My heart is in my throat and some weird mix of anger and sadness sears into me. I’d be lying if I said a raw part of me isn’t burning for the love I thought we had. But if Kai could steal him, he was never truly mine. Jue’s right. He will get his. I shove Jhamal out of my mind. For what he’s done to our people in this war. For what he’s done to us.

He’s dead to me.

CHAPTER THIRTY

SHAUN IS NOWHERE TO be found in the private rooms along the hall where I stumbled upon Jhamal and Kai. The hair of an enemy is the final ingredient. If I’d been thinking, I could have taken one of Jhamal’s.

My insides are a knot as we scope another corridor nearby.

“Rue, you good?” Julius asks.

“I’m fine. Just thinking—” I storm ahead, turning my back to him so he can’t see whatever’s on my face. I don’t feel like being read right now. Images of Jhamal and me wrapped around each other in that cell for so long play in my mind, and my insides ache. I try to shove them off, but they slip their way in. My blood boils. How could he? He said I knew him. I never knew him. Not truly.

I skim the halls and all is quiet. Everyone’s asleep. Someone’s patrolling sentry down here somewhere, I’m sure of it. We round another corner. The light is dim and I squint. Julius sticks close to me. The rooms are all very small, and Shaun seems like the type who would put himself up somewhere grand. Or better yet, he would cement his position with a throne or crown or something. But where? Where down here could he find a place for that?

The room where Kowana Yechi was held had a crumbled dais in the back. It was the largest space, from what I’d seen. “Let’s try this way.”

Footsteps echo around the corner up ahead and I throw out an arm to stop Julius from walking. Two Beerchi with fur wrapped around their shoulders and curved blades clutched in their hands stand outside two double doors. A bear claw has been branded into the wood.

“There are two of them,” I whisper to Julius. “Do you remember the way we got here?”

“Back that way. A left, down a long hall. A right and then another left and the first ladder takes you up to the ground.”

“Paying attention, I see.”

“I told you I be watching that double-o-seven shit.”

I smirk. Julius got jokes. Always.

“If this goes left, take that way as fast as you can and get out of here.”

He gives me side-eyes, gesturing for me to turn right on back around. Telling me he ain’t leaving. Period.