Page 5

My limbs launched me away from Creon before my mind had caught up, my familiar’s alarm hitting me as intuitively as any of her thoughts. Next to me, Creon somehow managed to look lethally elegant as he shot up and buttoned his trousers in the blink of an eye, glazed expression sharpening into a narrow-eyed threat that even his unbuttoned shirt and sand-covered wings couldn’t spoil.

The last of my arousal faded as Alyra’s shrill chirping continued. Wherewasshe?

Half a heartbeat could be a very long time – more than enough to imagine a host of disastrous possibilities, each of them more alarming than the last. Had more fae shown up in Thysandra’swake? Had the Mother herself appeared on the island? Had she realised how dangerous it would be for us to know the locations of the bindings and razed the whole of the Cobalt Court to the ground, destroying each crystal orb in the process? I dug my fingers deeper into the coarse sand, searching frantically for a glimpse of white feathers –there, bursting from the darkness and into the silver light of the moon …

At the same moment, a streak of fire soared across the cliffs.

An attack? Hell, acomet? And only then did I recognise those fiery butterfly wings, flames licking hungrily at the night air around her.

Lyn.

I sagged into the sand, heart hammering against my ribs. Alyra landed beside me an instant later, squeaking incessantly and glaring at Creon with obvious accusation in her beady eyes.Do you have any idea, that look said,how long I’ve been flying around looking for you, you oversized bloody bat?

‘Never mind that now,’ I sharply told her, hoping the hoarseness of my voice sounded like worry and not like my mouth had been full of fae prince a moment ago. I could still taste him with every word I spoke. ‘What is the matter?’

She didn’t seem to be entirely sure, or at least, no coherent explanation found me through her thoughts. People had needed me. People had been worried.Lynhad been worried, most of all, and since she was small and winged and therefore sensible, Alyra had taken her alarm to heart and set out to find me.

‘For the bloody gods’ sakes,’ I muttered, jumping to my feet. ‘Lyn!’

The comet-like streak of fire bent our way.

She landed some twenty feet away, wings sizzling out behind her shoulders as she hurried towards us. A new flame flared up in her open palm, shrouding her round, freckled face in a goldenglow and illuminating the sand and rocks of the little bay. ‘Oh, thank Inika’s bloody heart –hereyou are.’

‘What is it?’ I threw a glance at Creon, who hadn't moved from where he sat – left hand in the black sand, right hand loosely on his knee, ready to unleash hell on whatever danger showed its face. In the light of Lyn’s phoenix fire, his eyes glowed with inhuman intensity. ‘Is anyone in danger?’

‘Oh, no, no,’ she hurried to say, wiping red curls from her eyes with her free hand. ‘No one but my sanity, that is. How’s the voice?’

Creon grimaced but managed a mostly intelligible, ‘Rusty.’

She winced. ‘Oh, good gods. Go look for some cough syrup once we’re back in the Underground, will you?’

He gave her a half-shrug, half-nod – that gesture that said he theoretically agreed with her on the necessity of the medicine but wasn’t yet sure whether his pride would survive having to ask for some alf healer’s help. She rolled her eyes at him, then glanced at me and added, ‘Make sure he does, please.’

‘Of course,’ I said, forcing a small grin at Creon’s indignant huff.

‘Good.’ She plopped down beside us with a muffled grumble, tucking a stubborn curl behind her ear again. ‘Alright. Where do I start?’

My pulse was slowly coming down in absence of any screaming panic on her side. In its place, the first slivers of annoyance were rising. Gods be damned, I didn’twantto talk about cough syrup and trouble right now, didn’t want to worry about anyone’s sanity for the rest of the night. Was it really too much to ask for the world to leave us alone for a couple of hours, after days of battles and meetings with goddesses?

But this was Lyn, not some alf trying to cause trouble. And since most of my friends were currently not even talking tome, I should probably take care to keep the last few exceptions around.

So I swallowed my frustration, pulled on as polite a face as I felt capable of, and said, ‘Did anything happen after we, um, left?’

‘Beyla started relocating corpses to remove all traces of the fight. The rest of us took Thysandra to the Underground.’ She scoffed, tossing her handful of fire into the sand. It merrily continued to burn there without any fuel. ‘Which meant we had to explain where we found her. Which meant we had to explain that we found a castle full of bindings, which means people currently havequestions. Of the rather hysterical kind.’

Of course they had. I didn’t even need to close my eyes to envision it, the excitable masses of nymphs and alves and vampires below, clamouring for news and answers. Much as I was in the mood to loathe them for it, I couldn’t even truly blame them. It was the survival of their kind on the line, after all.

Next to me, Creon had gone icily still – as if the mention of the bindings alone had been a declaration of war.

‘So you want to give them some answers?’ I said.

‘Yes, and I wish that was all of it.’ There was an apology in Lyn’s amber eyes as she hesitated, her gaze shooting back and forth between the two of us. ‘Someone apparently told the Alliance about the last message the phoenix elders sent us. People were shouting about that issue as much as about the bindings.’

It took me a moment to remember.

Zera’s temple. Agenor’s letter.They told me they will reconsider their decision not to join if and only if Em makes a bargain to never exchange a word with him again…

For fuck’s sake. Life had been so much easier while I could pretend forgetting about it would be enough to solve that problem.