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The possessive snarl that came out of Sorin made the hair on her neck stand on end. “He cannot have you,” he growled. “I am yours, and you are mine.”

“I do not think he will care,” she replied, going back to the table and sitting once more. She pulled a book to her. The most recent one she’d been so slowly reading and translating. Sorin sat beside her, resting a hand on her thigh. “According to this, there are seven Lords. We beheaded one. I don’t know who rose to take his seat, but before we killed him, he told us he was visiting kin here. I suspect there is more than one here, but it can’t all be just for me.”

“Do you have any idea who the others are?”

“I would venture to guess Lord Tyndell from the way he spoke that day when we left. This plan—” She paused, pushing her hair back out of her face. “They have patiently been waiting, Sorin. This had to have been enacted centuries ago, and they’ve just been biding their time. Waiting for all the pieces to fall into place.”

“But what do they want?”

“I suspect the same thing they wanted during the Great War. Something in Avonleya, which they cannot gain entry to because of the wards so they are trying to find their work around.”

“Deimas put the wards up,” Sorin countered. “Do these Lords not know how to remove them?”

“That’s the thing,” Scarlett said. “You told me that Deimas and Esmeray didn’t put the wards around the Fae lands, that the Fae did.”

“Yes,” Sorin said slowly. “You are thinking the Avonleyans did the same?”

“Possibly,” she mused, “and if that is indeed the case, they’re trying to find a way in.”

With a twist of her wrist, her shadow panther appeared once more with another book in its maw. This one she had kept hidden since she found it, not even risking bringing it back to this chamber.

She handed the book to Sorin, and he visibly paled. He slowly opened it. This book had various languages. It was someone’s personal spell book. Some of the spells were in the Old Language. Some in Avonleyan or Maraan. Some in languages she could not read nor decipher. But they were all ancient, powerful magic. They were all blood magic.

“It is why you have been asking so many questions about it,” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

“The cost of a spell that powerful, to overcome an Avonleyan ward, would be horrific,” he said tightly.

“Yes. It is.”

His eyes lifted from the book, coming to hers. “You found the spell?”

“I found one that would do something similar.” She flipped the book to a page she had carefully marked. “It requires the blood of an innocent to be spilled. I can only imagine the spell they’re using would need something equally powerful and likely magical…”

“The orphans,” Sorin said in astonishment.

“You sound shocked that I figured all of this out,” Scarlett said with a pointed look.

“No. I am… I think you are the only one whocouldfigure all of this out, Love,” he replied, looking over his shoulder at her notes and the books scattered about the table.

“I need to figure out who the other Lords are that are here, but first, I need you to tell me about the meeting the day I saw the Oracle,” Scarlett said, gently taking the spell book from Sorin’s hands. With a thought, her shadow panther had reappeared and taken it to whatever pocket between the worlds it kept it in. “I saw reports on the table after you had all come back here, and I was still with Talwyn. Ashtine reported the mortals are moving forces around.”

“She did, particularly near the borders of the Western Courts,” Sorin said grimly.

“How many?”

“She did not know for sure.”

Scarlett grew quiet, contemplating.

“How do you plan to figure out who the other Lords are?” Sorin asked as he pored over her notes and translations.

Here we go, Scarlett thought, bracing herself for his reaction.

“I’m going to go and ask Mikale.”

CHAPTER 56