “That was very impressive.”

I blinked in confusion, still emerging from my fog of disappointment.

“That brutal little maneuver at the workshop,” he explained.

“You mean when I injured the floor by landing on it too hard?” I scoffed, then undid my hip bag and set it with a clunk on the dresser. “Yes, it took me years to perfect that one.”

Keil tipped his head, considering me. “You know you won that fight.”

“I still left empty-handed.”

“We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“And if Raff refuses again?”

“Then we’ll find someone else who can help. Or we’ll search for another account of the symbol.” He ambled closer. “Or we’ll break into every private library in Ansora for information on Spellmade objects.”