Page 110 of This Prince Is Not Charming

Lor’s lips twitched. “I’ve been here for six days, Cillian, and I have yet to be told why. This is the first time you’ve even visited me down here.”

“You know why, you traitor scum!” That seemed to have agitated Sir Arthur, because he was now trying to stick Lor with his wooden sword.

“I’ve missed you too, Arthur.” Lor flashed a smile at the suit of armor.

“I haven’t missed you. I didn’t say that,” the knight said, affronted by the accusation.

“Okay.” I put a hand on Sir Arthur’s metal shoulder. “Thank you for your help, Sir Arthur. You’ve been a great asset to us, but I’d like to talk to him in private. Do you think you could”—I gestured down the dark corridor of cells—“wander over there for a little bit? If I need help, I’ll make sure to call for you.”

The suit of armor harrumphed but thankfully didn’t argue, clinking and clanking away until he disappeared into the darkness.

I turned toward Lor, who was standing now, his hulking form taller than mine.

“That scar is new,” I said.

“Not really,” he said in return. “I got it a decade ago. When I first joined the brotherhood.”

“Right.” I couldn’t help the tightness in my voice at the reminder of where my brother had been for all these years.

“Am I going to be let out soon?” he asked. “And where is Aoife?”

“She’s with her people.” The Fair Folk had been ecstatic about the return of their faerie queen, but I’d seen very little of her as they tended to her.

Lor’s jaw locked. “She’s not very grateful for someone whose curse was just broken. You’d think she wouldn’t leave me here to rot.”

“No one is leaving you here to rot, Lor. But you have a lot to answer for.”

“I know,” he said. “And I’ve already told the truth to Mother, Father, Nevan, Wolfe—everyone who’s come to see me. In fact, I’m getting a little tired of repeating myself.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” I snapped, the anger I usually pushed away boiling to the surface. “You left us, Lor.”

“I didn’t. I was taken, and I did the best I could,” he said. “They recruited me, and I had no choice in the matter, like most of their recruits. Except I did something about it. I didn’t just conform. I started a rebel group within the brotherhood to undermine their missions. Do you know how much danger I was in? But I did it to protect places like Fairwitch Isle.”

“You brought the brotherhood to us!” I spread out my arms.

“Leena is a member of my rebel team, and we were following orders. Where is she, by the way?”

“In another part of the dungeons. We separated all of you.”

“Smart,” Lor said. “But you need to let her go.”

My eyes bugged. “Are you serious right now?”

He moved forward, gripping the bars of his cell. “Yes. Because apparently, I’m your high prince, Cillian, and if I’m not mistaken, that means I can’t go back to the brotherhood. If they think you’ve taken me, what do you think they’ll do? You’ll have brotherhood members scouring this forest looking for us. Looking for me. Leena needs to be released so she can tell the brotherhood I’ve been killed, that we never found Fairwitch Isle. Then she can take over our mission of taking the brotherhood down from within.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re doing a very good job if you’ve been a spy for this long and have yet to destroy them.”

A vein popped over his eyebrow. I’d hit a nerve. “Do you know how many lives and pieces of magic we’ve saved with our work? It takes time, Cillian. And I don’t get to be a part of it anymore.”

He sounded bitter. Sad, almost.

“What about the other one? Ronan? You said Leena was part of your spy group . . .”

Lor’s face fell. “You can’t let him go. He was ordered to go on this mission to see if Fairwitch Isle was on Kiln Mountain, and Leena and I volunteered to join him, hoping to steer him away, hoping to turn him, get him to join with the rebels. But then Ceri appeared from that doorway, and Ronan saw her, and it was too late. We couldn’t convince him to leave it alone. He’ll reveal your location. He’ll reveal everything to the brotherhood.”

“It’s hard to trust you,” I said. “I want to, and most of me believes what you’re saying, but there’s a small part . . .”

“That still doubts,” he said. “I understand.” He pointed to his head. “But how long do you think your castle will allow this? I am the high prince, the one this castle chose. You have to let me out sooner or later.”