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Nuri’s words haunted him day and night. When he’d asked her about it, all she’d said was, “I see the way you look at her, General, and her you. We may not be as close as we once were, but I still know how to read her like a book.”

Seeing Scarlett walking up the archery range, her cheeks full of color and her usual swagger back, he had felt relief deep in his soul. The wickedness he’d witnessed that night was gone, although it were as if a trace of it remained, hovering just beneath the surface. As if she had indeed shoved it back into a cage but could summon it at any time. Her icy blue eyes seemed to have permanent dark flecks in them now. He had almost welcomed the glare she threw at him until he heard the bitterness in her voice.

Scarlett’s one demand was to know about the Fae Queen she had seen him with. Talwyn Semiria, Fae Queen of the East.

Fae Queen of all the Courts now, he supposed.

Sorin climbed the stairs to his apartment. He unbuckled his sword belt and piled his various weapons in the corner of the room. He walked to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of brandy, knocking it back in one swallow. After pouring himself a second glass, he walked to the table strewn with papers and books, including the book he’d taken from Scarlett.

Talwyn had given him permission to go home, to the Fae Realm, to his magic. To his people. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice. With the events of the past few weeks, he’d almost left. But he hadn’t been lying when he told Talwyn he wasn’t ready. Despite loathing nearly everything about this land, he couldn’t leave the Semiria ring. Not without figuring out not only how Scarlett had gotten it, but how she was managing to access her magic without it. Not to mention Nuri and how the hell she had gotten here.

Sorin knocked back the second glass of brandy at the thought of them and took the book Scarlett had been reading to the sofa. He thumbed idly through the pages, lost in thoughts about Scarlett and the ring and the weapon supposedly hidden here and the various territories.

There was also the matter of Lord Tyndell and this training of the High Force. He had come right out and asked how to kill the Contessa. The idea that he thought they would ever get close enough to her to even attempt such a thing told Sorin that he truly had no idea the magnitude of the power of the other realms. The mortal lands were at the bottom of the power food chain with their inability to access magic. To even enter the Night Children lands they needed to cross either the Earth Court and face Prince Azrael Luan and his armies or, probably worse, the Witch Kingdoms. They had been placed between the Night Children and human lands to keep the humans safe. How ironic.

He thumbed through the book again, halting on a page near the back about the original Fae Queens who had been sisters. Queen Henna had ruled the eastern Wind and Earth Courts. Queen Eliné had ruled the western Fire and Water Courts. Queen Henna had been killed when her daughter, Talwyn, was barely able to walk. Her father had passed a few years later. Queen Eliné had raised her niece, ruling all the Courts with grace and elegance until Talwyn would one day be able to take up her throne. Sorin had been her personal magic tutor at the request of Eliné.

Eliné. He ran his finger over the name of the queen that he had been loyal to. Sorin had been Queen Eliné’s most trusted advisor. Their relationship, he realized, mirrored Scarlett and Cassius. He had been her soulmate. They had not been lovers, not in the slightest. A soulmate was not a romantic bond like the mortals made it out to be, but a bond between two kindred souls. He served by her side nearly every day, and he had no idea where she had gone or why. She’d left no note. She’d never hinted she would be leaving. She had disappeared in the middle of a cold winter night, leaving Talwyn on a throne she had hardly ruled from.

Sorin had advised Talwyn in Queen Eliné’s stead, both of them believing Eliné would return, but Talwyn was a daughter of Sefarina, the goddess of the winds, and Silas, the god of the earth and forests. She had begun building her own Inner Circle, but Eliné had still been heavily involved with the Courts and guiding Talwyn. He knew when her time came to fully step into her role as queen, he would be pushed to the side.But it had been worse than that. It had been nearly ten years later, when he woke to Talwyn screaming. He found her rocking herself in her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She claimed to have had a dream that Eliné had passed. They had summoned a powerful Seer who had confirmed it, and left Talwyn grieving the death of a mother she had never known, a father she hardly remembered, and an aunt she never got to say goodbye to. Not to mention Tarek. Deaths for which she would never have closure.

He had stayed by her side, holding her and comforting her. She had eventually fallen asleep and when she woke, she took one look at Sorin and had sent him away, back to the Fire Court he resided in with flames and embers in his veins. The rift between them had only widened with each passing day. She became hell bent on seeking revenge on those responsible for the deaths she’d experienced, beginning by sending him here to find a weapon that likely didn’t even exist.

The memories flowing through him, Sorin had just poured himself another glass of brandy when he scented her a moment before she swung in his window. “I do have a door, you know,” he drawled, knocking back the glass of alcohol.

“Drinking alone, General?” Nuri asked as she flopped onto the other end of the sofa. “Are you still brooding over Scarlett telling you to stay away from her? She’ll get over it eventually, you know. She always does. In the meantime, I can keep you company.”

“Has anyone ever told you how utterly insufferable you are, Nuri?” Sorin asked dryly.

“I would love to show you how delightful I can be,” she purred back, her honey-colored eyes going predatory. Her silk and honey voice caressed his nerves, but nothing more. “I’ve never been with a Fae lover before.”

“I have had my share of delight from the daughters of night,” he replied coolly. “You would not be able to keep up.”

Nuri scowled at him. “You ruin all my fun. How do you do that by the way?”

“She sent a message for you,” Sorin said, ignoring her question and pouring yet another glass.

Nuri straightened. “When did you speak with her?”

“Yesterday,” he answered darkly.

“Well, that certainly explains the renewed pissy mood…and the drinking,” Nuri said, eyeing his liquor glass. “Out with it then.”

“You two are very demanding when you want something,” Sorin answered bitterly.

“It’s one of our more charming qualities,” Nuri replied with a smirk.

“She said to tell you that Prince Callan has sent word he has news and that a place needs to be determined to meet undetected.”

“Interesting,” Nuri mused, propping her chin on her hand. “It’s been a few weeks. I wonder if she’s ready to just go back to the castle…”

“You cannot be serious? She was a walking phantasm for days after last time. I don’t know what the hell happened there, but—”

“Oh, sure you do, General,” Nuri said with a knowing smile. “There is little left to the imagination of what went onthatnight.”

“The way you manipulate her with her emotions is abominable,” he snarled. “Do not even think of suggesting that again.”

Nuri clicked her tongue. “Why are you and Cassius so intent on coddling her? She will likely face much bigger trials in her lifetime. She already has. And only I will have cared enough to prepare her for such.”