Shadow Heir

“I know nothing,” he said, quickly guessing my question. “This is the first time I’ve heard anything about this.” He turned to Roland. “Forgive me for any doubts ... but I have to ask: are you certain you saw him?” It was amazing how quickly Dorian had recovered from my romantic mixed signals to dealing with the task at hand. I was reminded of my discussion with Kiyo: no matter the problems between Dorian and me, we always put them aside to work as a team.

“Positive,” said Roland. “I was on the scene at one of the raids. He’s hard to miss with that hair. The others have made the news, and each time, the footage showed these crazy haboobs that just didn’t look natural. That, and we don’t generally get four of them in two weeks. The boy controls wind and air, right?”

“Right,” I said with dismay.

Dorian arched an eyebrow. “Haboob? Isn’t that slang for—”

“It’s a kind of sandstorm,” I interrupted. “They occur all over the world, and Arizona gets them every once in a while. The Thorn Land theoretically could, but I’m too in sync with its weather to let one happen.”

“Shortly after our return from the Yew Land, Pagiel left to visit the village he’d grown up in, on the far edge of my kingdom,” said Dorian thoughtfully. “You knew he lived out there before Ysabel dragged him to my court, right? He was worried that those villagers hadn’t fared as well as the people in my castle during the blight and wanted to help them rebuild. I haven’t heard from him since and just assumed he was preoccupied with the rebuilding.”

My guards were still hovering around, waiting for orders. I gestured to one of them. “Go find the Lady Jasmine and bring her here.” When he was gone, I turned back to Roland and Dorian. “There must be some mistake. Pagiel wouldn’t do this.”

“He did it before,” pointed out Roland.

“Yeah, when the land was blighted and his people were starving,” I countered. “Everything’s fixed now.”

“Well,” said Dorian reasonably, “not everything. None of us are in quite the same shape with food as we were before. My people will be eating leanly for a while, and I assume the same is true with yours.”

Roland glanced between us. “Leanly enough that the boy might get it into his head to do a little supplementing from the human world?”

I started to deny it but reconsidered. As Roland had said, Pagiel had done all this before. Maybe the Oak Land wasn’t in the same dire situation, but those Pagiel cared about were still suffering. Pagiel had made it perfectly clear he thought humans were overweight and had too much—which was true to a certain extent. Really, his feelings on the matter had never changed. He’d only stopped his actions because I’d brought him with me to the Yew Land.

Jasmine joined us shortly thereafter, not looking thrilled that she’d been summoned by a guard. Her face brightened when she saw Roland since he usually brought her little luxuries from the human world.

“Jasmine, when was the last time you talked to Pagiel?”

She looked startled by my harsh tone. “Uh, I don’t know. Not since we all got back. He was supposed to get in touch but never did.”

“You mean that?” I demanded. “You’re telling the truth?”

Hurt shone on her face, and a bit of that old dark temperament leaked through. As our relationship had grown, we’d established a lot of trust, and me asking a question like that was insulting.

“I’m sorry,” I said before she could answer. “I don’t mean to accuse you of lying. I just need to be sure you don’t know anything that’s going on with him.”

“I’m sure,” she said, looking slightly pacified. A note of bitterness laced her next words. “I wish I had heard from him. I don’t know what his problem is.”

“From the sounds of it,” I said, “he may actually have a few problems.”

We told her what had happened, and I studied her face carefully as she listened. Her shock was genuine; she’d been telling the truth. Unlike me, however, her initial response wasn’t a denial or insistence that there was a mistake.

“He talked about it a lot,” she said with dismay. “While we were on the road. All about the wealth humans had and how it was our legacy—you know, from when the shining ones walked the earth. He never wanted to hurt anyone, but he didn’t think it was right that we’re denied the surplus in that world.”

“A classic Storm King sympathizer,” mused Dorian. “No wonder he was so eager to serve you, Eugenie.”

I made a face, not liking the implications. “He’s a confused boy, caught up in propaganda and stories of greatness he hears from others. And, unfortunately, he’s also a boy who can easily cross worlds.”

“He’s not bad,” exclaimed Jasmine. “Or evil. Or even ... stupid. He just wants to help people, that’s all. He had to take care of his family growing up, you know. His dad died early, and the only person around to help his mom was that witchy grandmother of theirs. He had to be the man in his family. No one else would do it.”