The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 510

There were stalls with posters hanging on them, too. Sign-up booths manned by royal guards. Drawings of my face, Zane’s, and Callum’s.

“WANTED,” they read. “CASH PRIZE…”

I tried not to look at the amount printed on the posters as we moved through the market, our faces concealed by dark hoods that blended in relatively well.

My face was still pretty jacked up—I’d finally drummed up the courage to look at myself in the car mirror, and the sight I saw immediately made my stomach churn. My nose was swollen nearly to twice its size, both eyes dark and purple and puffy, my lip split, skin still caked with blood. Callum had helped me clean off the blood, but for now, there wasn’t much else to do. But it concealed me well enough—no one recognized me.

“So.” Zane fell into step beside me, looking up at the tall spire overhead with that one light glinting at the top. “What’s the plan now that we’re here?”

I tilted my head back and looked up at the impossibly high spire. The clouds were hanging low this morning, the top of the tower disappearing amongst them, but I could still see the light glinting from the haze.

“You tell me,” I said, looking at Zane. “You’re the climber amongst us.”

Zane gulped audibly as he looked up at the expanse of bright stone, smooth even to the naked eye. “If I can find any handholds, that is.”

Callum, appearing beside him, clapped a hand on his shoulder. “When there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“You’re starting to sound a little bit like me,” Zane pointed out.

Callum dropped his hand. “Watch it. I’m nothing like you.”

Zane might have flashed that grin of his under normal circumstances, but since it had been less than twenty-four hours since we lost Mia, he didn’t. None of us did.

He was right. Distracting an academy full of powerful magic users sounded like something that wouldn’t even work theoretically, let alone in actual practice. But if they still had Marcus, then there was no time to waste. If they hadn’t killed him already, then they certainly would soon, just to spite me for escaping.

And with Mia gone, and Mrs. Oakes gone, my father still under a spell and my mother incapacitated…

I needed Marcus. We needed him.

So, dammit, I was going to take the risk.

Then, once we got him out of there—once we did, because I wasn’t in the mood to consider any other alternatives—we were gathering our forces and storming that fucking palace.

And then, once I got my wolf back, I was going to kill Bianca and that witch.