Chapter 373: Move Over, Pandora

Blair was out of her chair before the sentence finished leaving her mouth.

"I’ll be right back."

She didn’t wait for permission. Permission was for people still sitting. Blair was already vertical and felonious.

The war room watched her go with the energy of a class whose teacher just walked out mid-lecture. Some were relieved. Some were confused. Griffin was considering leaving too.

"Should we—" Griffin started.

"No," Ryker, Kael, and Sterling said in unison because chasing Blair Drakencrest was a hobby for people who enjoyed failure and nobody in this room had the goddamn energy.

Nicholas watched the door close. His amber eyes tracked to Damon, who was staring at her empty seat displeased by the new arrangement. His whole evening had been Blair and now Blair was gone and the chair was bullshit.

✦✦✦

The guards outside Maddox’s chambers saw her coming and made the smart decision, which was to become furniture.

She opened the door softly. The hinges cooperated because even the architecture knew better than to argue with Blair Drakencrest on a mission.

The bedroom was dim and warm, and on the bed, two people were asleep. Maddox was on his back holding something to Guinevere’s face that Blair couldn’t fully see.

She moved past them without a sound. Maddox thought his study was private. Maddox thought a lot of things that weren’t true and this was the most adorable.

The study door was cracked three inches, which was three inches more than he usually left it, and she slipped through the gap like a woman who had been breaking into her brother’s shit since she could walk and would continue doing it.

This was the only non-nautical room in his chambers. Even she had boundaries.

The desk was a landscape of organized chaos. Maddox’s filing system was visible in the stacks: urgent, less urgent, and should-have-been-burned. Blair knew the system because Maddox had learned it from their mother and Blair had learned it from watching Maddox fail at it.

She went through the mail with efficient hands. Military correspondence. Elder complaints. Trade agreements. A passive-aggressive note from a Lord about a boundary dispute that had been ongoing since before Blair was born and would be ongoing after she died.

There.

Blair pulled the first letter out of the burn pile and found a few more.

Same handwriting. Same seal. Same parchment. Same name at the bottom.

Emma.

Whoever Emma was, she had the balls to write to a married king multiple times and the penmanship to make it look elegant. Blair was going to enjoy destroying her.

The night of the siege, Guinevere had been upset. More upset than just the siege and Blair knew because she was a woman who noticed things. Guinevere didn’t say anything after so Blair took it upon herself the next day to look through Maddox’s things, to search for evidence of a fight she suspected, and found these.

She stuffed the letters into her cloak. Ghosted out of the study. Past the unconscious lovebirds. Hit the corridor at pace just shy of a sprint.

The war room doors opened. Every head turned.

Blair crossed the room and dropped the letters on the table and every person sitting around it understood two things simultaneously. First, Blair Drakencrest was the most dangerous person in this Keep and it wasn’t close. Second, whoever had written those letters had just pissed off a shark who now smelled blood in the water. That person was about to learn exactly what happened when the dragon princess took something personally.

"I’ve already touched these, so hopefully no curse. These were on Maddox’s desk. He received them before the summit. I’m fairly certain Guinevere found them the night of the siege. She was gutted about something when I ran into her. I found these the next day when we removed her things from his chambers. She wouldn’t remember now if we asked her, so you’re going to have to take my word for it."

Nicholas’s brows drew together across the table. His hands, which had been resting flat, curled once. The motion was small and involuntary and loaded with a memory he hadn’t shared with anyone in this room.

The night of the siege. He found her while she was being attacked. They traveled together for a few hours after and he had felt grief from her through their matebond the entire night. At the time it didn’t make sense to him. He hadn’t understood the source. It wasn’t his place to ask then so he held off. It was his business now.

Damon dragged his hand down his face, the official gesture of a man who wanted to be above this and wasn’t.

Sterling’s expression had all the warmth of a canceled contract. "You touched unknown correspondence from an unknown sender and your first instinct was to stuff it in your cloak?"

"My first instinct was to read it. My second instinct was to bring it here. My third instinct was to stuff it in my cloak. You’re getting the third instinct, Sterling. Be grateful."

"You snooped," Kael said flatly.

"I did reconnaissance," Blair corrected without looking at him. "Reconnaissance that just became the most important intelligence in this room. You’re welcome."

She opened the top letter, careful, holding it by the edges, and turned it to face Brennan.

Brennan leaned forward. His eyes moved across the handwriting and the recognition landed like a brick through glass. Immediate. Total.

"That’s Emma’s writing." He sat back, running a hand through his hair.

"How sure are you?" Kael asked.

Brennan let out a dark, humorless, my-ex-is-crazy laugh. "One hundred-percent sure. That’s her alright. She probably ran into Maddox once and started writing these. She does that."

The table turned as one organism. ’She does that’ had been said. Clarification was no longer optional.

Brennan blinked at the table.

Blair broke the silence. "We’re going to need the full story on this woman."

"Trust me. You absolutely do not."

"We absolutely do."