Page 357 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Freya shook her head, returning to what I was quickly realizing was a bottomless enchanted trunk. She’d already emptied half a library onto the concrete floor beside her. “But Aren always said it’s imperative that we set the time and place.”

“I beg your pardon?” Carr pressed. “We’ve been tryna lure the bastards out for half a year.”

“With skirmishes,” she huffed. “Never any real incentive.”

“August isn’t plenty of incentive?” Cyrus challenged. “You’re not? You’re both elements of the prophecy.”

Freya sighed, bent over the rim of the chest until her hips hinged, legs pointing skyward as she climbed down inside the damn thing. Only her feet remained visible as her muffled voice hollered back to us, “Not enough for Moros to come out full force. Certainly not enough to unleash the Angel of Death when his control is tenuous.”

“What if he doesn’t send her?” I pressed as she kicked her feet, and Cyrus and I both grabbed a leg to haul her out of there.

“He will.”

“How are you so certain?”

Red-faced from the head rush, she blinked between us before holding up a key tied with a glittering black ribbon. “Because what does Moros want more than anything else in this world?”

“I’m guessing it’s not a door,” I clipped, something dangerously close to hope sparking when she flashed that feral grin I’d loved for the last nineteen years.

“You clever little shit,” Cyrus said, a lopsided smile softening his expression.

“What?” she chirped, shrugging a shoulder. “You didn’t think I stashed it away all those years ago for nothing.”

“Fill me in before I decide executing Reyna is our better option.”

“She wants to lure them out with the Obsidian Crown,” Cyrus deduced, not bothering to peel his eyes off my sister.

“The thing you bartered to get Cyrus’ help with the diadem?”

“The very same,” she said, and when those hazel-green eyes landed on me, they were wicked. “Look, August, I’ve been studying the line, and power alone motivated Koa. They might have Alvara physically, but so long as you and the deadly six are breathing, there’s always the threat one of you will touch her skin and she’ll remember exactly who she fucking is, burning the whole place down from the inside.”

“He needs to control her magic or she’s useless to him,” Cyrus explained, nodding.

The crown had allegedly been crafted by Khaos to control Rhiannon on behalf of his brother. Rhiannon hadn’t fallen for the trap, partial to her own talisman in the diadem. The crown stayed locked away until after Koa’s death. Freya had said it was spelled to work only for Khaos’ true heir. Which made Kade key. Only he could use it freely to amplify his gifts, and only he could free someone from its spell once they were caught in it.

Only… Kade had been uncharacteristically quiet the last few weeks. Another to-do on my very long list.

Goddamn. So fucking obvious. I was equal parts thrilled with her and pissed it had taken us this long. “He needs to know he’s got his claws in deep enough that even if she accidentally reads one of us, he can keep her in thrall.”

“Right.”

“But it doesn’t make any tactical sense for him to pull her into the field—certainly not somewhere we’re bound to respond. Sire’s territory butts up against Westerlund. That’s basically delivering her to home turf. Moros has to know we’re ready for him. Ally slips through my hands over my rotting corpse⁠—”

“And you’re the only person on the fucking planet who can contain her,” Freya finished. “I know. But that means one of two things is gonna happen.”

“Either she’s fully in thrall and we’re all fucked sideways unless you can take her out—” Cyrus started.

“—or they burn the city of their own goddamn accord with a fleet of mediocre pyros to lure you into their trap.” Freya finished his sentence as she ushered us out her door and back into the hallway.

“With the council divided, how in the hell do we pull the manpower needed to overcome that?” I pressed, thinking of Reyna’s stony face.

“We don’t.”

“Sorry?”

“I like it,” Cyrus decided. “Brilliant.”

“I’d sure like to like it,” Tessa bit out. “But Blaz is currently lying in a fucking hospital bed, and I’m feeling a little short-handed at the moment. Care to fill the rest of the class in?”