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Inika’s quarter was a little less interested in our every step than the rest of the Underground, although I suspected it was mostly because Agenor’s people had better things to do than worry about his unmanageable daughter. They hurried around with characteristic quiet discipline wherever we went, some half-dressed or unarmed due to the rush in which they’d left, clutching the bags that had waited packed beside their doors for weeks. Even so, their hasty conversations fell silent more often than not whenever we stepped around the corner, and their wary glances were divided fairly equally between Creon and me.

Too small.

I gritted my teeth against that thought. Somehow, Iwouldfind a way to show them I was still human – still capable of feeling small and scared and lost.

It was a relief to finally reach the bright red door near the fields and slip into the library, where few people had bothered to show up on this morning of unrest and upheaval. We passed the empty reading tables and the equally deserted aisles in silence. The rune-covered door to the Wanderer’s Wing looked familiar as always, yet I hesitated to step through it – other friends might be inside, Nenya and Cas and Thorir, and what if they would look at me with that same sickening mixture of caution and awe, that look one might aim at a particularly well-forged sword or a legendarily deadly poison?

‘Cactus,’ Creon muttered behind me, and somehow that one little word said all I needed to hear. No declawing myself. Let me be prickly and deadly and difficult – it wouldn’t matter, anyway.

Not to him.

Not to me.

I pushed open the door and strode into the almost-sunlight without allowing myself another thought.

The room hadn't changed, the sight of the faded maps on the walls and the golden alf light of the fields an unexpectedreassurance after all the time we’d spent traipsing through unknown territory. Tared and Lyn were standing by the bookshelves, discussing something in hushed tones – no trace of last night’s fight to be seen, their rapid exchange as congenial as always. The only other person present, sitting at the table, was Nenya, whose scarred face was an impeccable mask of boredom as she studied her crimson nails and waited.

‘Oh, there you are.’ Her low, husky voice betrayed little feeling save for a mild irritation at our tardiness, although the way her eyes slid back and forth between the two of us was proof enough that either Tared or Edored must have told her everything. Still, the only comment that followed was, ‘I suppose that bird is yours, Emelin?’

Before I could answer, an urgent, excited chirping rose from the fields outside – a sound I recognised intuitively, and not just because I’d known she’d be here, or because there was no other bird to be found in the Underground.

‘I think it would be more accurate to say I’m hers,’ I said, hurrying to the open arches. Out there, over the endless rows of carrots and cabbages, Alyra was darting back and forth in the alf light that flooded the cave, her feathers a golden white in those unnatural sunrays. She let out a joyous trill the moment she saw me, raced one swift round towards me by way of greeting, then soared away towards the outer ring of water again. ‘She’s not in anyone’s way, is she?’

Nenya huffed a laugh, shaking her long, braided hair over her shoulders. ‘She’s in myears, Emelin.’

The chirping grew illustratively louder.

‘I wouldn’t complain about that too much if you value the good health of your eyes and ears,’ I said and threw her a bright smile before turning back to the faraway shrieks of my familiar. ‘Those talons are pretty sharp.’

She let out a groan. ‘What is it with you and murderous things?’

‘Thanks, I suppose,’ Creon said dryly.

Even Tared let out a chuckle behind me – unwillingly, perhaps, but that only sweetened the triumph.

The scraping of chairs told me they were sitting down; Lyn clambered into her seat just as I turned away from the fields. Between them, the round table with its map of the archipelago inlaid in the surface was covered in small wooden figures, painted in blue and yellow and red. Blue figurines on Tolya and the alf isles – confirmed allies. Yellow on Rhudak and most other nymph isles – likely allies.

Red on Phurys.

The phoenixes. No allies so far.

My stomach clenched at the sight of that single red pawn. It seemed to glare back at me as I sat down.

‘Good news first,’ Lyn said on the other side of the table, sounding tired. ‘It looks like all our allies and probable allies will be in the Underground tomorrow night to discuss numbers and strategies. The alves, vampires, and most of the nymph queens have confirmed they’ll be there. The downside of which is obviously that we’ll be in some trouble if we don’t get the phoenixes to be here by that time, too.’

I swallowed. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘We really can’t wait any longer.’ She rubbed both hands over her face, leaving pale streaks below her freckles. ‘Now that the Mother is moving, she may attack anyone at any moment, and people above are understandably getting worried. So—'

Explosively interrupting her mid-sentence, a high, familiar voice burst into the room.

‘… told you I was just taking a walk! There’s nothing illegal about taking a walk! You can’t just drag me away from—’

‘Morning, Naxi,’ Tared wryly interjected without even turning around.

Edored had appeared between the bookcases full of travellers’ journals, clutching a wriggling half demon against his chest. With her shark’s teeth bared and her nails scraping his forearms, Naxi no longer looked all that innocent, pink dress and blonde curls be damned; rather, she resembled a house cat abruptly gone feral.

‘Found her,’ Edored said brightly and rather redundantly.