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His amusement evaporated. Only then did I recall why the name of the island had sounded so familiar to me – Valeska had mentioned it the day before our departure, the place where Creon had sliced a nymph queen to pieces a few decades ago.

Another complication everyone but me must have been aware of. But his only reaction was a curt,How long do we have?

‘Not long.’

He nodded and swept around, following me to the temple home.

Naxi’s shrill voice reached us before we’d stepped through the front door, half tirade, half plea. ‘But wedoneed more people, and if Thorir can’t get them …’

I turned to Creon to ask if he knew more about the nymphs she called her family, but he was already striding through the kitchen door ahead of me, hands in his pockets and face an unreadable mask. The conversation on the other side of the wall abruptly dried up at his entrance, leaving a silence broken only by Naxi’s rapid breathing.

‘Ah,’ Lyn said coolly as I hurried after him. ‘I see you’ve been found.’

At least she wasn’t giving off smoke anymore, sitting on the edge of the dinner table with her legs dangling over the edge. But Tared stood beside her with that edge of steel in his eyes, and Beyla’s hand had wandered to Sunray’s hilt, an unmistakable warning.

Creon merely shrugged and signed,Plans?

No apologies, but at least there were no stinging remarks either. Perhaps he had listened last night. I quietly relaxed my right hand but didn’t take my left from my black dress yet: in a conversation where every other word could be a declaration of war, I needed to be ready to draw red at anyone who dared to unsheathe a weapon.

‘Theyneedour help,’ Naxi blurted before anyone could respond. Her voice was an octave too high. ‘Even if you don’t care that much about their lives, the rest of the archipelago will be looking at—’

‘We know, Naxi.’ I wasn’t sure how much of the tightness in Lyn’s voice was a consequence of the news Edored had brought and how much of it had to do with Creon’s presence and the memory of his blade against Tared’s throat. ‘The problem is …’

‘We might not be done in a day,’ Tared grimly finished. ‘Yes.’

The consequences of that point hung meaningful and ominous in the air for a moment.

Ten days at most, we had said when we left; any longer, and we would be wasting valuable time that we needed to prepare for war. But war had caught up with us long before that self-imposed limit, and if we left now to face it …

Would we ever have time to come back?

One battle could spark another, and another, and another. For all we knew, we’d leave the serene silence of Zera’s temple and step straight into years of warfare, day after day of nothing but survival, the secret of the bindings forever beyond our reach.

And with them, Creon’s voice.

‘We could split up,’ Lyn said slowly, her eyes shooting around the circle of clenched jaws and hunched shoulders. ‘If there’s still any chance we’ll find Zera, Em and Creon could stay here while the rest of us—’

‘No!’ Naxi burst out, jolting up her head so that her blonde and pink curls cascaded over her back and shoulders. Her eyes latched onto Creon’s motionless silhouette. ‘No, please! We need your magic! We need every bit of magic we can get!’

Pretty sure most Tolyi would rather die than allow me on their island ever again, Creon signed, to all appearances entirely unmoved by both her despair and the memory of the nymph queen who’d died under his knife.You won’t win any hearts by bringing me along.

‘I don’t give a damn about winning hearts!’ She staggered two steps towards him, wringing her hands like a desperate fisherman’s wife staring out over an empty sea. ‘Please.Please. You can’t let this happen again. You can’t …’

She fell quiet, staring up at him with wide-open eyes, breathing in little squeaks; I all but expected her to cling to his leg if he refused. Creon didn’t even blink as he shifted his gaze to the other side of the room.

Tared merely raised an eyebrow back at him, as if none of last day’s ugly scene had happened at all. ‘We can’t afford to lose Tolya.’And if the price is pissing off a few nymphs, his undertone said,or if I have to stand the sight of your face for a few more hours, so be it.

I braced myself for Creon’s reaction, for the jab that would have followed any other day. But he shrugged and turned back to me without a word, the slight tilt of his head an elaborate question.

What did I think?

Was I going to fight with the others, or would I stay here to continue our search?

And at once the heavy burden of choices was back, pressing on my shoulders with the weight of the world itself.What do you want?Creon would listen to whatever my preferences were. If I went to fight, he would never let me go alone. If I decided to stay here and look for Zera until we’d found her or eliminated every last clue, he would likely be happy enough not to confront an island full of nymphs who despised him.

But if we stayed, the others might lose whatever battle was waiting for them. The Tolya nymphs might die, or at least see some of their sacred trees destroyed.

And the rest of the world would know the Alliance hadn't done everything to protect them.