The Midnight Watch

Chapter 23

A long sigh. "Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

"I can't promise that, Mum. I promise I won't do anything unnecessarily stupid," I replied.

"Okay. Good enough, I suppose. Seb was on the guard rota the day King Quinten was assassinated. They had sealed off the rooftops, closed down a mile radius, and there were guards everywhere. But the king got shot, and the assassin got clean away. Seb had a suspicion that it was one of his comrades who fired the gun. Specifically, a young Rochester on his patrol," Mum explained slowly.

I remembered a sandy-haired young man named Marcus. His features screamed Rochester, but I could hardly believe it. That guy had bought me sweets when I was a kid. Could he have killed the king in cold blood?

"So Seb started investigating, trying to link the assassin to Wyatt Rochester before the Queen was forced to marry him. He even organised a rebel band, during the time when it looked like the Rochesters might take power by force. We were proud, of course, until..."

"It's okay," I agreed. "I know this next part."

But she carried on anyway, even though her words were muffled by sobs. "At some point, he must have asked the wrong person the wrong question ... and they killed him for it."

My windpipe tightened, squeezing off the oxygen. Seb was always been a loyal bastard. Far too loyal, and I'd told him so several times. It was just like him to do his job a little too well.

"You were involved too, weren't you?" No one could know that much from bystanding.

"Our home was a safe house for the loyalists. They used to arrive in the dead of night, bloodied up from scraps with the Rochesters. We'd patch them up as best we could and hide them. But all that stopped when Seb died. Your father and I couldn't risk losing you too."

"And Nate?" The phone was shaking in my hand and I felt dizzy, but I needed to know.

"His father was one of the leaders, being the Shadowcat head of family and all that... Nathan used to trail around after him. We would leave you two to play in the garden sometimes while we talked. It wasn't all that much of a surprise when our house was broken into and Nathan's scent was all over the place. He seemed the sort to follow in his father's footsteps. But goddess knows who he was fighting to get that badly hurt."

When my wolf had used me as a mouthpiece, she hadn't lied. I might not have much recollection of it, but I had played with a lot of different children at that age. It just seemed strange that Nate could be one of them. But as weird as it felt, it made sense.

I didn't waste time after that. Saying goodbye to my mum, brushing away unshed tears and steeling myself for a walk only took a few minutes. I found a pen and a scrap of paper, barely bigger than my little finger.

This time when I went to the Silver Birch, Kai went with me. Along the way, I told him everything. When I got to the part about Seb investigating his father's death, a slow smile spread across his face — the first in quite a while.

"And Nathan wanted to know about that?" Kai asked in obvious delight.

"Well ... yes."

His smile seemed to grow and grow. "But don't you see? This changes everything. The Shadowcats are fighting back."

"What? How did you get that from Nate being a pain in my ass?" I demanded.

"You'll see soon enough. For the first time since my father died, there's hope."

I couldn't help smiling as well. It seemed yawning wasn't the only thing that was contagious. "Hope for what?"

"For a kingdom like the one I remember when I was little. For peace, prosperity and unity—" Kai's rant was cut off by something he heard in the woods ahead. In the span of a few seconds, Kai was standing in front of me protectively, a knife I hadn't seen in his hand.