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Hardly unexpected: if every single soul in the Underground was running around preparing for battle, I should have known Naxi would not be lounging in her bed waiting for me. Still, I had to bite away a curse or two as I trudged back to the central hall of the Underground, fielding apprehensive glances at every corner I rounded.

Several desks had been set up where the circle of mismatched chairs had stood last night. Alves faded back and forth at dizzying speed, like fireflies blinking in and out of sight; bent over the tables, a handful of Agenor’s fae furiously scribbled down their messages, shouting instructions at others to move or add wooden models on the chalk map. It took a while before I caught sight of Agenor himself. Deep in conversation withDoralis and a bedraggled Thorir, he didn’t give the impression he had much time to join the search for wayward demons.

I asked a few other nymphs instead. None of them had seen Naxi since last night, not even after she’d left the Wanderer’s Wing with us.

Unhappy suspicions were starting to solidify in my mind.

I slipped out of the hall without drawing too much attention to myself, insofar as it was possible for me to ever be inconspicuous – but at least no one came after me and no one asked why I was slipping away in the direction of Etele’s quarter. After a handful of wrong turns and detours, I managed to retrace the path we’d walked a few days ago on our return from Thysandra’s cell. Past the rows of sombre vampire front doors, past the training halls and washing rooms …

Into that grim, sickly-lit corridor with its alf steel-plated doors.

Where a small, dishevelled heap of pink skirts and fuzzy wool lay curled up against the stark white walls, face hidden behind a tangle of blonde and pink curls.

Fuck.

‘Naxi?’ My voice echoed as I hurried into that deserted corridor, towards her crumpled form. ‘Naxi, are you alright? Did anyone—’

She shot up with a shriek, staring at me with bewildered, red-rimmed eyes.

‘Oh, thank the gods,’ I blurted, staggering to a standstill. My heart was pummelling my ribs. ‘You were just sleeping? You’re not sick or wounded or—’

‘Who in hell would wound me?’ she grumbled, and then she burst out crying.

It was no pretty crying – no civil, elegant shedding of tears, the way a well-bred girl might show her sorrow after a lover’s quarrel. This was ugly, snotty, and raw. Gut-wrenching sobsshook her entire lithe body with an intensity that made me flinch; she curled back up on the floor, buried her face in her ruined scarf, and bawled like she’d been at this for hours and might continue for just as long again if no one stopped her.

Against the harsh backdrop of those cell doors, she looked small and frail and pitiable. Had anyone told me this was one of the Underground’s deadliest allies now, I might have laughed in their face.

‘Um,’ I said, wits and good sense abandoning me as I stood there and stared at her. Would it be dangerous to pat her on the shoulder in this state? ‘Naxi …’

‘She’s here, isn’t she?’ she sobbed, barely intelligible through the scarf. ‘I canfeelher – Iknowshe’s here …’

Oh, Zera help me.

‘Um,’ I said again, thoughts rapidly adjusting. This was hardly the rational situation in which I’d hoped to find her – but damn it, I’d make do with it somehow. ‘Well—’

‘Oh, I know,’ she blubbered, jerking up to glare at me with bloodshot blue eyes. ‘Iknow. You can’t tell me and I might kill you all if I knew and—’

‘Wouldyou kill us all?’ I cautiously interrupted, which seemed a relevant question to start with.

She furiously wiped her nose with a slip of her skirt. ‘Not very likely. I still need you to get rid of the Mother.’

Lyn and Tared’s reserve started making more sense to me by the heartbeat.

‘Well, that is extremely reassuring,’ I said wryly, sinking down on the floor next to her. The alf steel was icily cold against my back. ‘And if the Mother were to be dead already?’

‘It’s not that Iwantto kill anyone,’ she grumbled, sounding like a disgruntled child denied a second helping of dessert. ‘I’m not a monster. It’s just that you’re all being extremely unhelpful, and I want … I want …’

‘Thysandra?’ I suggested.

She uttered another plaintive wail, sagging against the wall with closed eyes as if the name alone was too much for her heart to bear.

She knows what she wants, Creon had said; the trouble wasIstill wasn’t fully sure what in the world Naxi wanted, and making blind deals with demons sounded about as unwise as making blind deals with fae. I tucked my knees into my chest, lowered my chin onto them, and said, ‘Why her?’

Naxi’s eyes flew open. ‘What?’

‘Why Thysandra?’ As light as I kept my voice, I made sure to let my left hand rest on the indigo surface of my dress – ready to draw red the moment I needed it. I had no ambitions to get killed by a volatile demon in some shadowy corner of the Underground, and that hysterical gleam in her eyes suggested she might be closer to an accident than both of us appreciated. ‘It’s been almost a century and a half. So what about her makes it worth thirteen decades of pining, exactly?’

Her lips curled as if to bite out some blistering retort, then faltered – a flicker of vulnerability crossing her face as she blinked at me and slowly let go of the breath she’d drawn so brusquely. The violent fury sunk from her eyes bit by bit. As if she’d woken from a nightmare, dazed and disoriented, but now finally recognised me again, remembered who she was and what she was doing here.