The carriage moved again, the city noise fading behind glass and distance. No one spoke at first. The silence felt heavier than before, like everyone was thinking the same question but waiting for someone else to say it.
Lirael lay stretched across the seat opposite, guarded carefully, breathing shallow but steady. The faint glow from my necklace hadn't fully disappeared. It pulsed once, then again, soft but wrong.
Lucien broke first.
"Why are we not heading to the palace?"
The driver didn't answer. He knew better.
Elias did.
"We are not going to the palace," he said calmly. "We are going to our estate."
Lucien frowned. "That makes little sense. The palace has healers, staff, actual resources. This is unnecessary detour—"
I did not think. Ice answered before reason could intervene. A slender spear formed, thin as a blade, its frost-laced edge hovering just beneath his throat. Close enough that cold kissed his skin.
