Page 96 of Sharpest Court

This was where Holden summoned Perla every night to reset her oath band. Where he made small talk as her heart raced from the threat of those sharp steel thorns.

My fury was rising when Keil said, “We have a problem.” And I strode over to where he was leafing through Holden’s documents. “Apparently, they relocate the tomb every few years, rotating through the areas Saxon once decimated.”

“How many locations are there?” I asked in dread.

Keil showed me the parchment, and I winced at the image inked on one corner: a four-pointed compass star, denoting north, east, south, and west.

There were four possible locations of the Unbreakable Blade. And only one night left to steal it.

Keil copied the coordinates on a spare page and said with resolve, “We’ll find a way.”

He was pocketing the paper when something else caught my eye: a white envelope, addressed to Holden.

Penned in handwriting I knew too well.

“Erik,” I breathed, my mouth drying with horror. I knew he’d been communicating with the general. Yet this letter made it seem as though he were here beside me.

I was reaching out, morbidly compelled, when footsteps sounded from the hallway.

My heart lurched. Holden must have left the jolly earlier than expected.

I went to grab the letter when Keil’s fingers gently caught mine.

“Holden might realize it’s missing,” he whispered, eyes darting to the door. We had to get out of here.

And yet I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the letter.

Seeing me waver, Keil grabbed the envelope with a resigned huff and shoved it into his pocket.

Then we scrambled back into the connecting tunnel, through the cellar, and up into the gambling den, faces flushed behind our masks.

Noting our breathlessness, the sentry chuckled before sending us off.

We were striding back through the crowd when a familiar clinking sound drifted from behind a curtained alcove.

I halted, my skin bristling. I knew that sound intimately—had dreaded hearing it on the refugee ship because it came attached to the one person I’d most hated to encounter.

Now realization struck me. There was a marble, too, Perla had said regarding the island’s security breach. But that smashed window wasn’t the work of a smuggler, as Lye had believed. It wasn’t the work of Mara, either.

Needing to give weight to my theory, I slipped between the velvet curtains.

And there, sitting at the table of a private card game, loudly clinking a handful of speckled clay marbles in his palm, was Zeke.

26

I remained gaping by the curtain as the dealer scooped up the cards.

I hadn’t seen Zeke since he’d blackmailed me into an alliance, thus landing me in an interrogation tent with Arun, and it looked like he’d deteriorated in the weeks since. His hair had grown out on the sides, leaving him with one scruffy flop, and light brown stubble bristled across cheekbones that appeared significantly more pronounced.

“Who is he?” Keil whispered, coming up beside me.

“He’s from the refugee ship,” I murmured darkly. “And he knows who I am.”

Keil whipped his head toward me. “Then he can’t know you’re here.”

He was right: With one stray comment, Zeke could blow my cover as Erik’s Wholeborn bride.

But as I looked again at those marbles and realized that Zeke had somehow journeyed to this island without being accosted, I couldn’t turn away. Because while Lye was sifting through the last of his Banarrati contacts, hoping to find a route that would take Perla out of these waters by tomorrow . . . I already had an answer glimmering within reach.