Defend the Dawn (Defy the Night #2)(32)

“Because you’re leaving.” For the first time I see the worry in his eyes that I already feel in my gut. “I need someone I can trust, too, Cory.”



It’s late enough when I leave my brother’s room that I expect Quint to be asleep, but when I stride down the hallway to his chambers, I find him up and waiting with a half-finished bottle of wine and a quarter-finished book.

His door was slightly ajar when I arrived, but I push it closed behind me. Quint slips a piece of paper into the book to mark his place, then adds it to the pile of books and papers on his desk. Servants tend his rooms just the same as everywhere else in the palace, so my friend’s quarters aren’t messy, but there’s definitely a good dose of clutter, as if one thing drew his attention before something else claimed it.

I remove his abandoned jacket from the other chair, toss it onto the foot of his bed, then drop into the chair myself. He doesn’t ask if I want a glass of wine; he simply takes one look at me and pours.

“It’s late,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I’m never asleep at this hour.”

“At dinner, you looked ready to take Captain Blakemore’s head off. I fully expected you to be spending the evening making Tessa forget that a ship even sailed into port.”

I frown and take a gulp of wine. I probably should be. But I was worried that every petty and jealous thought would find its way out of my head. She’s asleep by now anyway.

Probably.

I wish I could stop thinking of that moment in the carriage when she was afraid—and some of her fear was of me.

This is too complicated. I shove the thoughts away and focus on more immediate matters.

“I was discussing Blakemore’s offer with Harristan,” I say.

“Are you going to go?”

“Yes.”

His eyebrows go up. Maybe he wasn’t expecting such a definite answer so quickly.

“Tessa was right,” I say with a sigh. “And as much as I hate it, he seems earnest enough. If they’re willing to provide medicine in exchange for steel, we have an obligation to do what we can to provide for our people.” I tell him about Harristan’s suggestions for Lochlan to attend—and Rocco’s clandestine offer.

“I don’t like this uncertainty among the palace guards,” Quint says. “Especially now.”

“I agree,” I say. I think about the day that Tessa snuck into the palace. She followed some girls right into the servant’s entrance, and even though I had the guard dismissed who overlooked it, this is the first time I examine that moment from a new angle. Could the guard have been prepared—or bribed—to allow a rebel into the palace?

But Tessa herself did it on a whim. She wasn’t an assassin.

Did someone else slip into the palace that day?

It’s been too long. There’s no way to know.

I sigh. “Any kind of instability among the guards puts Harristan at risk. I wonder if there are others who feel similarly about Captain Huxley.” I pause, thinking. “I wonder if he’s the only one.”

Quint reaches for one of his little folios and makes a note on the page. “Many of the guardsmen linger with the kitchen girls. I’ll find a reason to be in the kitchens and see what I can find out.” He sets down his fountain pen to look back at me. “You’re not as severe as you used to be. I wonder if that’s emboldened some dissenters.”

I grunt noncommittally. As much as I want to disagree, a man leapt at me with a knife in the middle of a candy store this afternoon. My chest is tight with indecision. I hated being Cruel Corrick, but I hate the idea that not being Cruel Corrick will bring about more problems.

Especially if I’m about to leave.

Tessa once asked me why I couldn’t just step out of my role and lose myself into the Wilds as Weston Lark if I hated the palace life so much.

I couldn’t leave my brother.

That’s what I told her.

And now I’m doing exactly that. Rebels got into the palace a few weeks ago, and we narrowly escaped. Would Harristan be able to escape again, if he were alone? I might have Lochlan with me, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a hundred others who could build an explosive.

I wish I could go to Tessa, but I’m terrified of admitting weakness just now, as if putting voice to my fears would make them more real. I’d give anything to don a mask and climb down a rope and find her in the workshop, the way I used to. Now, everything is just as dangerous, and somehow ten times more complicated.

And Weston Lark is dead anyway. I frown and run a hand back through my hair.

“Corrick.”

Quint’s quiet voice snaps me out of my reverie, and I realize it’s the second time that’s happened this evening. “What?”

“As much as I adore being audience to your silent angst, I should remind you that it is late.”

He’s right, and I’m being rude. I sigh, drain my wineglass, and stand.

But then I stop. Quint wasn’t sleeping. He was reading. His door was open.

There was an empty wineglass waiting.

“You never chase me out of your quarters,” I muse.

“I’m hardly chasing you.”

“Quint.” I feign a gasp. “Are you waiting on someone?”