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“There were two of them?” Ameera asked, dropping the creature’s boxed head onto one of the few unoccupied spaces, disgust crossing her face.
“Clearly.” Verena, despite her typically settled appearance, seemed wrought with distress. “And now I fear more may have slipped through.”
Isla tried to calm her racing heart. “Slipped through where?”
Kai, his eyes haunted and distant, knew the answer with stunning quickness. “The veil.” His gaze trailed over the vats of tissue and blood before he met Verena’s eyes. “This is fae, isn’t it?”
“That’s our theory, yes,” she said, terror trickling into her voice as it beat through Isla’s chest. “Other than being unlike anything I or any of our Elders have ever seen, it was only harmed by iron, though it isn’t how we killed it.” That had been the beheading. “And one of my advisors believes that the aurora on the night of the Equinox had been a consequence of a tear between worlds.”
Isla’s mind reeled to that night, recalling how it had felt as if the world had broken,cleavedopen.
“The aurora happened here, too?” Ameera asked, eyes wide at the monsters on the table. Verena nodded. “And the storms?”
Verena languidly glided around the table, pulling out a pad of notes with scribbles, diagrams, and drawings of the creature to study herself. “She believes those are connected as well. If the veil is being tampered with, or the fae, or anyone, have been trying to break through it, then the storms could be manifestations of that chaos.”
Isla felt like her head was spinning, and as she stared at the murky green desecrated corpse, she couldn’t stop replaying the creature’s words.
Is it you who I seek, mortal?
The bridge, the cursed one, the answer, the key—which are you, golden one?
Isla shook her head, glancing at Kai, who’d gone silent, tumbling away into his own thoughts.
She asked Verena, watching her study the monster intently, “You didn’t invite us here to speak of rebellions or war, did you? You wanted to talk about this.”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” Verena answered, earning stares of perplexity from them all. She flipped a page of the notes. “There have been wars of many kinds in the history of our existence. It’s an inevitable sickness. Wars amongst wolves, wars between continents…wars between realms.” Isla felt her heart stutter as she drew her eyes again over the immortal body draped across the table. “I fear that in our strife, our rebellions, and our battles, we may be blinding ourselves to an even greater threat to our lands, and our division will be our downfall.”
CHAPTER38
ADRIEN
“Well, you definitely made things easier. I had to scale that whole cliffside by myself last time,” Adrien whispered, raising the burgundy fabric of a guard uniform from a folded pile within the prison laundry room and comparing it to his body. Deeming it too small, he tossed it to Raana, whose eyes had been trailing the dimly lit space. She still hadn’t drifted far from the now-closed escape tunnel’s door.
She caught the shirt just before it could hit her in the face and narrowed her eyes. “It couldn’t have beenthat bad.”
Of course, not for her. Her power allowed them to justappearon the rock face, whisking them through the shadows and into the tunnel.
Though he had been grateful to spare his fingertips, and that power was why he’d needed her here, he still pestered, “I’d like to see you try it.”
Raana shrugged and allowed darkness to dance along her fingertips. “I’ll never need to.” She held up the fabric. “I also don’t need this. Isn’t the point that I use my shadows to blend us in and move us around? We find the other witches, make a plan to get them out, and then find your friend.”
Adrien wouldn’t exactly consider Lukas of Tethys a friend, but he had been an unwitting victim. Plus, Adrien couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that there had been a greater reason his father had been keeping him prisoner, other than to cover his ass when it came to there being a witch on the continent.
“Well, in case that doesn’t work, the uniforms will help.” He reached for the back of his shirt and pulled the garment over his head. When the humid air of the laundry room kissed his skin, he caught Raana staring. She hadn’t even bothered averting her eyes like she’d done many times before, a faint blush painting her cheeks. No, now her gaze dipped down every contour of his chest, his abs, with her eyes darkening.
Goddess, spare him.
He’d scented it off her back at her cottage, too, when he’d pinned her beneath him against the cabinet. She wanted him, and he’d be damned if he didn’t want her. They hadn’t truly been apart long, and he usually had some modicum of control, but when it came to her…
Focus.
Once they were out of here, they’d give in. That’s when they would go back to her cottage, and he’d remap all those places that left her screaming his name. Then they could return to that strange place of theirs—being everything and nothing at all until they figured out what the hell they were doing…
Because he certainly neededthatwith everything else he’d been trying to grapple with, like their continent falling apart and the fact he wouldn’t be his father’s only heir thrown in his face.
“Focus, Scornn,” he told her now—but perhaps, meaning it more for himself again. Her eyes snapped up to meet his.
And there was that blush as if she hadn’t realized she’d been ogling him.
