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Silence. One beat. Two.
“Oh, Goddess.”
Raana turned, and Adrien looked like he was about to fall over. He braced himself on the countertop. “You know him?”
“I—I grew up with him,” Adrien breathed. “He is a warrior, and he dated Isla for a while.”
“He knew Isla?” Raana’s whispered question fell on deaf ears, though it had been more for herself. It seemed Nerissa had taken so many wolves of Io into her clutches.
Adrien nodded, a grimace sliding across his face, his voice hollow. “I just had to talk to his family, Sandrine’s family, and apologize for bringing her into the Wilds.”
Raana’s chest cracked, her mouth falling open. “I…I’m so sorry.”
But was she?
She’d done this. She’d cost that woman her life. She’d chosen him—and she’d choose him again.
How had his father reacted to everything? He was alive, still standing, at least? Save for the tired look on his face, he seemed unscathed, though shadows danced in his eyes, a haunting of memories he hadn’t wanted to share. She couldn’t help but notice he took a step back from her, and her heart cleaved further.
“Why were you both in Deimos?” he asked softly, suspiciously. “What were you doing?”
Shame clawed its way up her throat. “I needed to do something—for her.” His face blanched, and he took another step back. Heat flared her cheeks, and she wished the shadows would gather and whisk her away. “She would’ve done it with or without me, and if I hadn’t done it, people could’ve died.”
“Peoplediddie.” Malice laced his words, and Raana flinched. The lines of his face softened only slightly. “So, Callan works for her now? Like her rogues?”
“He has no control over what he’s doing. I’ve tried breaking the spell, but it just hurts him. That’s why he snapped when Eli—” Adrien flinched. “When Eli called him by his name. It’s unbearable to watch him try to break from the enchantment. I can’t imagine the experience…I tried to save Eli, but—he was too far gone. That’s when you showed up.”
A muscle feathered in Adrien’s jaw. “Where’s Callan now?”
“Somewhere in the hall.”
Adrien rose a brow. “Phobos’s?”
Raana nodded.
“It’s still standing?” he asked, clearly baffled.
“Barely,” she said. “It’s falling apart, and the dark magic makes the hallways move, and so much of it is warded against the fae and crafted with iron that my magic is almost useless. I’ve been searching for him and anyone else she has for days. I can’t find them anywhere.”
Adrien paced a few steps away, absorbing it all, shaking his head and cursing under his breath. Raana tracked down her knife behind some crystals and pressed it to the fleshy part of her hand as he asked, “Do you know what she’s planning?”
She cut a little too deep. “Not really.”
Lie,her mind screamed.Lie, don’t tell him the entire truth.
Because there was a chance he wouldn’t forgive her if he learned who her job had targeted, but…she couldn’t get herself to do it.
Her palm itched as her immortal healing kicked in, the wound knitting together. “Nerissa says she doesn’t want to hurt them. She’s adamant about it. She even swore it to me by her blood.” Raana braced herself and turned, using her magic to open the cabinet, feeling the pull and drain of her energy. Blood magic. There was always a cost. The spell Nerissa was doing would require her own sacrifice, too. “But she needed Kai and Isla’s blood for a spell, and I had to get some of it from the coronation ceremony.”
She wished there had been silence.
Wished she hadn’t heard him roar. “Shewhat?”
Raana had pulled the grimoire from the cabinet and shut it just as Adrien cornered her. The wood shook as her back collided with it, his presence boxing her in. The gold in his eyes blazed, his temper fuming. “Why does she need their blood?”
Raana didn’t find herself cowering from that fire; she matched it. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He bared his teeth.
