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“I know,” I growled.
I know, I know, I know far better than anyone else.
Cross was still speaking. “Ambrose is impossible to find unless he wants to be found, even with all my resources. I can’t outmaneuver a seer—he is always ten steps ahead, one to the side, and somehow comes out behind me.”
“I’m well fucking aware,” I snapped. “But I suspect this time, he wants to be caught again.”
We both looked at Lonnie, and I grimaced. I hated the idea that my brother had found some way to get a note to her, that she’d become a piece in one of his never-ending chess games, but there was nothing to be done for it. She would have been involved anyway, I supposed, for more reasons than I could readily count.
“I’ll speak to my children about it,” Cross said evenly.
“Why?” Lonnie asked.
“Because they all work overnight and report back any changes in the city to me in the morning. If Dullahan is here, we’ll know in a few hours.”
I nodded. This was what I’d expected when I decided to visit Cross. I’d helped him to set up the guild, after all, and the system worked well. Granted, I didn’t think my brother would be in the city, but if I knew him, there would be some outpost stationed somewhere, watching for our arrival.
“You should get some sleep while we wait,” Cross said. “You look like you need it.”
“I’m fine,” I grunted.
“You might be, but she’s not.” He nodded at Lonnie.
I wanted to argue, but she was indeed looking a bit gray, her shoulders slumping despite her best efforts to hide it. I supposed it had already been near nightfall when we arrived in the city, and that was several hours ago now. The only problem was the den itself.
I cast a glance over at the group still playing cards at the table and frowned. The pair in the sparring ring had long since left, but I could hear sounds of life coming from the barracks, and this place would be crawling with thieves later when all Cross’s children returned.
“No—” I began.
“You’re welcome to stay up in the main house,” Cross offered, seeming to predict my concern. “It’s empty for the moment.”
“Fine.”
“You go on ahead,” I told Lonnie roughly. “I want to speak with Cross about something else.”
She stood from the table, waving me off. “As you like.”
“I’ll have one of my children bring you to your room,” Cross said, clapping his hands together. “And come get you in a few hours when everyone returns. Then, we’ll devise a plan.”
23
LONNIE
THE CUTTHROAT DISTRICT, INBETWIXT
My body felt like it weighed a ton, and my eyelids kept wanting to close of their own accord as I trudged out of the den.
I wasn’t sure at what point in the evening I’d grown so tired. Perhaps while Scion was recounting the story of his brother, which I’d already heard earlier in the day, or when he and Cross started making plans for finding the male. Their voices had started to drown into a dull hum of low, melodic tones, almost hypnotic in the way they tried to coax me to sleep. By the time Cross offered that we stay the night, I was nowhere near arguing.
“We’ll go up to the main house,” the Fae woman in front of me said far too cheerfully. “It’s much more pleasant than the barracks, and you won’t get woken up in the middle of the night when someone returns from work.”
The woman was almost pixie-like in appearance, though still with that same ethereal beauty of all the High Fae. Her skin was dark, and her hair almost blue-black in the low light of the stairwell. I’d noticed her when we arrived, standing with the males playing cards. When Cross called for her, she had bounded up to us with almost indecent enthusiasm, introducing herself as “Siobhan.”
“The barracks?” I asked, stifling a yawn,
“Where the rest of us sleep,” Siobhan replied easily. “There are so many tunnels and stairwells down here you could easily get lost, but the barracks is that way.” She jabbed a thumb back the way we’d come. “And the tavern where you came in is somewhere over there—” She pointed into the wall. “—next door to Father’s house.”
“You view Cross as your father, then?”
