Page 45 of Fae Farewells

Lashul nodded. “Crowns appeared on their heads right in front of the queen. I haven’t seen her so worked up in years.”

Briggs bumped my shoulder, whispering, “Does this feel like daytime television to you? It’s a little less dramatic, but still gossipy.”

I held my finger to my lips when Lashul glanced in our direction. She couldn’t see us, shouldn’t be able to hear us… But my parents had once told me the fae were unusual creatures.

“Where is Vaughn?” a purplish-gray man asked. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Of course you haven’t,” the yellow woman snapped. “He’s probably in the dungeon. You know he was wanted for treason, even if we all know he’d never lay a hand on his sisters.”

The man stared thoughtfully at his pile of sliced vegetables. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Freya since yesterday.”

“Is she with him?” the pink woman asked the yellow woman.

She frowned as she shrugged. “I don’t know if we can look without getting in trouble. I’m not friends with any of the guards.”

“I am,” Lashul stated, standing from the table. “I’ll ask around.”

“Be careful,” the pink woman whispered.

The grass-green man wandered up, spoon in hand. “We’ve all felt the shift in power. He’s here, and he brought something powerful with him.”

“But why would he come back?” the purplish-gray man countered.

“Because he’s ready to fight,” Lashul proclaimed. “He’s ready to fight back. Against the queen. For his sisters, his throne. Us. He told us he’d return, and now he has. Why are you questioning his oath?”

I elbowed Briggs. “Come on. That’s all we’ll hear from them. The rest will be speculation at best.”

“To the dungeon,” he sang quietly, leading the way.

We spotted a guard at the end of the corridor where we’d originally entered the palace. He turned the corner, and I nodded my head in the same direction.

“Follow him?”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Briggs replied sarcastically. “But what do I know?”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Sorry,” he grouched. “Being in the kitchen made me hungry.”

I chuckled. The wolf was forever snacking or cooking, or both at the same time. If I didn’t have such a high metabolism, I’d complain. But I’d really missed his food while I’d been gone.

The guard wound his way down the stairs, stopping to chat with another by the entrance. We kept walking until we were in a cavernous room with an oddly dark pool in the center.

That wasn’t any water I’d choose to go swimming in, so I stayed away from it. Uninviting wasn’t enough to describe how it made me feel. I was creeped the fuck out, and so was Briggs. He shivered again, then touched the back of his neck to check his hair.

“No ghosts,” he muttered to himself.

“No. Just an abyss of oppressive despair.”

Another staircase took us farther down, this one lit with torches that provided very little light. The hallway of bricked up doors made me frown. The prisoners behind them screamed and shouted, their voices muffled but still loud in the silence.

When Sloane saw this, every criminal in here would be freed from their closed-off cells until their crimes determined punishment. And even if no one else would, she would give them a fair trial.

Well, more fair than they were getting now.

“There are people in those,” Briggs growled.

“Yeah. I was just thinking about that. It’s fucking barbaric.”