“Aurelia save us all.” Tenny staggered back. “Is that the?—”
Kit’s mind raced, her mouth trying to keep up. Her pulse thundered in her ears. “He had it all along? Is this—Did we have it wrong? Was Zephyr working for Lord Church all this time? Or is this the other half? The missing half?”
“The better question is,” Nox said, “what is he doing with it either way?”
Kit looked at them, her chest jerking with uneven breaths. There was something else, something she wasso closeto, but her panicking mind couldn’t grasp it. “Take it,” she said suddenly.
“What?” Tenny balked. “No, we can’t. When he comes back, he’ll know it’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Tenny. But there is absolutely no way we can let him keep it. We all nearly died for this thing. And whatever your father is up to, between the blood magic and this being in his possession, I—” She gulped down a lungful of air. “I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. This is so far beyond what I expected to find here.”
Tenny wavered on her feet, her face drained of color. “He’ll know it was me.”
“We cannot let him keep it,” Kit repeated, the words little more than a hiss. “You would really risk it? Just so you, what, you don’t get into trouble with daddy?”
Nox placed a placating hand in the air, their voice calm. “Easy. There is a simple solution here. We cannot let him keep it. He cannot know it is gone.”
Kit blinked. “What exactly is simple about that?”
The nocterrian plucked the crown from its velvet cushion, holding it between their thumb and index finger at arm’s length, as though theydid not want to bring it too close. They lifted their other hand, shadows extending from the ground, surging up their lithe body, down the length of their arm. Like dark smoke curling in reverse, the shadows coalesced, forming a curved band, several sharp spires.
A few moments later, Tenebris Nox held two matching crown halves—one in each hand. The replica was gleaming and solid, reflecting the lanternlight inalmostexactly the same way as the real thing.
Almost.
Kit noted the way the golden base of the crown shimmered just a little too much, the light it captured rippling if she stared for too long. Still, it wasveryclose. With Lord Church already away, and if he didn’t look too closely when he returned... it could at least give them time.
“How did you do that?” Tenny breathed.
“An illusion?” Kit added, brow creased as she assessed the creation. “Something with your shadows and the light?”
“I told you I would try something. That I wanted to be able to...contribute.”
Kit was quite sure the expression on her face could only be classified as “gob smacked” as Nox placed the replica crown half onto the velvet bed and slipped the real one inside their coat.
“What can I say? Our fair Revenant inspired me. Turns out I should have been taking my own advice all these years.”
The display seemed to shake Tenny from her shock. “How many years are we talking about here?”
“More than your tiny human mind can comprehend, I’m afraid. Better not to ask.”
Tenny sucked on her teeth, and while Kit wanted to be relieved that some of the color had returned to her face, she had far more pressing thoughts.
“We have to tell Dentarius. And Ellie, Ric. They need to know. Now.”
“I think I might have figured that one out too,” said Tenebris. “It is perhaps slightly less expeditious than the Revenant’s sparrows, and even less secure, but I think I can get a message to our friends.”
“How?”
The nocterrian’s lips turned up in a fang-baring grin. “You’ll see.”
The scraping sound of the mirror settling back in place, thecompartment closing with the fake crown inside, kept Kit from hounding the nocterrian for more details.
“Well, let’s get out of here, then. We have a lot to figure out. We need to get to the bottom of why this was here and how we are going to extricate ourselves from Kingshelm without raising alarms. And we have—what did you say, Ten? Two weeks until your father returns?—to do so.” Then, upon seeing the stricken look on Tenny’s face, the way she twisted her locket between two fingers, Kit added, “Will you be okay?”
Tenny looked around the disheveled office, eyes lingering on the notebooks on the table, the mirror that now bore no trace of her blood. Her throat bobbed. “No,” she admitted softly.
Kit simply nodded, looping her arm around Tenny’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze. Because what could she say to that?
