“Don’t you take that tone with her.” Sabine stormed up and inserted herself between Tristan and me. “We might have taken a risk in talking to those creatures, but at least we accomplished something. We know which of our enemies is most worth our attention and at least part of their plan, including a hint as to where the Duke might be hiding. And we know that monster who styles herself as a Queen has an interest in getting you out into the open. What have you done?” She waved her hand at the bloodstains. “Let Aiden run willy-nilly through the castle despite knowing he was under your father’s control. Let him kill the Regent. Glassed us in with magic that so far hasn’t protected us from anything. Stones and sky, you should be thanking Cécile for arriving when she did or Aiden would be dead and Marie, the only ruler you could expect the soldiers to follow, would hate your miserable guts.”

“If you two hadn’t provided such a timely distraction, the Regent wouldn’t be dead,” Tristan retorted. “And your clue to Angoulême’s intended hiding place is hardly helpful. ‘The faces of Anaïs’s ancestors?’” He shook his head sharply. “It could be the ruins of one of their old properties or a stockpile of artwork and possessions. She might not even have meant her family specifically, but rather something related to the fey. Nor need it be on the Isle: for all we know, he intends to catch a ship to the continent and run things from there. Distance means little when one has a name.”

It was then that I tuned them out, their bickering nothing but a drone of noise in the background. My cheek stung and I was exhausted from days without sleep, but I knew if I closed my eyes, all I would see was Roland walking across the Isle and slaughtering as he went. Tristan and I had unleashed him on the world, and what were we doing to stop him? Fighting amongst ourselves.

“Well?”

I blinked, realizing that everyone was staring at me. “Pardon?”

Tristan’s face darkened further. “What do you suggest we do?”

I swallowed into the empty pit that was my stomach. “We can’t hope to fight a war on two fronts and win. Your father is the lesser evil. For now, we need to join forces with him to stop Angoulême and Roland.”

I swayed against the wave of emotion that smashed into me, and it was an effort to meet Tristan’s eyes. The room became uncomfortably hot, the itchy tingle of too much magic in too small of a space marching across my skin.

“No.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, but everyone heard it. Stepping around Sabine, he walked out of the room.