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She eyed him. “You seem … nervous.”
He snorted. “It’s my first mission with my girlfriend. I want to impress her.”
Her lips quirked up, and Ruhn led the way down another tunnel. “Am I your girlfriend, then?” she asked.
“Is that … okay with you?”
She gave him a true smile. It made her seem younger, lighter—the person she might have been if Urd hadn’t taken her down her particular fucked-up life path. It knocked the breath from him. “Yeah, Ruhn. It’s okay with me.”
He smiled back, remembering how she’d chastised him when they’d first met for saying “Yeah,” for being so casual.
Ahead, Ruhn saw that they were approaching a dented metal door marked Do Not Enter. “Now, that’s practically an invitation,” he said, earning a laugh from Lidia as he kicked in the door.
* * *
The sight of the imperial battleships in the Istros robbed Tharion of any joy at the river’s familiar, beckoning scent. So did the presence of the Omega-boats docked with them. And right by the Black Dock … the SPQM Faustus. The very Omega-boat they’d barely outrun that day on Ydra.
He hadn’t dared venture into the northernmost part of the city to see the damage to Asphodel Meadows. They weren’t here for that, and he knew he’d see nothing that would make him feel any better. The city was eerily quiet. As if in mourning.
Face and hair hidden under a sunball cap, Tharion glowered at the armada for long enough as he stood on the quay that Sathia warned, “You’ll draw attention to us with all that glaring.”
“I should slip into the water and blast holes in all their hulls,” Tharion snarled.
“Focus,” she said. “You do that, and we won’t accomplish what we came here to do.” She frowned at the ships. “Which is clearly still necessary.”
“They’re holding the city hostage.”
“All the more reason to plead with the River Queen to take people in.”
Tharion found only cool determination on Sathia’s heart-shaped face. “You’re right,” he said. He let out a low whistle, and waited.
An otter in a bright yellow vest leapt onto the quay, dripping everywhere. It rose onto its hind legs in front of Tharion, whiskers twitching, spraying droplets of water.
Sathia grinned.
“Stop it,” Tharion muttered. “It only encourages them to be cuter.”
She bit her lip, and though it was thoroughly distracting, Tharion got his act together enough to say to the otter, “Tell the River Queen that Tharion Ketos wants a meeting.”
The whiskers twitched again.
Sathia added, “Please.”
Tharion avoided the urge to roll his eyes, but also added, “Please.” He fished out a gold coin. “And make it speedy, friend.”
The otter took the coin in his little black fingers and turned it over, eyes brightening at the outrageous sum. With a flick of his long tail, he leapt back into the clear turquoise water with barely a ripple and was gone.
Tharion watched him gracefully swim out into the depths, then vanish over the drop into the dark, to the Blue Court Beneath. Only tiny, glimmering lights showed any signs of life there.
“What now?” Sathia asked, again eyeing the warships docked in the river. If just one of the soldiers on them recognized Tharion …
He tugged his sunball hat over his hair. “Now we lurk in the shadows and wait.”
* * *
“This doesn’t seem safe,” Ember said for the fifth time as Bryce stood before the Northern Rift’s archway. Hunt waited ten paces behind her, freezing his feathers off. “This seems like the opposite of safe. You’re opening the Northern Rift to Hel. And we’re supposed to believe these demons—the princes, for Urd’s sake—are good?”
“I’m not sure they’re good,” Bryce said. “But they’re on our side. Just trust me, Mom.”
