The three of them looked at the silver disk lying between them.
The truth sat on the desk like a dead bird.
You couldn't cut the rope without cutting her throat first, because her father had woven the twine right through her heart strings when she was too small to scream.
"Then we don't remove it from the outside," Soren said.
Ellyn stopped his pen. He stayed perfectly still for three breaths, his face turning red as he thought about the heavy book he had hidden under his mattress in the lower archives.
Soren looked down at him. "Aldwin mentioned earlier that you spoke of a framework. In the restricted vault."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the boy whispered, looking toward the door as if the librarian might walk through the oak panels.
"Now would be the time to tell me what was in it," Soren said.
Ellyn laid his pen down in the groove of the inkstand and took a deep breath, smoothing his cuffs down over his wrists.
