Page 42 of Shattered Jewel

Kaspian informed me of his discovery shortly before we all met up in Cav’s room while the Selection continued downstairs. With the Sovereigns at our heels and the danger posed to Elara, he hadn’t yet revealed it to anyone else, and I was beginning to wonder when he would. Thankfully, I’d typed his words into my reminder app as soon as I got the chance, and had a lot of time to read last night.

Elara moves nearer, her eyes wide with a mix of shock, hurt at being left out, and excitement. “A hidden library? Containing evidence of what my brother did? Take me. Take me there right now.”

Wilder sets his mug down with a thud, coffee sloshing over the rim and ready to move onward. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Lead the way, brother.”

Kaspian pushes off the bar. He presses close to me until we’re nearly nose-to-nose. “After this, we’re going to have a long talk about when, and who, to reveal crucial intel to.”

I don’t flinch, holding his gaze steady.

Kaspian’s eyes shrink to slits before he spins on his heel and strides out of the room, his shoes thudding heavily against the floorboards.

Expecting us to follow.

Elara hurries after him, her bare feet slapping against the wood. She throws a glance over her shoulder at me, offering a small smile of gratitude. I smile back, a flicker of … life … igniting in my chest, before she disappears into the hallway.

Wilder charges after Kaspian and Elara, but I hang back a moment, surveying our common room, the discarded blankets on the couch, the half-empty bottle of bourbon on the bar. Evidence of the unrest that’s entered our lives.

I stride into the hallway. Ahead, Kaspian leads the way, his injured arm tucked close to his body. Elara keeps pace beside him, her hair remaining a wild tumble down her back. Wilder brings up the rear.

What does Wilder see when he looks at Kaspian and Elara together? Is he envisioning Teagan and himself, the girl who died on his watch?

I pull out my phone, typing this down as a question to ponder later.

We wind through the manor, taking turns and climbing staircases I’ve never explored until we’re in the attic. The air grows musty, thick with the scent of leather, tobacco, old books, and dust. So much fucking dust.

Finally, Kaspian stops in the middle of a cobwebbed corridor in front of a large painting. He flicks on the flashlight of his phone, spotlighting the painting in full detail.

“It’s Thornhaven Manor,” Elara says.

“And the gold star goes to Miss Wraithwood,” Kaspian drawls.

Elara appears ready to dig her finger into the bullet hole on his shoulder.

I incline my head, drawing closer to the painting and studying the manor as it would have been in the late 1600s. The gardens surrounding the gray stone, the pristine turrets and spires, the widow’s walk, the unmarred west wing.

I glance between the silhouette in the garden, painted in shadow despite the sun shining down on him, and the west wing that no longer exists?—

Kaspian’s hand darts in front of my vision, preventing what I’m certain I was about figure out, his index finger locating two pressure points in the painting. The figure and where the garden meets the west wing.

The wall behind us groans before a panel slides open.

Elara turns at the sound. Well, we all do, but she’s who I’m most interested in watching, because her expression doesn’t change, even though a secret wall in an ancient manor just opened up before her because Kaspian touched a painting.

She notices Kaspian’s inscrutable study before she does mine.

“What?” she says to him sweetly. “Do you think you’re the only person who’s discovered a centuries-old room in an old mansion?” Elara peers over her shoulder at the painting with an unimpressed arched brow. “Mine involved a grandfather clock.”

Her statement stops me short. While Kaspian and Wilder respond to her with reluctant questions and intrigue, respectively, I can’t find any words. My voice has sunk too low into my gut, churning in acid along with my conscience.

How many of us are keeping our own secrets? For a brotherhood, a team, we’re fractured where it matters most: trust. If we want to beat the Sovereigns, we have to work together, yet none of us do.

For the first time, I’m prevented from voicing my thoughts not by my bruised brain, but because I can’t, out of sheer hypocrisy.

I carry my own betrayals, nestled in the cavity where a heart should be.

With lowered shoulders, I stare into the yawning darkness revealed by the wall panel with a pained sigh.

But write it down anyway.