Page 107

Small fucking consolation.

Three bright lights slammed into the windshield, and they all jumped. But—the sprites. They’d forgotten the sprites.

Flynn rolled down his window and Rithi, Sasa, and Malana sped in. Sasa breathed, “Go, go, go,” and Flynn didn’t waste time questioning as they reversed out of the alley at full speed. In a smooth shift, he pulled onto a main street and switched into drive—and then they were zooming off through the labyrinth of streets Tharion had thought he’d never see again.

“What’s happening?” Declan asked the sprites, who had nestled into the drink holders up front.

“We burned it,” Sasa said, a deep orange.

“Burned what?” Flynn demanded.

Tharion could only gape as Malana pointed through the rear window, to where flames were now licking the night sky above the Meat Market.

“She’ll kill you.” Tharion’s voice was hoarse. Like he’d been screaming. Maybe he had been. He didn’t know.

“She’ll have to find us to do that,” said Rithi grimly, then turned to Ithan. “She engineered that perfectly. She used you.”

“I played right into her hands.” Ithan’s voice was soft, broken.

No one spoke. No one seemed inclined to. So Tharion figured he might as well ask, “How so?”

Ithan shook his head and looked out the window, face blank, still blood-splattered. He said nothing more.

They drove on through the city, somehow unchanged despite what had just occurred. Drove all the way to the Rose Gate and the Eastern Road beyond it. To the coast, and the ship that would be waiting for them.

And all the consequences that would follow.

* * *

Bryce backed away as Azriel advanced a step toward the crystal coffin, Truth-Teller now glowing with black light in his left hand.

Bryce had seen the gold-clad creature who now slumbered in the coffin before, she realized: when Silene had related her mother’s story. This female before them … she was the Asteri who’d ruled here. Theia’s mistress.

The Asteri’s blue eyes lowered to the dagger. “You dare draw a weapon before me? Against those who crafted you, soldier, from night and pain?”

“You are no creator of mine,” Azriel said coldly. The Starsword gleamed in his other hand. If they bothered him, if they called to him, he didn’t let on. Neither hand so much as twitched.

The Asteri’s eyes flared with recognition at the long blade. “Did Fionn send you, then? To slay me in my sleep? Or was it that traitor Enalius? I see that you bear his dagger—as his emissary? Or his assassin?”

The words must have meant something to Azriel. The warrior let out a small noise of shock.

“Fionn indeed sent us to finish you off,” Nesta lied with impressive menace. “But it looks like now we’ll have the pleasure of killing you awake.”

The Asteri smiled again. “You’ll have to open this sarcophagus to get me.”

Bryce smiled back at her, all teeth. “Fionn sent them. But Theia sent me.”

Blue fire simmered in the creature’s eyes. “That traitorous bitch will be dealt with after I handle you.”

Azriel started to move along the coffin. Assessing the best way to attack the Asteri, no doubt. “Unfortunately for you,” Bryce taunted, “Theia’s been dead for fifteen thousand years. So have the rest of your buddies. Your people are little more than a half-forgotten myth in this world.”

For a heartbeat, it was the creature’s turn to blink. As if a memory had cleared, she said, more to herself than them, “Theia was so charming that day. Told me I looked tired, and to replenish myself in the crystal here, above the well. But she sealed me within instead. To let me starve to death over the eons.” Teeth, white as snow, flashed. “And in my dreams, she danced upon the stones above me. Danced upon my grave while I starved beneath her feet.”

“Give me the Starsword,” Bryce murmured to Azriel. The blade had killed Reapers. Maybe it could kill an Asteri. Maybe that was what she’d come here to learn.

“No,” Azriel snarled. “You brought this terror upon us.”

“I had no idea she was here—”