Page 86

Maybe it was too soon to tell her.

What if he picked the wrong words, expressed in the perfectly idiotic and inartful way he often had of communicating very simple ideas?

Like I love you. I need you. I want to spend the rest of my eternity with you—or at least however long we have until we get eaten by shades.

Soul bonds were permanent, but the one forming between them was still incomplete. Still fragile. And unfortunately, he’d chosen a woman prone to knee-jerk reactions. All it would take was one intensely negative emotion aimed straight at that delicate thread spanning the distance between their souls. Like, say, what might happen if he were to hand her a mating gift that screamed,I have no idea who you are.

That thread wouldn’t just snap—it would strangle him on its way out.

Shards, he couldn’t fuck this up.

“Ah. There you are.” A firm hand clapped down on Skye’s shoulder. “Mating gift?” Ivain asked, eyeing the spread of jewelry.

Skye nodded miserably.

“Taly will hate everything here.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Skye muttered.

Reaching into his coat pocket, Ivain pulled out a handful of dried faeflower bricks—coin was nearly useless these days—and dropped them onto the table. “He’ll take this one.” He gestured to one of the trays.

“Which piece?” the shopkeeper asked, brightening now that she’d reeled in a sale.

“All of them.”

Any bad blood between them evaporated as the shopkeeper hopped to wrap up the order. Skye gave Ivain a look.

“You can do better than anything here,” Ivain said. “Pop out the stones, melt down the gold, and start from scratch. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Skye did have an idea he’d been toying with. A stupid, overly sentimental seed of an idea he wasn’t sure he had the fine-metal working skills to pull off...

“Walk with me,” Ivain said.

The shopkeeper was wrapping each item with painstaking delicacy and too much ribbon.

“Just… dump it in,” Skye said and took the bag. He hurried to catch up, weaving through the morning crowd. The hum of conversation swelled around them, vendors calling out deals, the scent of roast chestnuts and spiced tea curling through the cold air. He said over all of it, “What are you doing here?”

“Just a few morning errands,” Ivain said briskly. He moved with easy purpose, navigating the packed walkways like someone who belonged everywhere. A cup of steaming tea rested in one gloved hand, his tailored leather coat layered over a sweater. “I spoke with Brenin this morning.”

That would be Kalahad Brenin—the man responsible for bringing Vaughn to the island and unleashing him on Skye.

“And?”

“And he was shocked—absolutelyshocked—to discover that he was harboring traitors within his household. Not that I expected anything different. Whether he was complicit or not, he’s not going to confess it to me. But he also didn’t put up a fight when I informed him that I would be investigating the rest of his household, so there’s that.”

Skye stepped aside as a cart filled with rolls of fabric remnants, old books, and other donations trundled past.

“What did you tell him exactly?”

“Simply that Vaughn and his two minions turned on you,” Ivain said as they fell back in step. “As to why—we’re framing it as an assassination attempt. Sarina’s idea. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

Skye shook his head. True, he wasn’t as soft a target as he used to be. But three of the nobility were dead, and the public was hungry for gossip. Better they sink their teeth into him than go sniffing around Taly. He was used to being the subject of whispered speculation, and, unlike her, he had nothing to hide that could get him killed.

“I don’t like him,” he said. “Kato thinks he’s a riot, but… he just gives me a bad feeling.”

Unsurprising, given Kalahad’s rumored—but never proven—ties to several major human trafficking rings.

“I agree,” Ivain said, leading them to a less-used area of the third floor. “Unfortunately, we can’t act on bad feelings. Or I suppose wecould, but I doubt it would go well. He’s the favorite brother of the High Lord of Earth—a man half the town believes will swoop in any day now with his fleet of lightships to save them. We either need proof, or we need him to make a mistake.”