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THREE

Ruse

“Well, that went just spectacularly,” I said, leaning back against our savior’s kitchen counter.

“Really?” Snap looked toward me with that dopily hopeful expression of his.

Thorn shifted forward in his chair as if debating whether to spring into action right now. “I thought so.”

Unfortunately, my current associates understood sarcasm about as well as they comprehended metaphors. I wiped the lingering bubbles off my hands. The lemony scent made my nose itch, but at least the stuff had entertained Snap for a little while. Not that he was all that difficult to impress.

“I was joking,” I said. “She all but told us to take a hike. Repeatedly.” Her noxious silver-and-iron brooch might have deflected most of my ability to read her emotions the way I generally could with mortals, but from the moment she’d retreated to put the thing on, her wariness about our presence should have been perfectly obvious to anyone with functioning eyes.

Anyone other than these two. Why had I let Omen rope me into this posse again? I hadn’t taken into consideration the possibility of being snared and shut away in a cage for darkness only knew how long.

Longer than was good for my health, the more insistent itch in my chest suggested. The ravenous sensation I’d been fighting off for days was producing claws.

“She told us to stay,” Thorn said, which was the most generous possible interpretation of the young woman’s instruction for us to keep to the kitchen. “She even offered to help look for Omen, not that she should feel obliged.”

I sighed. “I’d imagine she’s counting on us leaving as soon as we’ve found him, and she’d like to hurry up the process.”

Snap’s eyes grew even rounder than usual. “We can’t leave. What if the mortals that attacked us come after her because she freed us?”

“I get the feeling she’d prefer to take her chances with them more than us,” I replied, but I couldn’t help smiling as I said it. Our rescuer had plenty of spirit in her. I’d pass up a seduction or two for the chance to watch her face off against those asshole hunters.

At Snap’s crestfallen look, I added, “It isn’t your fault. She hasn’t had the chance to see all we have to offer.”

Our mortal-realm neophyte was easily reassured. He nodded with earnest determination and popped the rest of the peach into his mouth. The pit crunched between his teeth.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was eating it wrong. His jaws could handle it. He was a devourer, after all.

Thorn’s determination was much grimmer. “Whether she appreciates our company or not, we must ensure she doesn’t suffer because of the immense favor she did for us.” He paused. “But we must also come to Omen’s aid as quickly as we can. The trail will have grown cold. It’s been too long already.”

The twist of his mouth showed how his opposing duties tore at him. Having a sense of loyalty was awfully troublesome, as far as I could tell. I was glad I’d never cultivated one.

I pushed myself off the counter to amble over, and a tremor ran down the back of my legs. I tensed them before I could visibly wobble. My jaw set.

Oh yes, that was a perfect reminder of why I’d agreed to join in on this operation—and why I wasn’t going to shirk the duty I’d pledged to carry out even if the job had gotten much more complicated than expected. It wasn’t loyalty; it was self-preservation.

Thorn could stick to our mandate out of higher principles, and Snap out of his desire to please or whatever exactly drove him, but for me, being able to slip between the realms was a matter of survival. Shadowkind like me relied on mortals to sustain us. I might not be capable of dying while I was in my native realm, but I wasn’t sure that wasting away into a sliver of a shadow would be any better. It might be worse.

And any of us could die on this side of the divide.

I made sure my body had steadied and then stepped toward the table as I’d planned. The scrabbling of my hunger burrowed deeper between my ribs. No piece of fruit would satisfy it.

“The answer is perfectly clear,” I said to Thorn. “The last time we went searching, our poking around got us caught. Neither of you is really prepared to navigate this realm without guidance, and I know you don’t want to listen to my advice. Our host, reluctant or not, knows this world far better than any of us, Omen included.”

“What are you suggesting, then?”

I shrugged. “She’s offered to make inquiries. She’s motivated to see us on our way. We should let her take the lead in the investigation, and we can see that no harm comes to her by following along behind. Two birds with one stone, as the mortals like to say.”

“What do the birds want with a stone?” Snap asked.

“It’s more what the stone wants with the birds.” I reached over and spun the knife Thorn had left on the table. It rattled around to point its blade at him. “So? Can you agree that my approach makes sense even though it came from me?”

Thorn gave me one of his long-suffering glowers. I’d gotten plenty of practice at ignoring those. But it seemed he couldn’t come up with any actual argument.

“Your proposal sounds reasonable,” he said after a moment. “We’ll see where her connections can take us.”

“Excellent.” I straightened up and sauntered past Snap toward the hall, alert for any new tremors in my muscles. The last thing I needed was Thorn picking up on my current weakness.

His gaze swiveled to track me. “Where are you going? She said to stay in the kitchen.”

I smiled sweetly at him. “And as you well know, I’m not very good at following orders I never agreed to in the first place. I’ll go see if I can’t spin our dropping in on her home into a more welcome visit.”

And if I could sate my vital appetites at the same time, we’d all win.