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“How the fuck did you know to get out here, anyway?” Baxian asked Bryce, likely trying to lighten the tension now filling the caves as surely as the mist smothering them.
“Because I’ve been here before,” Bryce said, her voice still a little rough around the edges.
Even Hunt’s anger eased enough for him to wonder if she’d hit her head in the river. Especially as they approached a solid wall of rock.
Bryce pushed a hand against the wall. A wedge of an archway opened beneath her palm. Her starlight flared, lighting up the wall and the carving that surrounded the triangular doorway.
An eight-pointed star. Twin to the scar on her chest.
“These caves,” Bryce said, pointedly not looking at him, “are nearly identical to the ones I walked through in the original world of the Fae.” She took a step into the star’s doorway. “The river there flowed throughout them—provided shortcuts. The Wyrm used them to sneak up on us. But my star glowed brighter whenever it wanted me to go a certain way, like it does here. It guided me into one of the rivers in the Fae world. I listened to it, jumped in, and it led me down to a passage that took me exactly where I needed to be to learn Silene’s truth. Just now, my star was glowing brighter when I faced downriver. I figured this river might lead down to another passage. Maybe one that’s got another bit of truth. Anything to help against the Asteri.”
“That was an insane leap of logic,” Tharion said. “And what about Flynn and Dec? The Autumn King and Morven and the Murder Twins still have them, those fucking ghouls still have them—”
“That confrontation will come.” Bryce walked calmly into the waiting darkness and swirling mist, adjusting Truth-Teller at her side. “But not yet.”
They had no choice but to follow her. “What does it all mean?” Baxian asked Hunt, almost plaintively.
Hunt cast aside his lingering anger and kept his focus pinned on his mate. “I think we’re about to find out.”
* * *
Flynn and Dec still weren’t at breakfast the next morning. And Ruhn’s quick jog through the castle and its grounds revealed no sign of them. Or of the Murder Twins. Just some Fae nobles and servants, unsure what to make of him, whether to sneer or bow. He ignored them, and was hurrying back to his room when Lidia emerged from it.
She took one look at his face and asked, “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t wonder how she’d guessed it—she’d had to be excellent at reading people her whole adult life. Her survival had depended on it.
Ruhn checked that his various blades were in place. “Flynn and Dec … I don’t think they’re here. And neither are my creep cousins. Or Morven.”
Her eyes sharpened with caution. “It might be unconnected.”
“It’s not. My friends don’t bail on me.” And he’d been so fucking distracted by her, by wanting her, that he hadn’t let himself think about it.
She put a hand on his arm. “Where do you think they went?”
Ruhn sucked in a breath. “Morven and the twins have to be involved. They must have taken Flynn and Dec to the Cave of Princes.”
“To make a move against Bryce?”
Ruhn’s stomach churned. “Maybe. But I think Morven took them as bait—for me. He expects me to follow.”
“If it’s a trap, then we shouldn’t rush in—”
“My friends rushed to save me from the Asteri dungeons,” he said, holding her beautiful gaze. “You found them, and they ran to help. I can’t leave them in Morven’s hands.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we leave them,” she said, striding to her own room. She left the door open so he could see her as she grabbed two guns off her night table and holstered them at her thighs. “I’m saying let’s think through a strategy before we go rescue them.”
Something burned in Ruhn’s chest, and he didn’t dare name it.
But he felt it all the same as they armed themselves and went to save his friends.
* * *
Hunt didn’t let his guard down, not for one second. Even with every word of his fight with Quinlan hanging in the air like the residue of fireworks. Lightning flickered in one fist; his sword was clenched in another. He didn’t put either aside as they entered a chamber at the other end of the tunnel.
He scanned its intricately carved walls of black stone, the exquisite landscapes depicted there, as they stepped in—
Stone grated against itself, and before Hunt could whirl, faster even than his lightning, the triangular door shut behind them. Tharion, a step ahead, let out a low whistle.
