“No,” Wes told her. “None but Warrick himself.”
Margery’s gaze was calculating, but there was no time for lengthy debate.
“Someone in that hall has magic,” Nim said. Rhen, her mind supplied. It was Rhen. It was Rhen. It was Rhen. And he was coming back for her. She shook herself. “If Warrick’s powers are revealed…”
“Well, you can’t go back,” Margery snapped. “That was a warning for you, and we all know it. Lora isn’t a threat to anyone, let alone the higher-ups at the Trust.”
A sickness swam in Nim’s gut at the remembered sight of the woman’s bloody wound. “So what, then? We do nothing? Let them play their games?”
“After the king’s announcement, I presume their game is about to get a fair deal more dangerous.” Margery’s mouth was turned down, and her eyes pinched. She was working very hard on some problem, if Nim knew that look at all.
“They aren’t allowed in the castle,” Wes said. “If someone got in—”
“Rhen has proven that he doesn’t care about rules,” Nim reminded him.
At the mention of his name, Maris, previously watching the exchange with unease, flinched.
Nim narrowed a look at her. “What do you know?”
She shook her head, but Nim wasn’t certain whether she knew nothing or did not want to speak of it. Many in Inara refused even to utter the name of the Trust, should the calling of it bring dark fates upon them.
Nim thought it was a little too late for that from one of her personal guards, but she didn’t say so. She crossed her arms. “I thought we were done with lying.”
The maid stared back for a long moment then said, “Only talk among the guard that the younger heir has a bit of a penchant for”—her mouth shifted as if tasting the word—“as you say, my lady, for games.”
Her tone made clear that the sort of games he enjoyed made Calum’s look like child’s play.
“So our choice is… what? Stay here and hope whatever maneuvering the Trust is about does not reach us or to go out in search of trouble that we are certain is there?”
They were trapped in the sitting room with no escape aside from a secret passageway Nim should certainly not share with Margery and possibly not Maris or the corridor full of guards outside.
“You should not leave, my lady.” Maris’s words dragged Nim’s attention back to the woman. It was not as if she’d read her thoughts but that Nim had escaped the last time Warrick had attempted to keep her in his rooms, and Maris well knew it. But then Nim felt the sudden, inescapable pull of magic, too powerful, calling her to it.
“They’re together.” Nim’s words slipped free, and all eyes shot to hers. Fingers fumbling in her pocket, she drew out one of the vials Allister had given her and downed the tonic. It hurt. She winced, shook her head, and pointedly did not explain that she could feel that Warrick and his brother had come so close, together in a way that made it impossible to resist their draw.
“Who?” Margery demanded, but Nim could not bring herself to say it aloud.
Two sons of the powerful queen. Together. She knew it was Rhen with Warrick, even though she’d still not managed to discern between the sense of Rhen and of Calum. Fates save her, she didn’t want to think about what should happen if all three were ever to gather at once. She shook off a chill at the thought and realized Wes’s hand was on her, scarred beneath a pair of fine gloves and protecting her from any harm the magic might have done to her. Wesley might keep it from touching her, but she didn’t think he could fathom how the magic could harm her in other less tangible ways.
Nim’s heart raced with the need to act. She should have run, hidden, taken the others somewhere safer, far away from the warning pull of the magic. But every part of her shoved in a foolish direction—toward the draw where the brothers faced off. Because they had to have been facing off. Neither Rhen nor Calum were welcome inside the castle outside of the king’s dungeons, and the last time Rhen had seen Warrick, he’d called him “brother” in front of the king’s men.
Her knees went weak, and her stomach swam. If Warrick’s connection to the Trust was revealed in a room filled with courtiers, with officers of the court, he would be hanged—worse than hanged, surely, though she could not think of precisely what that fate might entail.
“Nim.” Wes’s words were close, a bit unsteady and terror-stricken, like she was. Only the others did not know what was happening, the truth of how horrible it was. She pressed her hand tightly to her stomach and forced herself to focus on her surroundings. Somehow, she’d moved to the door and pressed one hand hard against it. She had to go to Warrick and to the source of the draw.
“It has to be done,” Margery said a second before a cold basinful of water was tossed at Nim’s face.
She gasped, eyes wide.
Margery set the basin down and gave her a measuring stare. Maris stood beside her, hand on the hilt of a sword in a sheath strapped around her waist. Nim was not alone. She had people willing to fight for her and with her to stand against the Trust. They would keep her from doing the bidding of the magic’s call.
Nim straightened her shoulders then gave a sharp nod to the lot of them. And then a concussion from a blast of power exploded through the room—or through Nim, because apparently no one else seemed to notice. She was knocked into Wesley, who caught and steadied her before she shoved off him and wrenched open the door.
She had to find Warrick.
She rushed into the corridor only to meet a wall of the king’s men standing guard. But Maris was at her back, and with a quick gesture, the petite lady’s maid who was no simple maid at all ordered the guards aside. Nim’s slippered feet moved swiftly over the stone floor. Maris and Wesley were on either side of her as the others followed. When they turned the last corner to the gathering hall, the corridor was filled with men, king’s guard, courtiers, and officers of the court.
All turned to stare at her. Nim fell to a stop just as Maris slipped an arm through hers to conceal her longsword between their skirts. Suddenly and painfully aware there was no commotion among the lot of them, that no one had felt the concussion but her and that she’d just run into the corridor after being well and truly doused with a basinful of water, Nim drew a sharp breath and ran a hand over her bodice. Fates save her, but she could not comport herself even when her life actually relied on it.
The crowd shifted, half the group turning from their gawking of her as they made way for a small group exiting the gathering hall. Warrick. He was safe. Shoulders square and coronet in place, he strode through the crowd and into her view as if nothing were amiss. Then he seemed to notice that those around him had been ruffled, and his gaze rose to find the source.
An intimation of his surprise shot through her, followed by mingled relief and concern. All of this happened as Nim stood damp and panting, bookended by a sword-wielding lady’s maid, the seneschal’s messenger, and a pack of guards at their back—a tableau of peculiarity if not impropriety.
Warrick seemed to take in the potential for it to become a predicament just as Margery joined the group—she’d always been oddly poor at running—and he approached with a louder than strictly necessary “Ah, Wesley, thank you for fetching our new constable with such haste.” His eyes flicked to Nim’s. “Lady Weston, if you please.”