“Good to see you up and about, Cordelia.” He said with a small smile. Cassian and I parted from our embrace as Augustus approached me. “Do I get praised by you as well?”

　　I playfully rolled my eyes. “It is adorable that you are more honest with yourself now, Augustus.”

　　“That doesn’t sound like a compliment to me,” he said with his eyebrow raised.

　　I laughed and reached out my hand to him. He took it and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You did a good job, Augustus,” I smiled.

　　“He hardly did anything,” Cassian pouted.

　　“Excuse me?” Augustus snapped.

　　Cassian did not have the chance to reply when I noticed mother and Aiden rushing into the study. Mother’s eyes were red and teary as she quickly came towards me with her hands spread. Augustus sidestepped away just in time for mother to grab me into a hug. I felt Augustus give my hand another squeeze before pulling away.

　　“Mother…” I called as she started to cry. I held her, patting her back to comfort her.

　　“My daughter…I was so afraid I was going to lose you.” She whispered. I held her tighter as I turned to look at Aiden who offered me a smile. I smiled back at him only for my attention to return to the entrance of the study, spotting him—Isaiah.

　　Memories of that time with him came rushing to my memory and I felt my face heat up. The both of us averted our gazes from each other but not before I saw how his cheeks were tainted red. I found it rather adorable how even Isaiah was feeling bashful around me now.

　　After everyone had calmed down from our emotional reunion, we had important things to talk about, such as what was our next step to talking Lady Marie down. But I was curious as to what happened that week when I was gone.

　　Mother had excused herself, saying that she had an appointment she needed to go too and that she would also try to gain information about Lady Marie if she could. The rest of us remained in the study, crowding around the two sofas that were by the coffee table. Gideon, Cassian and Isaiah sat opposite me whereas Aiden and Augustus were by my sides. Anne and a few other maids came in with our refreshments.

　　“Shall we start from the top?” I asked. “Tell me everything that happened the moment I was taken.”

　　The atmosphere turned tense and by the looks of how their body language shifted, I could just imagine that something must have happened that they were not willing to tell me. If I had to guess, it was probably the fight Anne had mentioned.

　　“After we left the courthouse, an empty carriage arrived with a letter inside. It had your signature and the contents stated how you could not handle the pressure and after witnessing Laura’s death, you decided to quit and ran away. It didn’t take us long to figure out that the letter was a forgery.” Gideon started. “But right after that, we came to a little misunderstanding.” He sighed.

　　I looked at Cassian and then to Augustus, waiting for one of them to continue with the story, but it was Aiden who spoke next.

　　“Prince Augustus wanted to focus on looking for you as we concluded that you must have gotten kidnapped. But the duke did not agree with that, stating that everyone should continue on with getting through the trial and getting Isaiah’s name cleared first. There was a bug argument between the two and in the end Lord Gideon had to intertwine. He agreed with the duke and hence for a few days after your disappearance, our attention was placed on freeing Lord Isaiah.”

　　“I see. And what of Amir?” I asked.

　　“Hold up.” Isaiah stopped me. “You…you’re not upset that they choose to prioritise me over you? When I found out what happened I was frustrated that they would bother trying to free me when you were God knows where! You could have been killed or—”

　　“Before I was taken, I had told Cassian that no matter what happens to me, he has to prioritise helping clear your name,” I confirmed. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.

　　“…you knew that was going to happen to you?” Augustus asked.

　　“Well, it was just instincts, or perhaps I should say that Lady Marie actually threatened me, and I was aware that something or a rather was going to happen so—”

　　Isaiah suddenly stood up from the couch, looking at me in disbelief. “You knew this was going to happen and yet you stayed silent about it besides telling Cassian some vague nonsense?”

　　“There was no proper reason for me to—”

　　Isaiah cut me off once more. “Do you truly not value your life, Cordelia? You…those men…”

　　“Isaiah.” I called out firmly, catching his attention. “I know that I should have reacted differently to avoid getting taken but all of that is in the past now. I’m here right now, alive and well thanks to all of you.” Isaiah grumbled something under his breath before flopping back onto the couch. “Now then, tell me if we managed to send Amir back to the Eastern Kingdom.”

　　Cassian nodded. “After he was solely charged with the murder of Declan Wright, that night itself I managed to get some men from the Hallows to take him and send him back to the Eastern Kingdom. According to the letter Empress Yara sent to Isaiah, Amir will be serving time in prison there.”

　　“I see. What happened after Isaiah got released?”

　　“We could not go along with our initial plan to expose Lady Marie’s past doings hence we dropped that plan to look for you. And even with all the resources we had, it was still difficult to pinpoint where they might have taken you. In the end, we found a handful of manors and villas that could serve as a potential hideout.” Cassian explained. “All of us split up at that point but there was one manor that was too far and being in the middle of the forest made it hard to travel by horse. So, Isaiah volunteered to travel there in his wolf form.”

　　“Ah. So that’s why you were in your wolf form.” I said, as everything made sense now, especially why Isaiah came to the manor all by himself.

　　“My sense of smell was heightened in that form. The closer I got to the manor in the forest, the more certain I was that you were there but then your scent got stronger and well, you know the rest.” He grumbled.

　　He killed every mercenary in the manor. Thinking back to that time, I was surprised that I did not grow sick from the stench of the dead and blood filling the air.

　　“Once Isaiah found you, we all met at the rendezvous point and we decided to hide you here, at Gideon’s private manor. We have been coming and going so that Lady Marie does not grow suspicious that we have rescued you.” Cassian stated.

　　“So, she doesn’t know that I was rescued?” I muttered to myself.

　　“She would figure it out sooner or later.” Gideon said. “And I believe that will be the best time for us to strike.”

　　“We will make her pay for what she did to you, Cordelia.” Isaiah said.

　　I shook my head. “For what she did to us.” I corrected him with a smile.

　　“Well then, let us discuss what our next step is going to be.” Augustus chimed in. “So far, we can only link her to the murders of Rosaline and the late Emperor Byron. I’m guessing you and your Hollows managed to secure all the needed information to connect Andrew Wright to the manor?” he asked, looking at Cassian.

　　“You don’t have to worry about that.” He said, glancing over to the clock that hung on the wall. “If everything went according to plan, Andrew Wright should be getting detained as we speak.”

　　“How?” I asked, in awe that he managed to do everything so fast.

　　“The very moment we found out that the manor belonged to the Wright family, we knew that we had to work fast to gather all the necessary information. We could not directly link him to the kidnapping, but we can easily blame the murdered mercenaries on him.” Cassian explained.

　　“But their bodies were clearly mauled, he could say that an animal did it or something.”

　　“That’s true, but do you remember Declan? Apparently, one of his many misconducts include him paying mercenaries to transform into their wolf forms and to fight. We could easily twist the truth by using that as evidence.”

　　“This is good, the sooner the people around Lady Marie are out of the picture, the closer we are to get her.” Gideon said. “Now all we need is proper timing.”