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She abruptly stopped talking, then nodded, lips tight. Her signs were even slower, and half of them got a finger position or direction wrong – but the general message was clear enough.I couldn’t get through with you. Can’t get you any more soft things this way.

My thoughts were whirling so fast that the fear had no time to catch on. No way for her to join me. No way for her to provide me with more magic fuel. And meanwhile, Thysandra was forcing the people I loved to surrender to her armed forces – bringing them closer to the Crimson Court with every minute I wasted here.

I’m on my way, I signed, stepping back.Hide near the others. I’ll let you know when I’m done.

And without waiting for her answer, I turned and ran – Alyra on my shoulder, heart in my throat, and the survival of the magical world once again pressing on my every step.

In the dark, it was hard to see where my legs were moving. I stumbled over granite rubble, got my feet tangled in vines thick as ropes, bashed my knee against a broken fountain so hard I had to bite my lip to tatters not to scream. Alyra flew ahead of me most of the time, her bright plumage a beacon in the night, but even her guidance couldn’t save me from a nasty fall or two.

I didn’t slow down, damn the scrapes burning on my shins and knees. The image of those rows of torches had scorched into my mind’s eye like a white-hot brand; visions of what might be happening to the others played out again and again as I ran, the scenarios more unpleasant at each turn. Creon, handing over his knives. Tared, handing over his sword. Naxi, once again at Thysandra’s mercy – and with dozens of fae to witness the scene, Thysandra wouldn’t let her go a second time …

My foot caught on a block of stone and I lost my balance once again, reflexively bracing myself and rolling over. Sharp pebbles welcomed my bare skin to the ground, and when I pushed back to my feet with gritted teeth, the wet warmth of blood came trickling down my knee.

I’d look at the wounds later. I wasn’t going to risk any blue magic here; in the darkness, the flash of colour might give my presence away.

I half ran, half staggered on. The Cobalt Court loomed over me from so close, its outlines visible by the stars it eclipsed – stumps of towers, broken windows, the once smooth walls pocked and scarred by violence. The silence below the dome was stifling, a silence that smelled of dust and stale water and rot.

This should have been a triumph, I thought bitterly as I avoided a pile of splintered wooden beams, then almost walked face-first into a dead tree – it should have been a moment to savour. At long last, I’d reached the destination I hadn’t even known was there when we set out on this mad quest. The bindings were within my reach, the culmination of months of work.

Yet there was no triumph, no joy or excitement – just the sensation of sand slipping through an hourglass and death waiting as my time ran out.

Would Thysandra have shackled them at this point? Would she try and force Tared to fade all of them to the Crimson Court?

The others would try to stall, wouldn’t they?

Before me, a faint blue glow broke through the darkness. I pivoted and ran towards it; it grew stronger as I crossed the distance. A skewed doorway gaped in the granite wall, wooden door ajar and rotting off its hinges. Behind it …

I staggered to a halt, unable to hold back my gasp.

The bindings.

Here they lay, mere steps away from my eager hands … and once again, we had underestimated the Mother’s malicious genius.

Wooden shelves stretched into the darkness, like bookcases in some twisted library of souls. Narrow aisle after narrow aisle filled the vaulted hall of the Cobalt Court, a room so expansive I couldn’t see the back wall from where I stood. And on those endless shelves, glowing blue and silver like stars on a winter night, lay thousands upon thousands of flawless crystal spheres.

Hollowspheres.

The Mother had known as well as I did how catastrophic it would be for the bindings to be destroyed.

And so, in a decision so cruelly self-evident I should have seen it coming, she’d made them as fragile as possible.

Chapter 35

Iwasholdingmybreath as I took my first steps into the grand hall of the Cobalt Court, afraid that even a violent sigh would be enough to shatter the delicate crystal around me. Alyra landed cautiously on my shoulder, peering around for a pair of eyes to set her claws into.

No one showed up to fight us. Yet.

It wasn’t just this room, I realised. To my right, another low doorway led away from this first archive of bindings, the blue light evidence that even more shelves would be waiting for me in the next hall. The gods knew how many of these rooms there were –hundreds of thousands of people, Agenor had said, and I felt myself getting a little light-headed as I tried to do the maths. If I had to search every aisle in every room for my fae opponent, I might still be wandering around these ruins by the time Thysandra had already presented her captives to the Mother.

Alyra rubbed the side of her small head against my cheek – comfort as much as a proposal.

‘Be very careful,’ I breathed, barely more than mouthing the words. ‘We don’t want to alarm them. Or break any bindings.’

She hopped onto the ground and rolled her eyes at me.

‘Alright, alright.’ I forced a smile. ‘I’ll wait here.’

With an inaudible whoosh, she twirled off, climbing slowly to the height of the upper shelves. Once there, she began exploring the room in greater and greater circles, slowly and meticulously to make sure not a single aisle would escape her attention. Every time she dipped from my view, my heart would stutter to a standstill for a moment, then pound on as she returned to the vaulted space above the endless cabinets – still safe, still unnoticed.