There was a quiet pause between them. Just south of relaxed. Kit let her gaze linger on the nocterrian as they stroked a thoughtful finger down the side of one of their horns. Sharp, clever, enigmatic Nox. The nocterrian had been an oddly comforting presence over the past week.
They were alongside her in the wake of the rest of the delegation’s departure, always quick to notify her when a sparrow appeared. And as Kit’s anxiety grew with each increased interval between messages, when it had nearly reached a breaking point, they were there.
She couldn’t even blame Dentarius essentially banishing her from council after the last meeting, even if the frost that had crept uninvited across the table toward King Callum and Barcroff had truly been accidental. Granted, if Lord Church had been there, perhaps it wouldn’t have been an accident. The lord paramount or not, Tenny’s father and Cedric’s...whateverhe was to him or not, something about the man set Kit on edge.
Nox plucked a piece of lint from the wrinkled fabric of Kit’s sleeve, drawing her focus back. “We should be glad to have received a message at all. I’m sure another will follow.”
Kit huffed, even as warmth flooded her cheeks at the uncharacteristic contact. “Can’t wait to hear what the next one says. Maybe something like, ‘Chasm exploded. Multiple deaths. Horses fine.’ ”
“Well, as long as the horses are fine.”
“Noctis take me, was that humor, Tenebris Nox?”
The nocterrian drew their hand back, arms folding across their chest. “Lord Noctis has absolutely nothing to do with my real and very obvious sense of humor, Lady Ravenswing. I’m told I’m quite funny, actually.”
Kit gaped at them. “Who is telling you that? Because if it’s Thraigg, you know his opinion cannot be trusted. The dwarf thinks damn near everything is hysterical. Honestly, it worries me.”
Nox gave her a close-lipped smile.
Kit rolled her mismatched eyes. “Oh, but of course. How could I have missed it? You’re a laugh riot.”
“Do try not to forget it in the future.”
They ranout of reading material less than half an hour later. Which meant tracking down Tenny and seeing if she’d unearthed anything new during her most recent visit to the archives.
One benefit of having grown up amidst all these painted peacocks and noble buffoons was, Kit supposed, that access to things wasincredibly easyfor Tenny. Perhaps being the daughter of the lord paramount didn’t hurt either. She’d been able to get them stack upon stack of missives and letters—reports on the Arcanian communities strewn throughout Arcanis, mana maps of the Midlands, and more. She even managed to procure the scrolls pertaining to sylvan magic that Cedric had apparently been hoarding in his room prior to leaving.
Granted, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows parsing through communications between humans that pertained to Arcanians. Kit had been forced to take frequent breaks to ensure her blood pressure didn’t get too high. Something about seeing one’s people referred to time and time again as “pixies” and “fairy witches” tended to grate on the nerves. There had been a few nuggets of solid information amongst the hateful drivel, though, and for that, Kit was grateful. She just felt so useless sitting around while Elyria was on the hunt.
Tenebris Nox placed their palm on the small of Kit’s back, ushering her into the archive room, where, sure enough, the two of them found Tenny perched cross-legged on one of the high tables inside. A thick book was cracked open in her lap, her gown pooling around her, making it look like she was sitting atop a fluffy blue cloud.
“Stars above, Tenny,” said Kit with a low whistle, taking in the pages and pages of notes littering the floor around the table. It was like a paper bomb had gone off in the room. “What happened here?”
Tenny looked up, a bright sparkle in her amber eyes. “Whoops. I think I got a littletooinvested in what I was reading. Didn’t quite realize I’d made such a mess.”
Kit’s silver eyebrows shot up. “That riveting of a read, is it?”
Tenny snapped her book shut, then hopped off the table with a funny sort of grace—fluid, with just a little bit of a stumble. Endearing. It was a perfect embodiment of what made her so damn likable, and Kitgrinned inwardly as she thought about the way Elyria had ranted about that very thing a few nights after the welcome ball.
“Not riveting so much as, I don’t know, moving? Maybe that’s not the right word for it. And either way, it’s probably not particularly useful for your purposes. Nothing to do with the crown.”
“Isn’t that how it always goes,” Tenebris said, brushing dust off a nearby stool and taking a seat.
Tenny plopped down in a chair next to them, clearing space on the table and setting the book down with a heavythunk. “I sometimes find my focus ends up honing in too much on the wrong thing. I suppose I should thank you for interrupting. Your timing is perfect, as always.”
“Flatterer,” Kit said with a smile. “So...are you going to tell us what you found that was so interesting? Don’t hold a girl in suspense.”
“Well, I’m not so sure you’d find it as such, but after a day of sifting through centuries of contradictory family trees and an entire accounting of the grain levy restructuring from four years ago, finding this”—she opened the cover of the book and pulled out several loose sheets of parchment that had been placed there—“was fascinating to me.”
Kit took the paper and ran her eyes over it. “Birth records?”
Tenny nodded. “Those are the recorded dates of mixedborn children born across Arcanis for the past two hundred and fifty years—since before the Shattering. Look at the change in frequency as time goes on. The massive decrease in reported births. Interesting, is it not?”
“Not precisely the word I would use for it,” Tenebris said, voice low.
Kit had to work very hard not to crumple the papers in her hand. “Yes. Well. It’s not as though that doesn’t make sense. After the humans”—she sucked in a breath—“I mean, after Malakar’s Great Betrayal, after Daephinia sundered the continent and the War of Two Realms began, human sentiment toward the fae changed very quickly, and in a...very big way. I am sure that any parents facing a mixedborn pregnancy would hardly be eager to report it.”
Tenny looked confused. “What do you mean?”
