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Aiden slid in across the table, and Skye could feel that healer’s gaze assessing him. He had taken his brother’s advice and cleaned himself up—even going so far as to let Eliza cut his hair. The old cook had been hounding him for close to a month—telling him he looked like a vagrant—and she had been almost as delighted at the prospect of attacking him with a pair of shears as she hadbeen when he managed to choke down a plate of food.

“I’m surprised you asked me out tonight,” Aiden said, yelling to be heard over the other patrons.

Fishing inside his pocket, Skye pulled out a small slab of metal no larger than a playing card. It was plain, with a single air and shadow crystal set into the center. His thumb felt for the switch, and he tossed it on the table as a dome of air magic surrounded them and their booth.

The noise of the tavern immediately quieted.

“Better?” Skye asked, forcing a smile. At Aiden’s answering nod, he poured two shots of the mystery liquor and shoved one across the table.

“As for why I invited you out...” Skye went on. “I guess I just needed some air.”

And Kato had pushed him. But he decided to keep that to himself.

“I can understand that,” Aiden said with a heavy sigh. Like the rest of the household, he had also chosen to wear black to honor Taly’spresumedpassing. The fine shirt, silk waistcoat, and slim-cut trousers were almost an exact match to the suit Skye had chosen for himself that evening—save for the color, of course. Though his suit was a dark enough blue it could’ve passed for black in the dim tavern light, his vest was a deep crimson red. When Sarina had seen him leave, she had pursed her lips in that way that told him she was displeased even as she remarked that it was good to see him “taking better care of himself.”

“How is your sister adjusting?” Skye asked, finally taking a sip from his own glass. He winced at the taste. It was whiskey—or something like it.Taking a breath, he downed the glass and then washed away the taste with a generous swig of ale.

Aiden knocked back his own glass, shuddering. Skye immediately refilled their glasses.

“Since when,” Aiden said, eyeing the liquor like it might jump out of the glass and bite him, “do you have any interest in Aimee beyond where she is and how to make sure she stays as far away from you as possible?”

Skye snorted, clinking his glass to Aiden’s as they both downed the contents. The liquor burned all the way down, and the taste was awful, but he could already feel its warmth spreading, forcing his shoulders to relax. “Believe me, that’s still my goal. No offense, but your sister is intolerable.” And fending off her advances was the absolute last thing he was equipped to handle right now.

“That’s our stepfather’s influence, I’m afraid.” Aiden scowled into his glass. “Between you and me—I’ll kill that bastard if I ever get the chance. Rip that rotten husk he calls a heart right out of his chest and feed it to him.”

“I doubt anyone would mind. The few times I’ve met him, he seemed like a right prick.”

They clinked glasses again and drank.

“At least, he mostly leaves our mother alone,” Aiden said. “He thought it was beneath him to marry her—even if she was my father’s widow. With a little luck, I’ll find a place for her in the mortal cities once we figure out this mess with the shades, and so long as Aris hasn’t managed to father a child by then, he’ll be happy to see us go.”

“You’d leave your sister behind?”

Aiden shrugged. “She’s welcome to come with us—I’ve even encouraged her. But she won’t signover her claim to Picolo the same way that I did. She’d rather hold on to a bit of land and a house full of bad memories on the off chance that our father comes back to claim it one day.”

Skye’s brows rose. “Didn’t the Crystal Guard confirm his death?”

“Yes,” Aiden said. “But she still refuses to move on. Which I can understand, I suppose. She was so little, and we lost so many people all at once. Sometimes it feels like we’re just waiting around for one of them to come back.”

Aiden went quiet, staring into his glass. After a long moment, he said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. About Taly.”

Just the mention of her name was enough to make Skye’s heart lodge itself firmly in his throat.

Aiden shook his head, dragging a hand through his hair. “I tried to find her. I think… I think I almost did. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring her back to you.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Skye managed, though really he was thinking,You never had a chance. An earth mage’s locator spell could only track a person so long as their feet remained rooted to the ground, and Taly wasn’t on the island anymore. Not this version, at least.

He’d seen her almost every night since they’d sat together beside the ice pond, but only flashes. Like she was passing by too fast for him to catch up to. He was so tired and so tempted to sleep. He wanted to dream, to see her, but there was just too much to do and not enough time. The forbidden rites contained some of the most powerful shadow magic in the known worlds, and it was all far,farmore complicated than anything he’d ever encountered. He’d had to break into the vault asecond time just to find books to define the concepts.

But his hard work had paid off. So far, he’d found a way to track her, to heal her, to stabilize her in case she’d been turned into one of thosethings. He’d even found a way to make himself stronger to compensate for the lack of men and resources.

It still frightened him, this kind of magic. But there was always more to do, and it made those kinds of thoughts easy to ignore.

There was a commotion from somewhere across the bar, loud enough to break through the air ward, as a skinny Lowborn boy climbed onto one of the tables. “To the woman that died so that we could live,” he said in a loud, clear voice. He raised his glass, and Skye’s stomach sank as every glass in the room rose in toast. “To the Savior of Ebondrift!”

Skye reached for his glass. “To Taly,” he whispered and took a long drink. It had surprised him the first time he heard the name the villagers had given to the girl that risked her life to find the Vale relay. Hearing it now, knowing that they too thought she was dead…

Someone else climbed up onto the table, wrapping an arm around the boy as they began to teeter. “I was there when she fixed the tower gun,” he began. “And I heard the message from Vale—”