Sid slunk out from beneath the corpse’s dangling feet, then stopped to calmly lick her paw.
Cedric let out a low whistle. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.” Sid limped over and wove herself between the knight’s legs. “Either of yours.”
Elyria barked out a laugh—the sound of relief. “You’d do well to remember it,” she said, chest heaving.
Another shout rang from the far side of the stables.
“By the fucking Five,what now?” Elyria spun on the spot, but Cedric was already in motion.
Because there—finally, blessedly—was Tristan, half-dragging a slumped Hargrave toward them.
“They drugged us,” Tristan shouted. “Woke up locked in the stars-damned pantry. Took us forever to?—”
Cedric froze, and Elyria could feel the fear paralyzing him, gripping him by the back of the neck as a blood-red crystal axe suddenly soared through the air in front of them, hurtling toward Tristan. They’d missedanothercultist somewhere.
A grunt of pain sounded behind them, followed by the squelch of flesh being pierced, and Elyria knew that someone else had just taken care of the threat.
But it didn’t stop the axe.
Elyria launched herself into the air, wings materializing mid-leap, soaring toward Tristan and Hargrave with an outstretched hand, shadows spinning from her fingertips. But she was still too slow. Too far. She wouldn’t get to them in time. And Tristan?—
A jet of water blasted ahead of her, crashing into the axe, tearing it from its path just in time to narrowly avoid Tristan and Hargrave, sending it crashing into the side of the building.
“You owe me a drink, Hale,” panted Ollie, water still dripping fromthe tideweaver’s fingers as he ran to the knight’s side.
Elyria touched back down, relief spreading through her chest with such fervor that she didn’t quite know if it belonged to her, or to Cedric.
Tristan’s blue eyes widened as he looked at the axe embedded in the wall, less than a foot from his face. “I think I owe you more than that, Oleander.”
“Done. Dinner, too, in that case. Fair warning, I’m a notoriously poor sharer of food,” Ollie said, grinning. “And I don’t do mushrooms.”
“Flirt later,” Elyria hissed at the two of them, darting forward.
Cedric was already at Tristan’s side, face wan as he looped Hargrave’s other arm over his shoulder. “Where is Thibault?”
Tristan looked equally stricken. “I don’t know. We all woke in the pantry together, but once we broke out, it was bedlam. We lost him in the fray. I haven’t seen him since?—”
“We’ll find him,” Cedric said solemnly.
“So, do we thinknowthat’s all of ’em?” Thraigg said, catching up to the group.
“Er, yes, about that . . .”
Elyria didn’t understand Tristan’s grimace, the hesitation in his voice. Not until he turned to the side, revealing the figure trailing several feet behind. Not until her eyes narrowed on a trembling Avery, carrying a bloody steel dagger in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” Avery said, voice shaking. His eyes landed on Elyria, and he let out a squeak of fear, the dagger falling from his grip and landing with a dullthud.
Elyria suppressed the urge to laugh. Wings flared, shadowy armor still swirling over her skin, cultist blood spattered across her face, she imagined she looked every bit the nightmarish Revenant she was rumored to be.
Tears streamed down Avery’s young face when he continued. “I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t mean to. I thought you were them when you—I swear, I would never want to...But they said—they said if I didn’t...”
“Spit it out, boyo,” Thraigg growled.
“They said it had to be done. Said it was the only way. And that we all had to go along with it, had to help, or they’d kill us anyway.”
“Us?” Cedric asked, shifting Hargrave’s weight on his shoulder,urging Tristan back into motion. As a group, they all started moving back toward the front of the inn.
Avery made a sad sort of sound as he followed, leaving the bloody dagger laying in the dirt. “Everyone. Me, my mother. The whole village. Please understand, we’re not all like them. None of us wanted this. But when they came—whenhecame—there was no resisting. Not unless we wanted to end up”—his voice lowered to a whisper—“dead.”
