But Adeline’s voice still burned in my ears. Where did your daughter come from?
She had looked at me with fire in her eyes, demanding an answer I couldn’t give…not yet, not without unraveling everything.
When I left her at her gates, she had held her head high, but I saw the doubt shadowing her. She didn’t believe me. She thought me a liar. Maybe I was.
I strode through the halls, Adam pacing restlessly inside me. “She knows, she has always known. That is why she claws for answers, that is why she burns.”
“She doesn’t know,” I muttered, low enough that the guards couldn’t hear. But even as I said it, my chest tightened. Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she only suspected. But suspicion was enough to ruin everything.
I reached the council chamber and pushed the door closed behind me. Maps
