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Creon seemed to know exactly where to go, a small bay at the south side of the island. As we descended towards the shore, his wingspan cast a deep shadow over the rippling waves. Alyra skipped ahead of us, and a few birdsongs answered her call from behind the treeline – but no other living soul showed up to greet us, or even just to chase us away.

As soon as we touched down on the beach, Creon put me on my feet and stepped away from me. He’d gone cold again, no trace of lust or laughter remaining in the haughty lines of his face, a stranger to the lingering yearning below my skin. Which I should have expected, of course … And yet I had to press away a sting of disappointment, the stark contrast to the male I knew and loved almost physically painful.

Soon. I sucked in a breath as I repeated that promise to myself – I’d tell them soon. This was just not the moment.

Scraping myself together, I kicked off my soaked boots and wriggled my toes in the soft, sun-baked sand. ‘I suppose they’ll come to us if they feel the need to?’

Creon nodded slowly, scanning the woods.I can sense a few of them near, but they’re waiting for something. Doubt we’ll make them happy by walking in without invitation.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ I said and grimaced. ‘Let’s just wait, then. Alyra, how about we get you a nice seat on my shoulder in the meantime?’

She seemed particularly excited about that suggestion, which I suspected was for a large part due to the fact that I had not offered Creon a cosy shoulder patch to settle on.

My yellow magic turned out to work just fine as long as I didn’t try to make changes in surface texture. With a few quick experiments, I managed to create a thicker, sturdier layer of fabric on the shoulder of my dress, where Alyra could perch without piercing my skin with her tiny claws. She practised her balance in that new spot for about three whole heartbeats before shooting off again to explore a bunch of brightly coloured flowers.

We waited in silence after that. Puffy clouds slid by in the bright blue sky. The surf crashed into the pearly beach again and again. Creon sauntered back and forth over the stretch of sand, absently twirling a knife between his fingers, and I stared at the foliage and prayed someone would show up before nightfall.

No matter how quiet the island, I didn’t hear Helenka approach until the moment she strode out from the veil of dangling vines and flowers.

The queen of Tolya gave the impression she was no longer quite sure how to deal with us and had decided civil hostility would be her safest bet. She marched onto the beach with her chin up high and her lips pressed into the displeased scowl of a lady who has spotted a hair in her food but is too polite to mention it to her hosts; her red hair had been tamed into smooth waves, but her hands with their curved, black nails were still clenched with suppressed rage. Her emerald eyes flitted from Creon’s bloodied figure to my salt-stained dress, finally coming to rest on my face.

‘Well?’ she said coldly.

I should probably have curtsied, or something to that effect. I was too tired and too fed up to care. Straightening my spine, I smiled and said, ‘I’m happy to report the Sun fleet will no longer be an issue.’

She stared at me for a solid five heartbeats. I stared back, unblinking and unflinching. I’d faced an entire damn army, for the gods’ sakes; I’d be damned if I let a single nymph queen – horned and clawed as she may be – get under my skin.

‘I see,’ she finally said, in that low, melodious voice. ‘And why, exactly, did you return to this island despite my obvious request never to show your faces here again?’

Because she wasn’t my sovereign and her requests meant about as much to me as a bag of dry earth. I decided to diplomatically swallow that point.

‘My friends are still on Tolya,’ I said instead, emphasising the wordfriends, just in case she was planning to tell me Lyn and Tared didn’t care where I went next. ‘We’re exhausted and in dire need of a bed, and I hoped endangering our own lives in order to save those of your people might be reason to reconsider your suspicions.’

She huffed, eyes flicking briefly towards Creon as if to assess a threat. ‘I’ve seen more fae trickery than you’ve seen sunrises in your life, girl. Who is to tell me the Silent Death wasn’t in on the scheme with his brothers from the start? That all of this wasn’t simply a ruse to fool us into trusting you and your—’

With a shriek like metal grating against metal, something white-grey and feathery plummeted from the sky.

‘Alyra, no!’ I lunged forward, realising just too late what was happening. If not for Helenka’s quick reflexes, she may have ended up with a falcon beak embedded in the back of her skull. The nymph queen whirled aside in a blur of dark skin and lacy fabrics, and Alyra changed course just in time to avoid crashing into the sand, still squeaking furiously as she surged back up into the sky.

‘Alyra,’ I repeated breathlessly. ‘Stop that. She’s not an enemy. We’re just having a civil disagreement— No,don’t.’

The falcon’s look of hurt pride uncannily resembled Edored’s expression whenever his well-intended offers of bloody murder weren’t taken seriously, but at least she seemed to give up on her determined intention to draw blood. I held out my arm to her, and she landed grumpily on my shoulder, still fluffy with anger.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Creon slowly releasing his black shirt. I didn’t want to think about who he’d have targeted if he’d been forced to intervene – Alyra and her aggression or Helenka and her doubtlessly impressive nymph magic.

‘Apologies,’ I managed to grind out, turning back to Helenka with my heart still hammering in my throat. No sense thinking about what could have happened. ‘Won’t happen again. Remind me – what were you saying?’

Two steps away from the first trees, the queen of Tolya had gone silent.

The fury had melted from her face. Her claw-like hands had fallen to her sides. Only her strange, pupil-less eyes moved, shooting from Alyra to me and back to Alyra, growing wider with every turn. She didn’t appear to have heard me. Really, she didn’t appear to have taken note of anything but the ease with which my familiar had settled on my shoulder and stayed there.

‘That … that’s impossible,’ she finally breathed, her dazed laugh not as confident as her words. Her voice had abruptly gone husky. ‘What did you do to that poor bird, girl? What ungodly magic did you use to make it—’

Alyra let out an indignant screech.

‘You’re talking about my familiar, I presume?’ I politely suggested.

On the edge of my sight, Creon bit back an unexpected grin.