Page 22 of Solar Shadows

The lift stopped, the doors opening on two bodies waiting on the other side.

Khloe to my left and Stefan to my right.

Crap. Every muscle tensed, the atmosphere turning chilly.

“Hello there.” The High Inquisitor greeted me in his famously deep yet relaxed tone.

With knots in my chest, I responded with an, “Evening, sir.”

Khloe nodded her greeting, saying nothing.

Stefan’s pink face was riddled with pock marks and scars, with more scars crisscrossing his bald scalp. He always wore a baby-blue shirt and a navy suit jacket to set him apart from everyone else. And his green eyes were always probing, always making my skin crawl.

Man, I hated him.

“Come with me, agents,” he said. “I have something important to show you.”

Chapter 5

ISAAC

Brie and champagne were the perfect snack combination. I ate my fifth cracker with the creamy cheese on top, washing it down with the bubbly nectar, listening to the chatter.

A slice of heaven in a hellish headache of bullshit.

Aaron Bramble tapped away on his laptop, scouring the Fae Archives for anything that might help with the fae woman. For like the hundredth time. He’d been searching for information with a fine-tooth comb, coming up empty each time. Sent endless emails to the Winter Palace for help, getting nothing but the cold shoulder.

Would the Winter Queen rather keep us in the dark? As in, the less we knew, the less danger we’d be in kind of thing?

Pfft. I’d rather have the knowledge because of it being power and all that jazz.

“Make the most of the days you have without me. For I am coming,”the fae woman had told Drake.

Darn it. I hated being in the dark with this creature pulling at our strings.

The shimmer witches from the fairground were now being interrogated at the High Coven HQ, and apparently Ollie would now be coming back to stay at the mansion from now on.

Cool. I’d drink to that.

As for the crystal shade, we’d all agreed on the theory that the fae woman tapped into the Hecate Crystals somehow to create it.

“The High Coven lab reports I received suggests the shard you were hit with drained some of your essence,” Erin had told me, “and the creature sprouted wings to carry it to her.”

While the peninsula was blocked by the Winter Queen’s wall, there was another route to Blue Orchard. It meant crossing violent seas to get there. A flaw in the plan to contain this hag, really. Why didn’t the queen wall off every side? Were the seas really so impossible to cross? Uncle Jonathon must have sailed them or flew over them or whatever the fuck it was he did to get there.

“I think it established a weird physical connection,” Aaron had chimed in with a theory. “Which is why she could hurt you in her domain while she waited for the drained part of you to show up via the shade.”

Alice had jabbed him in the ribs for that comment.

“What? I’m just saying.”

“Eat your crumpets and zip it,” his sister warned.

He’d obeyed, albeit with a scowl.

A grim assessment, but totally plausible. Whatever her plan, the fae woman’s power was no joke. We’d have to tread carefully now.

Understatement, much?