“I confess that I have been worried about him, especially since his mother sent him away. He should be resting in bed.”
The duke didn’t rise to my bait. He made a noise of contemplation and then said, “What wounded him? An element of the nightmare, or something beyond it?”
I was quiet, wondering if he was accusing me of being a poor partner.
“Choose your answer carefully, Miss Neven,” the duke warned in a voice like honey. At last, the threat I was anticipating. “I want the truth, even if that gives me no choice but to remove Phelan from this post. Or you, for that matter.”
He doesn’t want Phelan in danger, I realized, and then saw this as my chance to have Phelan’s aspirations and accomplishments shattered. I could tell the duke Phelan was weak, vulnerable. But even if my desire had originally been to see Phelan lose his home and sense of purpose . . . I was now tied to him, and I didn’t want to relinquish what I had gained just yet. I reveled in being a warden again.
“Phelan and I vanquished the nightmare,” I said. “But then something else emerged. Something unexpected and malevolent. It wasn’t recorded in his ledger.”
“What was this unexpected thing, Miss Neven?”
I hesitated.
The duke sensed it and softened. “You will not betray him by telling me.”
Oh, but I certainly felt like I would be. Phelan hadn’t told two of his closest friends. He couldn’t even describe it to me, his partner. It was almost like Phelan had been ordered not to speak of it.
“I think you should ask Phelan when he returns, Your Grace.”
Lord Deryn smiled and leaned back in the chair, but his gaze never left mine. “I am going to tell you something, Miss Neven. Something not many people know, and yet I am going to trust you with this secret.”
I sat frozen, hating how eager I was to hear what morsel the duke had to offer me.
“Phelan was not born with illumination,” he began. “He was not accepted into the Luminous School until I waived his entry. In fact, he failed every single entrance exam, but I saw the potential in him. I gave him a place in the school, I funded his education, and I ensured he received this portion of territory when he was ready to become warden. I have had a hand in shaping him into the magician that he is despite the fact that I have no light in my bones, and it would be a shame to see my investment lost before its time.”
I listened, and his words began to spark thoughts I had never entertained before. The duke had been married years ago, but his wife had died not long after their vows. He was a widower, childless. Heirless. And if the duke had played such a quiet but steady hand in Phelan’s upbringing—if he thought of Phelan as an investment—then the duke had greater plans for him. Whether Phelan knew it or not remained to be seen.
“You plan to name him as your heir,” I whispered.
The duke was silent, studying me with sharp intensity, as if he had underestimated me before now. “Yes, Miss Neven. You must not breathe a word of it to him or any other, you understand?”
“I understand, Your Grace.”
“And I want to know what is threatening him on the new moon nights.”
I could see no other way to avoid it.
I told the duke about the knight.
He listened with a scowl. “This sounds like someone who can control and influence nightmares.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” I said, transfixed by the imagining. “How is the knight able to do this?”
“Something, or someone, is providing him with a door to enter the dreams on the new moon.”
“Who would have such power? A magician?”
Lord Deryn was pensive for a moment. “I do not know, but you will not be able to vanquish him in the dream realm. You will have to locate him in the waking world and defeat him here.”
“Not a small feat,” I said, but I was surprised by how eager I was for this challenge. I wanted to uncover the knight’s secrets. His purpose. His source of power. Even if that entailed me working with someone like the duke.
“Indeed, it is not,” Lord Deryn agreed. “But if you can find a way to remove his helm in the nightmare . . . you would see his face. And if you see his face and describe it to me, I would be able to locate him in the province.”
The duke was not making a suggestion; he was giving me an order. I thought about the places I knew the knight had appeared: Months ago, on Phelan’s first new moon as a warden. Hereswith, the night before Phelan had arrived. And then again on one of Phelan’s streets, this October new moon. This didn’t feel random to me; it felt like the knight was after Phelan, and it chilled me.
“If the knight arrives on this upcoming new moon, then I will find a way to do that, Your Grace.”
“And you will come to me at once with the description, Miss Neven.”
I nodded, although my mind was whirling, remembering how the knight had almost beheaded me and sliced Phelan open.
“You have a concern, Miss Neven?”
I met the duke’s gaze. “Yes. The knight is a formidable opponent, immune to magic and blades. I don’t know how Phelan and I will manage to remove his helm without suffering damage to ourselves.”
Lord Deryn steepled his fingers together and pressed them to his lips. “If magic and weapons are useless against the knight’s armor, that must mean the armor was forged by a deviah magician.”
That hadn’t crossed my mind. But now that it had, other pieces began to fall into place. Wild speculations. I wondered if the card game of Seven Wraiths somehow influenced the ability of the knight’s armor. If both of them were tied to nightmares, and both of them made by deviah magicians . . . perhaps they were linked, somehow.
“There is a smith not far from here,” Lord Deryn continued. “He is one of the best in the province. A deviah who can layer enchantment into steel. I will have him forge something that will help you both.”
“If it’s armor, it will be more of a hindrance than a help, Your Grace. It will only slow us down, and we must be swift.”
“It is not armor, Miss Neven,” the duke said, rising from the chair. “I will put the order in, but the smith will most likely want to meet with you about measurements.”
“Very well, Your Grace. And what shall I tell Phelan about where this gift arrived from?”
“Tell him it is from me.” He fell silent, pensive. But his gaze remained on me. “Phelan speaks of you often, Miss Neven.” And I didn’t know why he would say such a thing until the duke shocked me further by adding, “Would you want to be a duchess?”
“No.”
“A reflexive answer, Miss Neven. As if you have contemplated it before.”
The truth was I had never thought about it, but the duke was making me anxious. What I did know was the last thing I wanted was to be a pawn in a noble’s game.
“If I ever became a duchess,” I said, “it would be by my own choice and merit, and not by marriage.”
“Ah, you could become the Duchess of Seren, then. That throne is open to anyone who could ascend the mountain and break the new moon curse.”
“Which I hear is not nearly as simple as it sounds,” I said. “The mountain doors won’t open unless all the wraiths are together. And who knows where the seven of them are hiding these days, if that legend is even true.”