Who are you?
Who?
Cassi said nothing.
"Who are you?" he shouted, with a fervor that surprised even him.
She recoiled as though struck, but remained silent.
"What did you do to Rafe?"
His stomach sank as she hid her face.
"What did you do?" he said, hardly recognizing the rough and feral quality to his voice. But what had kindness ever gotten him? Overlooked by his father. Pitied by his mother. Betrayed by his brother. Deceived by his mate. And now this. Broken by the only woman he thought might have seen the real him.
Xander let go of the bar and pulled the black-and-white feather from his pocket. Cassi refused to look at him, so he tossed it through the cell toward the spot where her gaze met the floor and watched in silence as it swayed gently down, fluttering like a butterfly over a dark field. It was so quiet he heard the subtle swish of bristles meeting stone as the feather came to a stop. Its bloodied edge gleamed crimson in the light.
"I found this in his mother's old rooms, buried among the soot in the fireplace. Ironic, isn't it? The spot made for fire was the only one that didn’t burn. I know you hurt him, Cassi. Why? And how badly? And where is he?"
The muscles in her jaw clenched, but other than that, she didn’t move.
"Dammit, Cassi!" He slammed his hand against the bars again, this time with so much force they rang softly, sending a shiver down the back of his neck. This wasn't him. Maybe that was a good thing. "Tell me what you did to him. Tell me. Did he discover who you were? Did you—did you kill him?" He tripped over the word, his emotions getting the best of him as a clog formed in his throat. Xander swallowed it away. "I'm the crown prince of the House of Whispers, and I'm done playing nice. If you won't tell me what you did, I'll bring someone in who is trained in all manner of ways to force you to talk."
Cassi remained still.
There was only one move left he hoped might incite her, before he had to make good on that threat. "Tell me, Cassi. Tell me what you did. Or when I leave this hall, I will take to the skies, dive into the mist, and find him myself."
She finally looked up. "Then you'll give him exactly what he wants."
"Who?"
She didn't say. Yet finally, he realized it wasn't because she didn’t want to. Fractures had formed in her icy irises, expanding like fissures on a frozen lake. The cracks revealed a deep pool of despair underneath. Someone had a hold on her, as physical as two hands around her throat, cutting off the words. One guess who.
"The man from the sacred nest," he said slowly.
She turned her face to the side as though worried her expression might expose the truth. It had. Perhaps not the one he wanted, but it was the one he needed now. Somewhere beneath the lies, somewhere deep inside, she was still Cassi—not a heartless, brutal traitor, but the woman who had made him feel like a warrior. Maybe not the sort he'd spent his life reading about in books, but a warrior all the same. And if she was still Cassi, then he could still be Xander, a fact for which he was grateful. Ruthlessness wasn't a weapon he knew how to wield. If it were, she'd be dead right now, bleeding out on her bedroom floor.
He thought back to that moment in her room, the point of her knife digging into his skin. Everything in her had been braced for a killing blow as her eyes slowly met his, but she hadn't been worried about a blade. She'd been terrified of what she'd see on his face—of his disgust, of his loathing. But he'd felt none of those things, and even now, despite the rage unchained from his invisible fist running rampant through his veins, he didn't hate her.
He couldn't.
Maybe that was the key to breaking down her walls. Not using force, like that man with his magic holding her hostage. But by tossing her a rope and inviting her to join him on the other side.
"Cassi, please," he whispered, the words as vulnerable as the heart he'd left strewn across the floor, one stomp from smashing in entirely. "This isn’t you."
"You don’t know me," she growled, as though trying to be tough, but all he heard was her pain.
At first, it struck him like a slap. What right did she have to ache? She was the one who'd hurt him, and Rafe, and Lyana, and probably everyone whose paths she'd ever crossed.
Then he breathed, and thought about his brother and his mate, and how their betrayal had landed like a dagger to the heart until he'd looked beyond himself to see the truth their lies had been hiding. There were always two sides to a story, and before he cast judgment, he needed to learn hers.
"I do know you, Cassi," he said gently, filling the emptiness between them with a tether he hoped she'd take, an invitation to step out of the shadows and join him in the light. "I don't know why you hurt Rafe, or why you're working with the man who took Lyana, or why you lied. I don't know what you're planning. I'm not even sure I know your real name. But I do know you, and I know you're not the terrible person you're trying so hard to be. You could've killed me in your room. You had the knife at my throat, and you could've won. But you retreated. Why? You knew I'd never hurt you, and you could've used it against me. But you didn't. Why? You chose to design that weapon. You chose to give it to me. And maybe it wasn't conscious, but when you held my arms to my chest and pressed your blade against my skin, you chose to give me that opening. You're too smart and too sharp to have ever let that happen by chance. You wanted to get caught, Cassi. And I'm not entirely sure why, but I can't help but think you wanted to get caught by me."
Her wings curled over her shoulders and she shrank back. This time there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The wall behind her was three meters thick, the bars before her unbreakable iron, but somehow he knew it was his gaze that held her trapped, the same way the dawning vulnerability in her eyes made his breath catch in his throat and his heart stand still.
"This is what I was afraid of," she confessed, the words escaping like a sigh. "Back on the beach, when I promised you a secret and you asked what I was afraid you might see, this right here is exactly what I meant."
On the beach…?
The dream came rushing back, the one which had been so real he’d thought he was losing his mind. They'd been side by side on a sandy shore, the waves washing over their legs, the sun on their faces. It had seemed so real. She had seemed so real, lying beside him, the ocean soaking through her hair, the droplets glistening on her feathers. Yet even in his imagination, there had been a wall around her heart.
What are you so afraid of? he'd asked. What are you so worried I'll see?
Her expression had been inscrutable as a single word fell from her lips. Me.
"But that was a dream," he murmured, shaking his head.
Cassi shrugged. "That doesn’t make it any less real."
Magic, he realized in a moment of perfect clarity. She must have magic. Just like Lyana. Just like Rafe. Just like that man. All of them have magic.
There was still something missing, a piece he couldn't quite see.
As he opened his mouth to speak, Cassi cut in.
"Let me ask you a question now, Xander," she said in a grave tone. Suddenly, he could see her teetering on the edge of her wall, one jump from crossing over or one slip from falling back inside. "Would you change things if you could? Not just for Lyana. And not just for Rafe. But even for people like me, a traitor and a spy, and for all the others who live in fear, the ones you'll never meet and the ones in your own city who turn away as you walk by, worried what their prince might see. Would you help us, if you could?"