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“For the stone?” I asked. “Buis is closer.” I was glad the conversation was steering away from Eudoria. I didn’t want to think about Eudoria.

Kalcedon lifted his cup to his mouth. “Doubt you can see the phrasings on the Buis stone, though.” His voice was nonchalant, but his eyes watched me closely.

If I were taking a drink, I would have spat it out. If I were holding something, I would have dropped it. I half-collapsed forward, slapping my newly-healed hands down on the table and gaping at Kalcedon.

“What?”

“I scryed it,” he said. “I couldn’t get close, but there were marks on the inside. The stone’s cracked open.”

It would be difficult to hold a scrying spell next to one of the stones, where magic stood on edge and yearned for the obliterating Ward, where there were few watching eyes to ease the spell’s path.

“You saw the phrasing?”

“Mhm,” he said. He smiled and took a sip of his drink.

“The Ward phrasing? Tarelay’s phrasing?” I felt myself getting too loud, the kind of loud that always got me bad looks, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Obviously.”

“Obviously? Obviously?” I stood up, knocking back the bench, and grabbed two fistfuls of my own hair. To see the sigils that constructed the great Ward, the secret that the faerie Tarelay had crafted to keep his human lover safe from the Sorrowing Lord… I would have paid any price to take a look.

Well. Perhaps not any price. I exhaled through pursed lips as the initial jolt of excitement crashed into my wall of grief.

“Not that it matters. Nobody could possibly read it,” Kalcedon said.

“Just because you can’t.”

But how had the stone broken? That couldn’t have been good.

“Finish your food,” Kalcedon said. “I’m not wasting any more money on you.”

I shoved the remaining bread into my mouth.

Chapter 17

The Colynes tal-rih rested at the far end of the port. We shouldered our way through crowds so busy they hardly noticed Kalcedon’s fae looks, with his hood pulled low and his cloak wrapped tight around him.

He paused when we reached the end, and stared at the ship waiting for us there, with its green flag and its spiked prow.

“This is a Colynes warship.”

“I know,” I told him, and kept walking.

He grabbed my shoulder. “What in horns are you doing?”

“A favor. It won’t take long.”

The long pier was busy even though its only occupant was the tal-rih deep in the bay. A full cohort of Nameless lounged aimlessly between the rest of the port and the pier, a casual warning against violence. They did not stop us as we passed. Closer to the ship’s gangway, a Cachian councilor, flanked by two more Nameless, argued with a decorated Colynes sailor while other Colynes waited behind. I’d never seen their tasseled green coats in real life.

I strode towards the two arguing figures, barely hearing the snippets of not our jurisdiction and under your guard, of course it’s your—. I was too busy rehearsing the words in my head.

When I’d drawn within eight feet one of the Nameless attending the councilor stepped forward.

“You will wait,” she said, her voice thickly accented.

“I need to go through.”

“Turn around, tiffa.” She angled her spear to block my way, resting the iron blade a foot from my throat.