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But the rest of the house was as silent as Aneirin’s camp. They found maids passed out in hallways, cooks slumped over their chopping boards, and butlers asleep in the pantry. They were all spelled. They wouldn’t wake.

“Taly!” Ivain shouted as he ripped up the stairs.

Skye was slower to follow. Not because he didn’t feel the same panic. Indeed, he was numb with it.

Because through the bond, he’d found Taly.

Like everyone else they’d come across, she was sleeping, but she wasn’t upstairs.

Skye slumped on a bench near the front door, still hanging open. He looked up as Ivain descended the stairs, his face etched with disappointment and the quiet weight of growing dread.

“I found her,” Skye said lowly.

“Where?” Ivain snapped.

Skye’s expression tightened.

Taly awoke to a pounding headache—and a collar around her neck. The chill wrapped around her like an iron band of ice.

Her hands were tied and looped with her feet in a way that made it hard to move. She nudged her aether, but the collar pulsed, a sharp throb that stung like a shock.

She blinked against the dim light, her mind struggling to piece together where she was and how she’d gotten there. The air was thick with the cloying scent of incense, sweet enough to be nauseating.

“Great,” she muttered, rubbing her cheek against a surprising softness. “Drugged and kidnapped. I told Skye he was being too optimistic.”

She reached for him through the bond to tell him again, but he was too far away. She could only scrape her fingers against the edges of his panic.

As her vision cleared, she took in her surroundings. The tent was grand, ridiculously so, with its ornate tapestries and golden light that filtered through intricately designed lanterns.

There was a velvet-lined cot beneath her. It would’ve been comfortable if she hadn’t been dumped on it face-first with her arms wrenched back.

She heard sniffling, and then—

“Oh, thank the Shards.” Aimee’s voice was hushed and urgent as she scuttled over from where she’d been huddling at the foot of the cot. Tears streaked her usually perfect face, and her hair was falling out of its pins. “You’re up now. You need to come up with a plan to get us out of here.”

Great. Taly wasn’t even fully awake, and already she was responsible for their salvation. She was still groggy and drooling as she tried to get her bearings. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was playing cards, and then I woke up here.”

“Helpful,” Taly muttered. “Can you at least untie me?”

Aimee’s face fell. “I tried. I… I think the ropes are spelled.”

Taly stopped struggling and fell back to the cot. Her head hurt, and her mouth was bone-dry.

The tent had multiple rooms that were blocked off by heavy, rich curtains. She could sense movement from behind one of them. “Pretend to still be asleep.”

Aimee darted back to her own cot as Taly closed her eyes.

She heard the rustle of fabric, then footsteps muted by thick carpets. The clink of metal to glass, liquid pouring.

“Come, come now, I know you’re pretending. I can see all the telltale signs of wakefulness right here in his head.”

Taly’s heart stopped at the familiar voice. Aimee let out a small cry.