“Not even for being in my room? Did you find anything interesting there?”
Justin was breathing as if he’d just run a race. I deliberately met his eyes. He was speechless. I smiled at him.
“We need not speak to you at all,” Serene announced. “We know what you are. Come, Justin.”
“You know what I am? Interesting. Rest assured that I know what you are. And that I am not the only one who knows.”
“Beast man!” Justin hissed. “You wallow in the filthiest of magics. Did you think you could go undetected amongst us? No wonder Galen found you unfit to Skill!”
His arrow had struck home and quivered in my most secret fear. I tried not to let it show. “I am loyal to King Shrewd.” Face composed, I gazed at them steadily. I said no more than that. Not in words. But I looked them up and down, measuring them against what they should be, and found them lacking. In the minute shifting of their feet, in their quick glances at one another, I decided that they knew they were traitors. They reported to Regal; they knew they should report to the King. They were not deceived as to what they were; they understood. Perhaps Galen had burned a loyalty to Regal into their minds; perhaps they could not conceive of turning against him. But parts of them still knew that Shrewd was king, and that they were disloyal to a King they had sworn to. I tucked away that bit of knowledge; it was a crack that might someday hold a wedge.
I stepped forward, and enjoyed watching Serene shrink away from me while Justin cowered between her and the wall. But I made no attack. I turned my back to them and opened my door. As I entered my room I felt a sneaky little wisp of Skill grope at the edges of my mind. Without thinking, I blocked as Verity had taught me to. “Keep your thoughts to yourself,” I warned them, and did not dignify them by looking back at them. I shut the door.