Page 61 of Under the Iron Sky

Aeris glanced down the street, his gold eyes burning like a flickering candle beneath his hood. “Anything?”

“Nothing yet.” Ikarus dropped his hand, pulling his magic back. He went back to one of the windows. What was taking these humans so long? “

“I’m bored,” Malakai announced a little while later, yawning. “How’s the search for the spy looking on your end?”

“I have some theories,” Aeris replied. “It’s near impossible to work out which secrets they’ve leaked and what the Vordellians have discovered themselves, but there’s a few leads I’m working on. Have you found anything?”

Armor clinked softly. Ikarus presumed Malakai shrugged. “Not a thing. Hopefully this lot tonight will know something. And even if they don’t, I’ll have a hell of a time finding out.”

There was a long silence before Aeris said, “Ikarus, can I ask you something that’s been bothering me?”

“If you must.”

“What did it feel like when the human entered your mind?”

He rolled his tongue on the inside of his cheek, contemplating—because how was he supposed to answer? That it felt wildly intrusive? That it intrigued him to no end that the human had been able to barge her way into his mind, battering down all his iron-clad defenses as though they were made of paper? And that somehow the brief flash of pity he’d seen on her face afterward was what got under his skin the most?

No. He couldn’t say any of that, could he? So he decided on the easier answer. “It hurt.”

Moving on silent feet, Aeris crept through the darkness to stand at his side. “Did you bleed afterward?”

“Yes.”

“From where?”

“My nose.”

Aeris tilted his helmet toward black sky, seemingly rolling the words through his mind like silk through his fingers, until a loud crunch pierced the heavy silence.

Aeris and Ikarus whirled around, the temperature plunging to near freezing with the gathering of their combined magic, only to find that there was no intruder or threat, just Malakai, holding the bony arm he’d just pulled from a skeleton on the floor.

Malakai stared at the two of them, no doubt grinning like a fool beneath his blood-colored helmet, and waved the skeletal hand at them.

Anger hot enough to scorch flesh flared through Ikarus’s chest. “Why? What need could you possibly have for that thing?”

Malakai pulled a silver ring with a glittering sapphire from a bony finger and slipped it into his pocket. “Why not? It’s not like he’s gonna need it.”

In the interest of not murdering his second-in-command, Ikarus went back to glaring at the streets.

“Oh, lighten up,” Malakai sang from behind. Ikarus swore he heard the fool skipping closer. “What’s the point of all this if we can’t have a little fun along the way? You really do want to suffocate all of life’s joys, don’t you.”

“Not nearly as much as I want to suffocate you.”

It was another fifteen minutes before Ikarus’s powers detected what he’d been waiting for—nine individual hearts beating frantically several floors below.

“About time.” Malakai cracked his neck, his ritual to prepare his body for battle.

Ikarus completed his own ritual, grasping the reins of his power deep in his chest and holding them there, ready to thrust out when the time was right. “Remember,” he whispered, “this mission isn’t about slaughter. The Ancient One thinks the spy told these humans about the nest, so he wants as many as possible captured for interrogation.” Something Ikarus would probably be called upon to do himself—because there wasn’t already enough on his plate, was there?

Malakai touched the forehead of his helmet in a mock salute. “Aye aye, captain.”

“That means we need them all alive,” Ikarus added sternly, both he and Aeris turning to stare at Malakai.

Malakai’s head whipped from one to the other. “What?”

“I mean it,” Ikarus hissed. “No killing.”

Malakai gasped, clutching his chest as though he’d been shot. “I would never! I am shocked that you’d even think—”