The hallway swarmed with soldiers, all clearly taken by the chaos. He grabbed the highest-ranking officer he recognized and spat, “Tell me what you know.”

“A breach, sir. The main gate.”

Bleeding skies. How had they gotten through the main gate without anyone noticing?

“Where is the fighting located?”

“We don’t know, sir.”

Cassius froze, his eyes narrowing, and his jaw went tight. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“We have not found the intruders.”

His heart slowed, forgoing its beats as his mind raced—not in anxiety, but in deference, as if one knew the other was more needed. What would intruders want? Where would they go? What would their goals be?

One blink, and he knew.

“I want soldiers on every member of the royal family, now.” He was surprised there had not been an attempt at overthrowing them before now, frankly. “Once my family is protected, then every other remaining soldier is to scour this palace until the intruders are found, do you understand?”

An affirmative chorus rang out from the soldiers in blue, and then everyone was in motion, chattering about who would be seeking out his father, brother, and mother. The room emptied quickly of everyone except Cassius and a handful of soldiers who stood behind him.

“I did not mean me,” he growled.

The soldiers hesitated still.

“Go!” he barked. “Find them. Now.”

Then, blessedly, he was left alone, the siren still wailing on occasion, the only company for his scattered thoughts.

He should have gone after them, should have put himself in the thick of things, but instead he turned and headed back the way he came, down the royal wing where the Pavan family had stayed.

He was the only Locke to call this wing home. He was not certain why, but he bypassed his office and went for the door at the very end of the hall, the queen’s rooms. He listened for a moment, but heard nothing inside. He knocked. Again, he could not say why. The woman rarely ever woke, not since his father had started bribing the nurse to add something extra to her tea.

But sometimes when he looked at this door, he had this feeling in his stomach that he didn’t recognize, a feeling he didn’t know how to name. And it told him to knock before he went inside. When no answer came, he turned the knob and entered on his own. First, his eyes saw bare ankles, and followed them to the unconscious form of the nurse who cared for the queen. Her arms were askew in front of her, and her face lax, but a quick press of his fingers to her neck told him she was not dead. He lifted his eyes farther and found only rumpled sheets where the queen should have been.

Something in him rose high, pressing right under his skin, the part of him that liked to hunt and hurt.