Chapter 72

Ronan's POV

The floor tried to pull me down after Mara. Tamsin caught one arm and Gideon the other. All three of us landed hard enough to knock the breath from Gideon's wounded side.

“Let go if it hurts,” I told him.

“If I could take any useful direction from you, I would.”

The old Vale crest lit under my boots. I had stood over it a hundred times without knowing a room waited below. Caldor had taken me through these halls as a boy. He had taught me which boards creaked, where a runner could cross from the east tower to the infirmary without going outdoors. Now he had turned that familiarity into a trap, and the worst part was that I could hear him tell himself it was for my sake.

“Caldor,” I said toward the wall. “I am not