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CHAPTER

Sixty-Two

F ENN WAS WORKING in his office at the farmhouse when the storm hit. He didn’t wait for it to build, that first boom of thunder was enough. Cracked a window somewhere. Fuck. He grabbed his hooded cloak and strode out into the yard, shouting orders at people as he passed. Most of them were way ahead of him—they had protocols, well-rehearsed. It was the rest of the island that worried him.

Lightning forked across the dark purple sky. Fuck.

He’d been dreading this day for years. Some freak storm, some natural disaster. He knew every weak spot on the island—all the patched-up work he’d been forced to do. Years of systematic neglect, under the gilded surface. Every year he’d begged Vabras for more funds, and every year he was handed less.

Another fork of lightning, this time over the Monkey palace. Eight, the woods. Even with all this rain, the ground was tinder dry beneath. One stray ember in a sheltered spot—the whole place could go up.

He trusted his teams to fan out across the island. He should stay here and coordinate everything. That was the protocol, he’d written it himself. He squinted at the treeline—the border between the two palaces. “Is that smoke?” he asked, grabbing a passing yardhand.

“Could be smoke, could be steam from the rain,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Better check,” he muttered, and set off for a closer look.

So he was on his own, jogging through the woods when the Samran Hounds caught up with him. Didn’t occur to him that he was in danger. Just a bunch of arseholes who thought their problems took priority over everyone else’s.

They blocked his path.

They actually thought their leather batons would stop him. He would piss himself laughing, if he had the time to spare. He shifted his stance, threatening to trample his way through them. “Move,” he growled. Last chance.

Their captain was standing on a raised patch of ground a few feet away. She called down to him in a lazy, confident drawl. Venerant, or aspiring to be. “High Engineer Fedala. You’re to come with us, sir.”

“You’ll have to wait. I’m busy.”

Someone struck him from behind. “What was that ?” he said, and punched the man who’d struck him. He collapsed at Fenn’s feet. “That’s how you knock someone out,” he told the rest of them. “Fucking amateurs.”

The Hounds piled on top of him. He threw them off.

“We need him alive,” the captain reminded them.

“Shouldn’t have told me that,” Fenn said, headbutting the nearest Hound. Swiping his baton— thanks —he swung it into the next man’s jaw, knocking out a couple of teeth. Someone jumped on his back. He shook her off with a shrug and trod on her. “I’d stay down if I were you,” he muttered.

The captain said something, but it was hard to hear her over the shouting.

Fenn elbowed another recruit in the ribs. Seriously, who’d trained these twats? All over the place. “What?” he called, over the din.

“I said we have your wife,” the captain shouted back. “And your sons.”

“What are you talking about?” Fenn fought his way towards her. Crushing faces, breaking toes. “They’re on the mainland.”

The captain held up his wife’s favourite brooch. “We’ve orders not to harm you , High Engineer,” she said. “But they’re another matter.”

They chained him up, and led him away.