“Well, that makes it easier,” Bryce said. She sheathed both weapons. Mercifully, the pulling eased with the action. “Less explaining for me.” She nodded to Morven, and he glowered. “I’ll be in and out of here before you know it.”
His shadows returned, darkening the air behind his antler-throne until it seemed Morven sat before a void. “Females are forbidden in both the Avallen Archives and the Cave of Princes.”
“I don’t really care,” Bryce said.
“You spit on our sacred traditions.”
“Get over it.”
Morven’s nostrils flared. “I’ll remind you, girl, that one word from me and the Asteri will have you in their grasp.”
“You’d have to open the mists to them first,” Bryce countered. “And it seems like you’ve worked really hard not to do that—or give them a reason to come here at all.”
“You can be removed by guards.”
Bryce gestured to Hunt, then Baxian, then the others. “My own guards might make that difficult.”
“This is my kingdom—”
“I’m not challenging that. I just want to look through your archives. A few days, then we’ll all be out of your hair.” She pulled the Autumn King’s notebook from her jacket. “I’ll even sweeten the deal: Here’s my sire’s private journal. Well, his most current one. All his recent scheming, written down. It’s pretty stupid, if you ask me. Dear Diary, today I made a list of all my enemies and how I plan to kill them. It’s so hard being king—I wish I had a friend!”
She grinned as Morven’s eyes narrowed on the leather-bound notebook, and she flashed him the first page, where her father’s distinctive handwriting was visible. He’d know it well, as the two old losers communicated mostly through written letters, since Avallen had no computers. “You let us stay here and it’s yours when we leave.”
Morven’s fingers drummed on the arm of his throne. Fish on a line.
But he said, shadows lightening at last, “Your presence here threatens to bring the Asteri’s wrath upon me.”
Bryce considered, blinking. “Well, it seems you’ve got no problem harboring fugitives, if you’re letting in Flynn’s parents.”
He glared, pure darkness in his eyes.
Bryce went on, “I mean, you could probably make up for Cormac’s dishonor by selling us out to the Asteri … but if you hand us over, you’d have to turn in Flynn’s parents and the other nobles, too. And I doubt it’d win you any points with your own people if you betrayed some fancy-ass nobles.” She crossed her arms. “You’re in a real pickle, huh?”
Morven tapped his booted foot on the ground.
“It’s super hard,” Bryce commiserated, “to try to play both sides, isn’t it?”
“I am not playing either side,” Morven said. “I am loyal to the Asteri.”
“Then open the mists—invite them here. Let’s have them over for brunch.”
Morven’s silence was damning.
Bryce smiled. “I thought so.” She nodded to Sathia. “One more thing: she doesn’t marry anyone, and she comes with us.”
Sathia gaped at Bryce. But Bryce threw the Fae female a warning look. Bryce had only seen Sathia Flynn from a distance at parties. Usually, the female’s hair was dyed varying shades of shining dark brown or blond. Now her locks were an ordinary light brown—her natural color, perhaps. It was like seeing a glimpse of the real female beneath.
“I cannot allow that,” Morven said. “She is an unwed female.”
“Her brother is here,” Bryce said, nodding to Flynn. “Irresponsible party boy that he is, at least he has the parts that matter to you.”
Flynn glared, but Dec elbowed him hard enough that he stepped up and said, “I’ll, uh, take responsibility for Sathia.”
Sathia bristled like an angry cat, but kept her mouth shut.
“No,” Morven said, a shadow wrapping itself around his wrist like a bracelet. An idle, bored bit of magic. “You are an unsuitable chaperone, as you have demonstrated time and again.”
Hunt gave Bryce a look, and she knew what he was thinking. It was the same thing Ruhn said into her mind a heartbeat later:
As much as it kills me to say this … we might have to let this go. Sathia is Flynn’s sister and all, but it’s not our battle to fight.
Bryce subtly shook her head. You really want to leave her to Morven’s mercy?
Trust me, Bryce, Sathia can handle herself.
But Bryce glanced back at Lidia, who’d been watching all this with a cold, clear focus. Staying completely silent in that way of hers that made others forget her presence. Even Morven, it seemed, hadn’t noticed who stood in his throne room—because he now let out a low grunt of surprise at the sight of her.
Yet the Hind met Bryce’s gaze. What would you do? Bryce tried to convey.
Lidia seemed to grasp the general direction of her thoughts, because she said quietly, “I never had anyone to fight for me.”
Well, that did it.
Bryce opened her mouth, rallying power to her star, but Tharion spoke from behind them.
“I’ll marry Sathia.”
It took Hypaxia seven hours, seven minutes, and seven seconds to raise Sigrid.
Ithan barely moved from his stool the entire time Hypaxia stood over the corpse and chanted. Jesiba left, came back with her laptop, and worked for some of the time. She even offered Ithan some food, which he refused.
He had no appetite. If this didn’t work …
Hypaxia’s now-hoarse chanting stopped suddenly. “I—”
Ithan hadn’t been able to watch as she’d sewed Sigrid’s head back on. Only when she’d covered the body again had he returned his gaze to the spectacle.
Hypaxia staggered back from the examination table. From the shape under the sheet. Ithan was instantly up, catching her smoothly.
“What have you done?” Jesiba demanded, laptop shutting with a click.
Ithan set Hypaxia on her feet, and the former witch-queen looked between them, helpless and—terrified. Out of the corner of his eye, something white shifted.
Ithan turned as the body on the table sat up. As the sheet rippled away, revealing Sigrid’s grayish face, her eyes closed. The thick, unforgiving stitches in an uneven line along her neck. She still wore her clothes, stiff with old blood.
Stitches popping, Sigrid slowly turned her head.
But her chest … it didn’t rise and fall. She wasn’t breathing.
The lost Fendyr heir opened her eyes. They burned an acid green.
“Reaper,” Jesiba breathed.