I think we were all a bit stunned by what we had just witnessed.

“Let him go,” Casteel spoke in that powerful, commanding voice, the one that compelled a response. “Now.”

She looked at him. “I will when I’m good and ready.”

Shock flickered through Casteel and me. This woman wasn’t susceptible to compulsion. My heart turned over heavily.

“Now, I was ordered to not shed blood unnecessarily, something I admit I have a tiny bad habit of doing,” she told us, looking up at the hardened lines of Delano’s face as he strained against her, unable to break free of her grip—the hold of a painted woman who had to be several inches shorter than me. She held Delano in place while standing on the tips of her toes. “So, please do not even think about shifting and forcing me to make bloodshed an unfortunately necessary thing.”

“What in the hell are you?” Delano growled.

“A Handmaiden?” I suggested, thinking of the woman I knew as my mother—who could very well have been my mother by blood.

“Yes. That, and many other things.” Unpainted lips curved up in a tight smile as her gaze flicked to us. “But right now, I’m simply your friendly escort.” Her stare was unflinching as the sound of many footfalls echoed from both sides of the hall. “One of many escorts, that is.”

Within seconds, Royal Guards filled both sides of the windowless hallway, swords drawn. Among them were armored knights. There were dozens, and the knights appeared as they had in Spessa’s End. The comb atop their helmets was dyed crimson, and they wore the red-painted masks that covered the upper parts of their faces.

I exhaled raggedly.

“Let him go,” Casteel demanded, his chin dipping low. “And we’ll behave if you behave.”

Those eerie eyes focused on him, and I sensed a quick burst of tartness—a great unease—from the woman. But it was brief, and she smiled broadly then, revealing two rows of…fangless teeth. “Of course,” she replied quite cheerfully. “I excel at behaving.”

I had a feeling that was a lie.

We waited, hearts pounding, and the eather in my chest straining against my skin. I could take them all out, just like I had with the Unseen on the road to Evaemon.

“You’re going to let me go?” Delano asked, and the woman nodded. “Then you have to actually let me go.”

“I will,” she said, those eyes shifting back to me. “But you see, you have all already misbehaved, sneaking in underground.” She tsked softly under her breath, and energy pulsed through me, beneath my skin. “Going where you should not have gone.” Her flat eyes bored into mine. “Seeing what you should not have seen.”

“The man in the cage?”

Her smile faded. “Our Queen will not be very pleased by that, but I am willing to give all of you the benefit of the doubt. Especially you,” she said to me. “Do not try anything. If you do, it will not be your lives you forfeit. It will be the lives of those who were riding toward our east gates.”