Vela Heartwhisper's Arc

Chapter 21 of 25

The rocket had let someone in. Vela ran to the east yard's edge, but Lysander caught her arm. "Not alone," he said. "You look for the wrong door." His words stopped her. She had a list of enemies in her head. Severin, sitting arrested. Hired blades, dead at the far rocks. She could name every threat outside the wall. She could not name the one already inside the household she had just joined. If she accused a servant and was wrong, the court would turn from her again. She had bled to earn their trust. One false name would spend it all. So she did not hunt. She called them to a table instead. Benbenek sat at its head. Lysander stood at his shoulder. Scarlett Nightbloom came, her wings folding against her back, red dress torn at the hem from her last fight in the forest. Asher came last, mask blank, hands in his pockets. Captain Pluto set his ship-log on the wood. "You want us all here," Pluto said. "Then say what you fear out loud." "The rocket only opens for one it knows," Vela said. "Someone here it has seen." She looked at each face. Her old habit told her to pick one and strike. She held still. "I won't guess. I'll ask." Asher spoke first, flat. "I write letters no one reads. I don't break into ships." He pulled his hand from his pocket. Empty. He set it on the table, palm up. Scarlett did the same, her pale fingers steady. Lysander laid his knife down beside them. Then Heartwhisper stepped from the yard's shadow. Few ever found his cave, yet he had come to this table on his own. He carried no potion now, only the cipher in his hand. His heart-shaped eyes moved across the group and settled. "Love points one way," he said softly. "The eyes point another." He turned the cipher toward Asher. "You watch the door you came through." Asher went still. Then he pulled off the mask. Beneath it his face was wet. "I let them follow me in," he said. "I didn't know. A woman. She said she knew my old love. I wanted it to be true." His voice dropped. "She used my name to reach your rocket." Not a traitor. A lonely man tricked through the one wound he could not guard. Vela felt the accusation she had almost thrown pass her by. She reached across the table and closed Asher's hand around his mask. "You told the truth," she said. "That's more than most give." Benbenek stood. "Then the enemy has a face and a name," he said. "And she is already past my wall." A flying deer drifted over the yard, small flames spilling from its mouth. No one reached for a weapon. Vela had kept the household whole. But somewhere inside it, a woman she had never seen now walked free, wearing trust she had stolen from a broken man.