(JASPER'S POV)
Blue looked up from the throne, unhurried, and found me in the crowd.
His gaze travelled the length of the hall, over the kneeling demons and the freed prisoners and the wreck of his own entry, and then it settled on me — on the man in my arms. Gilbert was curled against my chest with his eyes closed, wrapped in my jacket, shivering. And something moved across Blue's face, quick and deep, the way a shark moves under still water: a clench of the jaw, a flicker of something I couldn't name.
He looked back at me.
"Jasper," he said quietly. "On the way here, Gilbert told you the name of the demon who handed my family out like property." He paused then added. "Who was it?"
I opened my mouth to answer.
But Gilbert whom I thought was too weak to speak, answered first.
His voice was barely there — thin, cracked, muffled against my shirt. But it carried, because the hall had gone so silent that a whisper could have reached the back wall and turned around to come home.
