Kerrigan craned her neck to see Mistress Anahi step into the prison. She was nearly as short as Kerrigan with long, perfectly glossy box braids and deep black skin. Anahi barely suppressed a shudder at the iron all around them. Kerrigan was surprised to see Anahi here with Helly, as they didn’t always see eye to eye. They must have been meeting at the time or else Helly wouldn’t have brought her along.

“I do not approve of the protests outside, but they are legal. Arresting a Society trainee is outside of the bounds of your jurisdiction,” she said with a flat northern accent, indicating her Sayair tribe high in the Vert Mountains.

Lorian glared at both of them. “It was not a protest. It was a riot. I have every right to arrest someone inciting violence in Kinkadia. That is our express purpose—to govern and protect the people. And I must protect our people from her.”

“He’s lying!” Kerrigan cried. “I was at a protest, but we weren’t rioting. We were marching through the streets. We were herded away, and the exits were closed off. Red Masks destroyed buildings, threw smoke bombs, and were killing people.”

“I saw nothing of the sort,” Lorian said.

“You came too late. You let the Red Masks escape.”

Lorian actually had the audacity to roll his eyes. “There were no Red Masks. Their leader was murdered months ago, and they have dissolved, if they were ever what you claimed in the first place.”

“Lorian,” Anahi admonished. “We know of the Red Masks’ existence.”

“And their threat,” Helly added.

“Five years ago maybe,” he said lightly.

More footsteps announced another person’s entrance. Bastian appeared then with a huff. “I don’t move quite as fast as I used to,” he said with a small smile. “Now, what is this I’m hearing about what is going on? You are discrediting the existence of the Red Masks? Even after Basem’s blatant use of them after the tournament?”

“I believe in their existence, but I saw no threat, except what you see before you. She is turning the city against us, initiating riots in the streets and infiltrating our sacred halls. Can none of you see what she is doing to us? How she is trying to turn us against one another?”

“I wouldn’t have to do any of that if you weren’t leading the very people you allowed to escape,” Kerrigan snarled.

She shouldn’t have said it. She had no proof. Not yet at least. Just Dozan’s word, how Lorian had treated her these months, and what he’d done today. But she knew he was the leader. He was the one who had been trying to kill her. Why else would Isa have run away like that at the sight of his dragon? She’d known.

But the looks of disbelief, coupled with Lorian’s stark laughter, hurt.