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I see red, getting the urge to growl just like Jasand did a minute ago. That’s my naminai he’s talking about, my soulmate, mine. If he thinks I’ll sit by and listen to him insult Ruskin like that, he’s about to learn otherwise. I stand and step right up to Turis, glaring into his face.

“What did you just call him?” I ask. I lift my pewter flagon, and it crumples inwards, the metal collapsing like it’s a piece of parchment crushed in my fist. I slam it down into the table beside him.

Turis’s expression stays neutral, but I see Hartflood and Brianne’s eyes widen.

Climent sneers. “I think you heard him correctly.”

“We don’t mince our words here, Lady Thorn, and while your prince might be half Unseelie, he is undeniably contaminated by his mother’s blood.” Turis shakes his head. “He even carries her name.”

“Because the High Queen outranked Prince Lucan,” Jasand says, making it sound like Turis is a moron who simply doesn’t understand this fact. “If you think about it very hard, Lord Turis, I’m sure even you might recall that’s how every marriage has worked since we had royal heirs to marry off.”

“Even tradition can be wrong,” Turis shoots back.

I shake my head, not interested in debating rank and status like this. I suspect that underneath it all, people like Turis and his friends only understand one thing: power, and who has it.

“That’s a nice belt you have there, Lord Turis,” I say lightly, putting one hand on the table and leaning over him. “What’s that buckle—gold? You know, I’ve been known to do very interesting things with gold. I once decapitated a snake with nothing more than a small ring of the stuff,” I make a circle with my thumb and forefinger. “Sliced it straight through, just like that.” I pull the fingers in tight, making a fist and giving the buckle the slightest tug with my magic—not enough to do damage, just enough to make it clear that I could.

Turis’s lip curls, but his hand goes to his belt, and I can’t help smile at the way it hovers protectively over his groin area. “You can try it, Lady Thorn,” he says, spitting out my title in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t think I’m a lady at all. “Then we’ll have our proof that your prince’s naminai is just as feral as he is. Tell me, does he actively encourage you to go around attacking your hosts, or has it just rubbed off on you? I don’t know how they do it in that ditch you crawled out of, but in these lands, we put rabid animals down.”

So that’s why they’re here. They didn’t want to pick a fight with my team, they wanted to pick a fight with me.

Turis is so confident I’ll snap, so used to people not backing down, that he’s not even bothering to be subtle about it, but I can tell that it’s still important to him that I make the first move. Maybe he plans to use it to argue that I’m not fit for the council, that Ruskin and I are no friends of the Unseelie. Just like whoever planted the moon orb intended. I stare at Turis. I want so badly to use that belt buckle to shut him up, but I refuse to play his game.

I take a step back and avert my gaze, letting Turis win the confrontation in a way most Unseelie would find impossible. He’d hoped it would be the same for me. I can see the way his eyes tighten with frustration as I just sit back down at my table.

“That’s what I thought,” he says, though he doesn’t sound happy about it. “Come, my friends, let’s find somewhere else to drink.” He nods at his teammates. “It’s clear the clientele here isn’t up to our standards.” The group exchange looks, but down their drinks and rise to their feet. I watch them as they saunter away, promising myself Turis will get what he deserves eventually. All the same, I still feel sour about letting him think he’s won.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Elias says after they’ve gone, reading my expression. “If you know Turis, you also know that exit was his version of leaving with his tail between his legs.”

I smile at him, grateful—not to mention pleased that it wasn’t just obvious to me that Turis came after me looking for a fight, and that he lost when I didn’t give him one. Still, the whole encounter has gotten me thinking, and I wonder if I’m missing an opportunity by staying here.

I touch my tankard, uncrumpling it so it goes back to its original shape, and pull my cloak off the back of my chair.

“You’re not going after them, are you?” Pyromey asks, sounding wary.

“No, they’re not worth it. I just think I should go cool off,” I say with a smile. “That ale’s going to my head.”

Jasand pouts. “Shame. I thought you were going to go and challenge them. I could’ve sold tickets. Stars knows that Turis needs a kick up the behind—and I’m not the only one who’d like to see it.”

“Don’t encourage her,” says Elias, looking amused. “With her powers I’m sure she could.”

I nod at him, pleased that our disagreement about the war doesn’t seem to have tainted the team’s goodwill towards me after our win.

“Thank you for inviting me,” I say, and then laugh at myself, because it seems an incongruous thing to say to such a fierce-looking band. But the team happily raises their flagons to me as I duck out of the bar.

Turis and his teammates are already out of sight. I need to be quick. I lied to Pyromey—I am going after them, but not in the way she thinks. I focus on my magic right away, stilling my inner pool to locate Turis’s belt buckle. It’s fortunate I’ve touched it with my magic already, otherwise it would be too difficult to track. As it is, I have a taste for the metal’s signature, and it’s possible to search for it down the streets.

There.

I take a right, following the direction my magic pulls me.

Chapter 13

Ineed to keep an eye on Turis and his associates. Something is going on with them. Something I need to get to the bottom of.

Something that has to do with the way he talked about the death of Ruskin’s father, to start with.

I’ve fallen foul of not paying close enough attention to the exact words someone uses in this realm. The Unseelie might claim to be more direct and straightforward than the Seelie, but they still have the same trick of talking around something to mislead without actually lying. So it nags at me that Turis never actually said the Seelie killed Prince Lucan. Why wouldn’t he, if that’s what he believed? It might be nothing, but I’ve learned not to ignore the danger signals my gut sends me. It’s usually right, and ignoring it is akin to just waiting around for my enemies to attack.