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‘I was just taking a walk,’ Naxi protested again, sounding rather feebler in the face of several sceptical-looking friends. Her feet gave up on kicking, sagging to dangle just above the floor. ‘Just … just stretching my legs.’

‘In the old cell block,’ Edored helpfully added.

‘And then what?’ she grumbled and sniffed furiously. ‘There are no rules against that, are there?’

‘Not at all,’ Lyn said, lips trembling as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. ‘Thereareseveral rules against helping prisoners escape this place, though.’

‘And rules against giving prisoners any information they shouldn’t be having,’ Tared added; the look the two of them exchanged told me that whatever they had fought about in the past few days, this at least was a topic on which they agreed completely and wholeheartedly. ‘And against making deals with prisoners on behalf of the Alliance. And …’

‘Basically,’ Lyn said, turning back to Naxi, ‘we were trying to do you a favour, sparing you the temptation of accidentally breaking those.’

Naxi scoffed, glaring at them like a ruffled pink rag doll against Edored’s chest. ‘Why in hell would I free her? She can’t run from me here.’

‘Oddly,’ Lyn said with a helpless laugh, ‘I’m not fully reassured by that supremely romantic sentiment. Let’s see in a few days. And I think you can put her down, Edored darling.’

The alf did, unceremoniously planting his catch back on her feet. Naxi huffed, pulled her dress back into place, and stamped to the nearest empty chair without another word, looking not unlike a child denied her third sweet of the day – a sight that would have been more amusing if I hadn’t known she could best most of us with little more than a flick of her fingers.

Edored crashed into the chair next to Nenya, beaming at her with all the unhinged cheer of a particularly loyal sheepdog. ‘Did I tell you you’re looking better, Nen?’

‘Only about six times today,’ she said tersely, her glare at him not entirely convincing. ‘Thank you, though. Let’s get back to the far more sensible topic Lyn was trying to discuss – how in the world we’re going to handle the phoenix elders.’

Every sign of amusement abruptly melted from Lyn’s freckled face. ‘Yes. Please.’

I couldn’t help but steal a glance at that bright red figurine again, sitting ominously on the isle of Phurys, just north of the Golden Court. On the other side of the table, Tared was glaring daggers at the same little piece of wood.

Nenya tapped a long red nail against her lips. ‘So has anyone come up with another idea, if we’re not going to give them the bargain they’re looking for?’

‘We could just kill them,’ Edored said brightly.

‘They’ll come back to life, Edored sweetling,’ Lyn muttered, rubbing her eyes so dejectedly that I could only agree with the storm gathering in Tared’s expression. ‘And I doubt it will soften their opinion of us if we force them into children’s bodies again. If we’re unlucky, they’ll decide to run straight to the Mother and support her instead.’

I blinked. ‘You really think they would do that?’

She was quiet for just a moment too long. Next to her, Tared’s face was tight in all the wrong ways – no doubt to be found in his scowl, and that worried me more than even the desperate gleam in Lyn’s amber eyes.

Run straight to the Mother. Even in this world of wolves against wolves, even with allies who drank every drop of blood from my friends’ veins and welcomed me onto their islands only after divine intervention, I had been under the naïve impression that at least we all shared the same deep-seated hate of the fae empire we were forced to serve. Had even that been too optimistic a thought?

‘The problem,’ Lyn said, her voice too young and too small, ‘is that they really, really don’t like to take risks, and they are really, really desperate at this point. You need to keep in mind there were never that many of us in the first place. After the wars and over a century without children, there are just about a few thousand phoenixes left. We’re closer to extinction than any other people in the archipelago, and the elders know it.’

That was a perspective I hadn't yet considered. After all those winters of seeing a whole village nearly starve to death, I hated how easily I made sense of it – how easily I understood.

Then again, I doubted the average alf house would ever side with the Mother even if they were down to the last five of their kind.

‘And you really think they would ally with her for that reason?’ I said, a brand new nervousness stirring in my guts. ‘Despite the fact thatshe’sthe one who brought them to the point of extinction in the first place?’

‘It’s not that they’re terrible people,’ she said in a thin voice, then glared at Tared when he scoffed. ‘They just prefer to be thorough and certain about things.’

‘Insufferable nitpickers,’ Tared translated.

She threw him another glower. ‘They like rules. They like knowing what they’re in for. They really, really like structure and composure and … and …serenity. So wars are hardly their cup of tea, and wars they might lose even less so.’

‘Cowards,’ Tared muttered, grinning at her when she once again sent him a withering look.

Bits and pieces fell into place – the sudden smallness of her otherwise dazzling presence whenever Phurys was mentioned, the depth of the anger in Tared’s voice when he’d spoken about them yesterday.Composure and serenity. Not the right place for a phoenix with a flaring temper and a heart that felt so, so much. Not a home where anyone would have appreciated her for being … her.

No wonder she had so easily understood the weight on my shoulders.

‘So,’ I started cautiously, fingers itching, ‘if someone were to burst into their meetings without an invitation and shout at them a little, that would be … frowned upon?’