Ilsa’s sudden sympathy for Eliot was uncomfortable. She couldn’t excuse his making Cassia feel like an outsider, but she knew what not knowing was like; how it had permeated her being and led her to keep others at a distance. If she had been like Eliot as a child – shy, quiet, instead of outgoing and charismatic – would she have grown to be just like him?
When Cassia continued, her voice was cold and brittle. “He’s been a miserable thing since losing his father. Impossible to reach. I tried at first, but it was no use. The little goodwill Eliot ever extended, he reserved for Gedeon, and it vanished with him. I suppose it takes no great stretch of the imagination to see Eliot’s keeping his secrets.”
Ilsa suppressed a sigh. Cassia had told her to talk to Eliot, then Eliot had told her to talk to Cassia, when really it was clear they needed to talk to each other. “P’raps he is,” she said. “But there’s only one person whose fault this definitely is, and that’s Gedeon. I know I don’t know him, but it don’t seem a very honourable thing to up and vanish when he’s got all of Camden relying on him.”
Cassia blinked at her, shaking her head. “You’ve got him wrong,” she said, turning her attention to the flask. Ilsa waited for her to go on, but whatever defence Cassia had in mind, she couldn’t muster the words.
“Put me right then,” said Ilsa. “Help me understand it. Did he say nothing to you just before he left? Anything that seemed… I don’t know, strange?”
Cassia was silent as she dipped a thermometer into the potion and watched the mercury rise. “Everything about those days was strange. Gedeon wasn’t himself. But I’m sorry, Ilsa, I’m not the person to ask. Gedeon and I… we argued a couple of days before the attack, and he barely spoke to me after that.”
Ilsa’s heart sank. Had no one spent time with him before he left? “What’d you fight over?”
Cassia’s hand shook as she removed the thermometer. Her eyes were glassy. “The stupidest thing.” She sighed. She tried to gather herself, but failed, and the tears began falling. “He had planned a trip to Millwater. It’s a Changeling town an hour or so upriver. He said he wanted to recruit some new wolves. He was taking a lot of the wolves on guard rotation at the Zoo. It seemed foolish to me that we should be left so poorly guarded when the rebel Sorcerers had been attacking. That was all. And in the end, it all came to nothing because” – she turned her back on Ilsa, and dried her tears with her handkerchief. When she turned around, it was with renewed composure – “well, the trip was cancelled at the last minute. We’d argued for nothing. And when the rebels did come two days later, it made no difference how heavily guarded we were. The worst still happened.”
“But it was days after the attack that Gedeon left, weren’t it?”
“A week, I believe.”
“Din’t you make up?” Ilsa didn’t add that it sounded like an awfully petty squabble to hold a grudge over.
Cassia sighed. “I thought we did. He came to my room one night, very late, and apologised. He told me I was blameless. When I fell asleep, all was well between us, but when I woke up…” Her gaze stretched towards an invisible distance. “I haven’t seen him since that night.”
Ilsa’s heart hurt for her. The Sorcerer fell silent, her gaze on the window, and Ilsa suddenly felt like she was intruding. She was about to take her leave when Cassia spoke again.
“Which is worse, Ilsa? To be bereaved, or abandoned? For a person you love to be taken from you, or for him to leave, without a word, of his own accord?”
“I thought I knew,” said Ilsa with a weak smile. “Then you brought me here, and I don’t know how I feel ’bout none of it.”
As Ilsa made to leave, she brushed past the other girl. Cassia’s fingers reached for hers, squeezed ever so lightly, and let go.
19
Cassia’s tell was more subtle than Eliot’s, but she too, was hiding something.
It was the slightest hitch in her voice – a feigned lightness – that had raised the hairs on Ilsa’s neck. It didn’t take a card player to spot the lie; the picture Cassia painted of her argument with Gedeon didn’t add up. She hadn’t heard the full story, but what she had learned from Cassia suggested a new and potentially crucial conclusion:
Something had been eating at Gedeon before the attack.
But did Cassia know what it was? It was hard to even glance at the girl without seeing the pain of the things Gedeon had done. If he hadn’t broken her heart with his secrets – if Cassia truly knew more than she was letting on – did that mean it was all an act?
And if it wasn’t, how could Gedeon do such a thing? To disappear before morning like a dream. Even one of the wolves had left word for the girl he loved, but their leader hadn’t. Did it show the strength of his dedication to whatever secret plan was in motion – or was it only thoughtless cruelty?
You’ve got him wrong.
On the way back to her room Ilsa paused by the last portrait in the long gallery. The slant of the setting sun fell across the Prince of Camden’s golden hair.
He looked every bit the beatific, charismatic young man Cassia had painted him to be. To imagine him as cruel was unthinkable.
Ilsa cast her eyes over the rest of the benevolent and earnest
