Page 100 of Lady of Starfire (Lady of Darkness #5)

“I’ve been training with wards,” he replied. “Studying them as much as I can. These were put in place by Sybil. Since she’s dead, they’ll be weakened enough that it shouldn’t take me too long.”

“Tell me what you need me to do,” Cyrus said.

“We need to be closer. I need to be completely focused, so I need you to tell me if you see anything suspicious.”

“Got it.”

“I’m serious, Cyrus. Anything. Even if you think it’s nothing.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go do your fancy Witch tricks.”

“You’re such an ass,” he grumbled, as they pulled their hoods back up and quickly made their way across the street.

Cassius was right. It didn’t take him long to create enough of a gap in the wards for them to slip through.

Rubble crunched under their boots as they made their way across the ruins until they came to a spot where stairs descended underground.

The debris had been cleared away, others having clearly been down there.

Alaric had surely been one of them in his attempts to recover this thing the Sorceress desired.

Cyrus kicked at some of the rubble, rocks and dust scattering, and then he was throwing out a hand to stop Cassius from taking the first step down the stairs.

“What?” Cassius asked.

“There are Blood Marks here,” Cyrus answered. He glanced around them, seeing no obvious observers before he conjured a small flame to illuminate the ground as he crouched down. “Don’t suppose you know what these mean?”

“No,” Cass said. “Well, yes and no. They are a stronger ward marking. I can’t say for sure how to counter them.”

“So we’re back to needing to gain entrance from the underground passageways?” Cyrus asked.

“Assuming they aren’t warded the same way.”

Cyrus extinguished the flame, holding out a hand to Cass, and a moment later they were in the back storeroom of a shop.

Cass had told him it was an apothecary shop that the emergency tunnel led to, with a disguised door in the floor here.

Within minutes, Cass had stones removed and a hatch open in the floor.

Cyrus did a thorough sweep of the floor, making sure there were no signs of Blood Magic, before they lowered themselves into the tunnel.

Cyrus had another flame kindling in his palm, but Cassius didn’t appear to need it as he led the way down the tunnel. And thank fuck he did because there were so many passages branching off, Cyrus would have been lost for hours.

He didn’t know how long it had been before Cass said, “Up ahead are the dungeon studies. It would have been where you found us that day.”

Cyrus had hardly known Cassius then. He’d come to the Fire Court once for half a day, but all of that time had been spent with Scarlett. At that time, he’d been more worried that he was a threat to Sorin before he’d figured out Scarlett and Cassius were soulmates and nothing more.

“Did Alaric have a main study? Or is there some place else he would have kept something valuable?”

“It’s hard to say,” Cass replied, his steps slowing as they neared the end of the passage.

“If it was something he didn’t want anyone else seeing, he’d have kept it in his private rooms. No one was ever allowed in there, but if it was something valuable enough that he kept near him at all times, then a study.

Did the Sorceress give you anything to go on? Is the item large? Small?”

Cyrus shook his head. “She only said I would be able to find it. I would know it when I saw it, and Scarlett’s starfire could not have destroyed it.”

“I guess since most viable options were destroyed, we start with the dungeon studies,” Cass said, pulling his hood back and coming to a stop at a dead-end wall.

He ran his palm along it, searching for what Cyrus was assuming was a switch of some sort to release a hidden door.

A moment later, there was a faint clicking sound, and they were stepping into—

“Holy fuck,” Cyrus breathed. “She doesn’t do things by halves, does she?”

The underground halls were barely passable, the stench of smoke and decay thick in the air.

Rubble and remains from the building above filled the passages and cells.

It wasn’t just stone and furniture either.

Bones. Bodies. Scarlett had been a real wraith at that point.

Sorin had been back, but her wrath had needed some place to go, and she had taken it out here.

She hadn’t told anyone of her plans to take down the Fellowship.

The stone walls were scorched and entire chunks were missing, which didn’t make him feel very good about the stability of the place.

“I guess just find any room to start in at this point,” Cyrus said, pulling his own hood back and setting flame glowing above them to light their way.

It took longer than he’d ever imagined to pick their way through the debris, and when they finally came to one of the dungeon studies, they’d spent another hour clearing away stones and rubble to get inside it.

Sacrifice of time indeed.

They ended up crawling through a hole to get inside the room. If anyone else had been in here, they’d covered their tracks well.

Cyrus stood, pointlessly brushing dirt off his cloak and pants while he surveyed the area of yet another wreckage of his queen.

This had definitely been a study at one point.

The walls had bookshelves set into them.

Half of a desk stood in the center, splintered remains of chairs around it.

The floor was scorched black, but he could tell he was standing on what had once been an ornate rug.

Cassius and Cyrus looked at each other, both at a loss for where to start with this insanity. They were never going to simply stumble across something.

Cassius scratched his jaw. “I guess you take the bookshelves, and I’ll take the …desk?”

Cyrus shrugged, because what else was there to say?

They worked in silence, scouring every inch of the space. Feeling for hidden compartments. Digging through ash and soot and more debris. And hours later, they had nothing but cracked and bleeding hands and fingers.

Cyrus sank down against a wall, wiping sweat from his brow. He could feel the smudge of dirt the movement left behind. Cassius wasn’t any better off. Ash stained his brow, his cheek, his jaw. He was still sifting through what they thought was the remains of a cabinet of some sort.

This was going to take time they simply did not have.

They had thrown around the idea of using a tracking Mark like Scarlett had used to find the mirror gate in the Runic Lands, but she had known what she was looking for. They didn’t, which made using the Mark even riskier.

Cassius turned to him, huffing a sigh as he raked a hand through his hair. “I guess we dig our way into another room?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, arms resting atop his bent knees. “But food first.”

Cassius nodded, making his way over to him and holding out a hand to pull him to his feet. “I know a place.”

They made their way back through the passages, pulling themselves up through the hidden hatch, and then Cassius had him back on the rooftops.

Eventually they dropped down over an overhang, swinging themselves through the upper window of a tavern, and both coming to a halt as they beheld the person sitting at the table, drinking from a mug of ale.

“Nuri,” Cassius said carefully.

Her hood was down, gloves off. She winked at them as she took another drink of her ale.

“What are you doing here?” Cassius asked.

She tipped her head, studying them. “I suppose you two have no way of knowing, do you?”

“Knowing what?” Cass asked, angling his body so he stood between her and Cyrus.

Cyrus just watched Death’s Shadow. There was something different about her from all the other times he’d interacted with the Contessa.

She looked …tired.

“Nothing,” she replied, sipping from her ale again. “Find what you were looking for at the Fellowship?”

“Do you know what we were looking for there?” Cyrus countered, and her honey-colored eyes flicked to him.

“Do you know what you were looking for there?”

“Nuri,” Cassius sighed. “Are you going to let us leave, or are we going to have to fight our way out?”

She shrugged. “I’m not going to fight you. Not right now, at least.”

“What does that even mean?” Cyrus asked.

“Obviously at some point I’m going to need to fight you. Blood Bond and everything.” She shrugged again. “But that day is not today.”

“Why?” Cassius asked.

“You’re annoying as hell, but I don’t want you dead.”

There was a patterned knock on the door, and Cassius went rigid. “Who is that?”

Nuri pushed to her feet, sauntering to the door and pulling it open. The person who entered was tall and broad, a hood in place hiding his features. But when he pulled it back—

“Fucking hell,” Cyrus said, fire already flaring in his palms and a shield in place around him and Cassius.

“Relax,” Nuri said with an eye roll, taking one of the mugs of ale the male held. “He brought you something to drink.”

“Not a chance,” Cassius retorted, sword drawn, focus bouncing between her and the seraph commander.

Mordecai turned to her. “You didn’t tell them?”

“Tell us what?” Cassius gritted out.

The seraph shook his head, shooting Nuri a look to which she smiled mockingly and made her way back to the table.

For the next twenty minutes, they listened to the seraph and Nuri try to convince them they had been working against Alaric as much as they could.

Cyrus had so many questions, but he held them back, evaluating every word they said.

It made sense when he really thought about it, but even so, he couldn’t risk trusting them based on their word alone.

When he said as much, Mordecai nodded. Nuri appeared bored out of her mind, head resting in her hand that was propped on the table and her eyes closed. Cyrus wasn’t even sure she was listening at this point. Maybe she had actually fallen asleep.

“How, exactly, do you plan to prove any of this to us?” Cassius asked. Neither of them had touched their ale.