“It’s not here,” Isla finally said. Her voice was raw. Sleeping for a couple of hours during the day and working at night had begun to takeits toll. Especially since she hadn’t started their search in good health in the first place. Her arm had fully healed, but the cold hadn’t completely left her chest.
The king wasn’t standing as straight as he normally did. He ran a hand through his hair, not seeming to care he was coating it in dirt. “No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
She must have groaned, because he looked down at her, eyes ablaze, almost daring her to make a snarky comment.
She might have. If she didn’t need him.
It took everything in her to take a deep breath and say, “Where is the second place?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SECOND PLACE
It was night, and the castle’s lights were off. The darkness was so deep it seemed to seep everywhere, like spilled ink all around her. Isla looked around for lights, for curtains she could open. She found a candle and lit it.
Her shadow loomed before her, trapped against the wall.
Another one joined it. Far bigger than her own.
She whipped around, and there he was. Grim. He was dressed in armor. Shining sheets of black metal.
He was the thing of nightmares, the monster in the dark.
For a moment, she was nervous. But not afraid.
Still, she took a step back, until she and her shadow were one and the same.
He stepped closer. Reached up to pull the helmet from his head. Dropped it to the floor with a loud clatter. Lifted her from the ground by the backs of her thighs, just as her hands fisted in his hair, and she said—
Isla gasped. Blinked at the ivy that snaked across her bedroom’s ceiling, a thin shard of sunlight peeking through her curtains. She was in the Mainland castle ... not the dark room.
Not with Grim.
Fool.
She blamed her exhaustion for the dreams. Her sleeping patterns had changed, and her body still hadn’t gotten used to it. Yet—
Isla hadn’t seen Grim in a week. Not since the matching ceremony.
Aweek.Before, he had sought her out whenever he could. Had he gotten whatever he had needed from her and moved on to the next step of his plan?
Her chest felt too tight thinking about it, but she sat up and tried her best to ignore the feeling. She would be a fool to spend another moment on him.
Isla should be focused on herownplan. That night, she and Oro would travel to the second location. It would be best to try to get more sleep ... but the idea of dreaming of Grim again—and worse,likingit—sent her out of bed, toward her balcony. By the position of the sun, she guessed it was still early morning.
She got dressed, deciding to seek Ella out on one of the bottom floors of the castle. She remembered the recipe of a Wildling sleeping elixir. All it required were a few ingredients.
Yes,she told herself as she swept through the palace,thatwas what she needed. One cup of the tea, and she would sleep soundly through the day, no Nightshade haunting her dreams. No waking up every few hours clutching her blanket, covered in sweat.
She was just about to round the corner when she heard low voices.
Taking the abandoned old halls was second nature by now. It ensured she rarely saw any attendants and never ran into another ruler. It was how she had visited Celeste a handful of times undetected.
It seemed she wasn’t the only one who used these empty halls for privacy.
Without making a sound, she pressed herself against the wall, straining to listen.
“Your plan is madness.”
