“Anyway,” Grady said with a heavy sigh. “It wasn’t the Iron Knights. Osmund said the flames were golden, and you know only one thing can create that kind of fire.” Grady continued, “But that’s not all.”
Knots formed in my stomach. “It’s not?”
“No. There were bodies found. Two at the blacksmith’s and three at the Twin Barrels.”
I shouldn’t feel relief, but I did. The death toll could’ve been higher just at the Twin Barrels, where rooms were always rented. And it could’ve been catastrophic if the Lord had done as he said he would have, leaving half the city in ruins.
“That’s terrible news,” I mumbled, because I honestly didn’t know what to say.
“Yeah.” Grady’s brows knitted as he looked at the sky. “You don’t seem all that surprised.”
“I don’t?”
He was quiet for only a moment. “What do you know?”
My head swung back to him. “What do you mean?”
He searched my eyes, trusting that if I lost my grip on my intuition, I would look away. Or if I did see something, I wouldn’t tell him. Grady, like Naomi, didn’t want to know what the future held for him, and I could respect that. “How long have we known each other?”
I raised a brow. “Some days it feels like forever.”
“Yeah, this is one of them,” he retorted, and I wrinkled my nose. “You tried to lie to me earlier and you’re doing it again. When have you ever been able to successfully lie to me?”
“If I had, you wouldn’t know.” I gave him a cheeky smile. “Now would you?”
There was no smile. There were no dimples. “Osmund saw you last night, Lis, leaving the manor grounds.”
“And?”
“He also saw you returning hours later, riding like a bat out of hell.”
“I’m not sure where this is going?”
“You were wearing a different cloak upon your return.”
My mouth dropped open. “How could he tell that?”
Grady shrugged. “I guess he has really good eyes.”
“Gods,” I muttered.
“So? You going to be honest with me now?”
I opened my mouth, but words abandoned me. I was such a pathologically terrible liar. Especially when it came to Grady, because he knew me well enough to know that my lack of response to the news about the fires meant something. He knew me better than I did some days.
And lying to Grady, or trying to at the very least, always felt wrong. If he’d managed to peel me off when I first latched on to him, I wouldn’t have made it out of the first orphanage I’d been sent to after the Prioress of Mercy had died and no successor replaced her. I’d been weak. A hindrance. I didn’t know how to fend for myself— how to move about without making a sound. The streets we were left to roam were an unfamiliar and scary maze to me, nor did I know how to avoid the caretakers’ careless hands and fists.
Grady had been kind, even then. Or he’d simply taken pity on me. Either way, eventually I was no longer shadowing him but he was making sure I was right behind him. He made sure I survived.
Grady still made sure I survived.
Sighing, I crossed my arms. “I couldn’t sleep after leaving the Great Chamber and I went into the stables to spend time with Iris. While I was there, I overheard two people talking— Finn and Mickie. They had captured a Hyhborn.”
“Fuck,” he murmured.
I nodded slowly. “And I had to do something about it.”
Grady’s head tipped toward mine. “What?”
“I got this urge— you know, this need to do it. I had to— ”
“Are you about to tell me that you went by yourself to free this Hyhborn?”
I cringed. “I didn’t want to involve you— ”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Yes. Completely.”
Grady sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Dear gods.”
I took a deep breath, and then I told him what had happened— well, almost everything. One of the things I left out was the whole shower situation. He didn’t need to know that. “So, those fires? It has to be this Hyhborn lord.”
“I couldn’t give two shits about this lord at the moment,” Grady exclaimed, his gaze roaming over my face. “Are you sure you’re not hurt? Should I summon one of the physicians and have you checked over?”
“Nothing hurts. Seriously. I’m fine.” And I was. There hadn’t been a single bruise or even a dull ache when I looked myself over this morning.