Gaige’s shook his head. “She wasn’t there.”
“So there was this massive beast attack, and the Crown was simply missing?” Kost didn’t bother to mask his apprehension.
“She wasn’t missing. She just wasn’t there.” Gaige seemed to trip over his words. He shook his head. “Yazmin is always off attending to Council matters or on a beast hunt.”
“That seems…odd,” Oz said.
“Look, you’re getting this all wrong.” Gaige looked first at Raven and then me. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it. Frowned. He kept staring at me, sifting through some memory or bit of information that none of us were privy to, until he suddenly straightened. “What happened with the Azad?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
His words were frantic. “Those ingredients you showed me… They weren’t for taming an Azad. Yes, the ruska fruit acts as a lure, but the Azad itself was the bait. For something else, though my research didn’t illuminate what that might be. I was on my way to confront Yazmin when we were attacked.”
Extending my hand outward, I tapped into the power simmering through my veins. Rosewood light bloomed from the tree, and a heady purring preceded Reine’s appearance. Shocked silence hung heavy in the air. Reine tilted her head and sauntered toward me, knocking over the coffee table to nuzzle me and rake a scratchy tongue along my hand. A curious Onyx leaned across my lap and sniffed her. With two legendary felines crowding around me, there was hardly any room left in the foyer.
“This is what we found. A Nix Ikari.”
“She should have killed you,” Gaige whispered.
“She tried.” I scratched the space where her horns met her skull, and she plopped to the floor and rested her chin in my lap. Her wild, thick tail flicked back and forth like a broom across the tile. “She snatched up the Azad before I could tame it. I need to go back and find another before it’s too late.”
Raven scowled. “Why on earth would you need an Azad? Their only purpose is to sniff out buried treasure.”
My throat went dry. “What?”
“How do you know that?” Gaige echoed a breath behind me.
“My grandmother was the last Charmer to tame an Azad. Why?”
My heart thundered in my ears. Ravenknewall along that an Azad wouldn’t work for Noc. But I’d been so preoccupied with blaming her that I hadn’t thought to ask everyone on the Council. Gaige had mentioned that the last person to tame one had been a century ago. She had no reason to lie.
Which meant…
The air left my lungs. “But why?”
Gaige’s mouth opened and closed until he finally squeezed his eyes shut. Yazmin had led us into a trap. She’d orchestrated a hunt that she thought would end in our deaths.
“What the hell is going on?” Tension roiled from Calem’s frame, and the mercury surrounding his pupils sharpened.
“It’s Yazmin.” The words were acid against my tongue. “The Crown.Sheplaced the bounty.” Everything I knew, everything I believed in, came crashing down. Yazmin was ourleader. She was supposed to protect us, guide us. Show us the way. Why would she send us on a hunt that would lead to certain death if she wasn’t the one responsible? Pieces began falling into place. She must have arranged the bounty without anyone else’s approval. If I died, the problem would simply disappear. The investigation would cease. But still…why?
Raven hissed. “Now you’re accusingher? You’re out of your mind.”
“Yazmin’s symbol is pink—I’m sure of it. I saw it when she offered us free passage after the battle,” Kost said.
Gaige’s voice was eerily quiet. “Perhaps she thought we would have stripped her of her title…” His trailing words did everything but instill confidence. I so desperately wanted to be wrong.
Raven turned on him, wild-eyed. “What are you saying? You believe her?”
“Look at the facts.” Gaige dragged a shaky hand through his snarled hair. “Yazmin gave Leena specific instructions for a taming an Azad because she told her it would cure Noc. You just disproved that.”
“This is the Crown we’re talking about,” Raven said. “What would she have to gain by lying about something like that?”
“I don’t know, but…” He turned to me. “I have an idea. Leena, can you send the Nix Ikari back so we have a bit more space? But leave Onyx. We need him.”
Gaige limped closer to the entrance of the manor and leaned against the stair railing for support. I sent Reine back just as he extended his hand, opening his own door to the beast realm and summoning the Zavalluna.
Her black coat shimmered with turquoise, fuchsia, and emerald auroras, as if she’d been born from the night. With a whinny, she tossed her head and shook out her mane. Her bladelike horn glowed a soft white. Gaige patted her on the neck before directing her attention toward Onyx.
