Snow’s eyes flashed. “And you don’t seem to appreciate it, either, because here you are. Back where you started.”
“Well, give or take a marriage to the Silver Wolf,” I said.
She laughed as if she didn’t want to, but couldn’t help it. “What are you doing here, Red? Why didn’t you stay gone the first time?”
“I didn’t come back because I want to be the wife of a Sworn,” I said. “There’s someone who’s still here. Someone I want to get out of the city.”
“Your mother?” Snow asked, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline. “Was she not—?”
“She was.” I paused. Emotions slithered toward me like treecrawler tendrils creeping under a crack in a locked door. I stamped them down. I would not think of my mother again, not if I could help it. “She has made other choices. She didn’t want to be found. Not by me.”
Snow was looking at me as if she could see what I didn’t want her to see. “I’m sorry,” she said simply.
“Thanks.”
She studied my face. “Shouldn’t you be locked away in your silver tower right now, getting tattooed with the symbols of your odious mate, being fed the finest venison? Something tells me this isn’t a social call.”
“I needed to speak to you, and I didn’t think I’d be able to after this morning. After they tattoo my arms and dress me in black veils, I’ll be a sight more obvious when I come to the market.”
Snow worked as an agent of the Order of the Crimson, the human resistance against our Sworn oppressors. She had connections. Knowledge. Resources.
If anyone could help me, it was she.
“I need a lifeline again,” I said. “Someone who can give me information. Someone who can help me and my friend escape this.”
Snow’s expression flickered at my words, and her jaw tightened. She turned her head and hesitated. Her fingers slid across some of her wares, touching them but not selecting anything. Buying time for her answer with a semblance of activity.
“What?” I asked, concern filling my lungs and crowding out my breath when her silence stretched too long. “What is it?”
Snow abandoned her pretense of finding something in the shop and turned back to face me. The skin around her eyes was taut, and her mouth pressed in a thin line.
“I helped you before because I owned Baz a favor,” Snow said. “I like you, Red. I do. I’m glad to see you alive, and I want you to continue to be alive. But it’s risky. My superiors won’t like it. Not unless…”
“Unless what?” Suddenly, I was nervous, even though I’d already thought of this possibility. Anticipated it, even.
Nobody was going to help me for free.
She let out a breath. “Not unless there’s something in it for them this time.”
I was quiet. This wasn’t unexpected. Still, it stung. As a child, I’d imagined the Order of the Crimson as a noble group who saved people because it was the right thing to do.
“Think about it,” she whispered. “You’re in the perfect position. Wife to the Silver Wolf. You’ll have access to the highest echelons of Sworn society. You’ll have access to the Alpha. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
“What will they want?” My voice was a scrape of desperate sound. “I don’t have any money.”
Of course, I knew exactly what the Order of the Crimson wanted of me.
So did Snow. Her eyes were sorry as she said the words.
“They’re going to want you to spy for them.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN I RETURNED to Kassian’s tower using the scribbled map Snow had drawn to guide me, my thoughts were still spinning in circles at what she’d said.
Me, a spy.
The one thing I’d sworn to Kassian that I wasn’t.
I hadn’t given her an answer yet, but did I have any other options? I was unmoored in this enemy city. I was alone, without friends or resources to smuggle myself out. Kassian wasn’t speaking to me, and I didn’t know how long that might last. And even if he did forgive me, he was still loyal to the Alpha for now. Our escape would have to be planned in advance, so that the moment he saw the truth and changed his mind about his loyalties, we’d be ready to move.
I couldn’t wait for Kassian’s eventual epiphany to begin planning, laying aside supplies, making allies, and arranging a means to escape. Not to mention, we would need a place to go.
I thought briefly of my mother and the little tribe she’d found in the wilderness before I dismissed the memory.
Not her.
We couldn’t go there.
Right now, I wouldn’t think about that. Of the list of things I needed, I needed allies most of all. Desperately so.
And the Order of the Crimson could be those allies.
While I didn’t want to get entangled in dangerous, thorny things that didn’t concern me, this might be my best chance. The smartest choice.
I reached the servants’ door, and the guard let me inside with a curious glance at my empty basket. I’d forgotten to fill it with anything, and I mentally chastised myself for this slip as I climbed the winding back stairs. If I was going to survive, I had to be sharp. I had to stay one step ahead—no, three steps ahead.
I couldn’t go blundering through the streets with an empty basket and no seed at the back of my neck.
Halfway up the stairs, I heard voices. I paused, uncertain as to what to do. Did I pretend I was one of the servants, duck my head down and keep moving? Did I try to go the other way? I didn’t want to be discovered.
The voices became distinct, the words taking shape.
“…Can’t believe he’s been forced into this sham of a marriage. She’s a wretched little thing, thinking she can force the most powerful Sworn in the land to be her mate,” one voice was saying, high and shrill with anger. A female speaker, young by the sound of it. “A Chosen is meant to be chosen. Not do the choosing. She has some gall to think she can seize our master and divert his life in this way.”
“It’s no wonder he’s left already,” the other, deeper and huskier woman’s voice, said. “He must be furious.”
They were talking about me.
Me… and Kassian.
So, this was the gossip Ollan wanted to keep from me.
I gulped a breath and froze, listening.
“Don’t worry, I can’t see her remaining for long.”
“You can’t mean Lord Vixor would… put her away?”
A scoffing noise. “No. He wouldn’t. Not with his honor. But the Alpha isn’t likely to approve of her. She wants only the best for her Silver Wolf. The Alpha can make her disappear if need be.”
“But I heard the Alpha liked her,” a new voice countered. “She blessed the match. If she didn’t approve, she would have refused, wouldn’t she?”
One of the others made a scoffing sound that was reminiscent of a snort. “The Alpha has her own reasons for what she does. She is likely biding her time before she fixes this unfortunate blunder. She’ll want better for her silver prince that this backwater nobody. Did you hear the girl tried to run away, only to be caught in the forest? She didn’t even want to be a Chosen. What an ungrateful little cur.”