He grinned that licentious look at her. She almost laughed. At least he was predictable.

“Then, we will begin.”

Hours later, with the sun rising on the horizon, they were no closer to an answer than they had been at the beginning. Kerrigan promised to return for more testing when she could and stumbled blearily back to the mountain in the early morning light. She had, at most, an hour before she needed to report for dragon training. She had neither slept nor ate. Today was going to suck.

She stepped into the mountain through the hidden entrance. She wanted to catch at least an hour of sleep in her room. But as soon as she crossed over, she realized she wasn’t alone. Her instincts were null from lack of sleep, so she could do nothing as the guards rushed her.

“Take her,” Lorian said with a sick, twisted smile.

Kerrigan gasped. “No, wait, please…”

But it was all she got out before the butt of a sword hit her in the back of her head, and she collapsed forward, only half-conscious.

48

The Council

The last few hours were a blur. Kerrigan had succumbed to unconsciousness by the time she was dragged to an iron cell. She woke, shaking. The iron couldn’t touch her the way it did full Fae, but it still left her feeling unsettled and disoriented. It certainly did nothing for the lack of sleep from the previous night. The only comfort was that she wasn’t back in magic-dampening manacles.

No one came to see her. Not even Lorian. Not even Helly.

She would have demanded information from a Society Guard if she’d seen one. But iron did enough to keep the guards away as much as it kept the prisoners within. When no one came for her, she lay back down to try to sleep. Only just after she managed to finally relax enough, a contingent of guards appeared before her.

“Stand up,” one grunted at her.

She realized that she recognized this man. He was one of the guards who had herded the protestors into the street. He was the one who had “disappeared” when the Red Masks showed up.

He looked at her with such hatred. Seeing that look on his face told her she needed to play this very carefully. She slowly rose to meet him, calm and collected.

“Don’t make any trouble,” he said, roughly grabbing her out of the cell and hauling her toward the stairs.

It took so much effort to not back-talk him. Oh, how she wanted to.

But she had no idea what was going on or where she was being taken. She needed to try to figure it out and figure it out fast. Because she was starting to lose that calm, and the last thing she needed was to black out in the middle of this.