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I whirled around yet again.
Some fifteen alves had gathered between the tents to my left, in leather and linen, swords on their backs and determined lines around their lips. Some of them were holding drawings –maps, I realised after a moment, and more particularly …
Was that a floorplan of the Cobalt Court, with those two enormous halls and the many aisles of bindings sketched in between the walls?
‘Beg your pardon?’ I said.
‘He’s instructed us about the organisation,’ the alf who had spoken before said – pierced eyebrow, tattooed temples, a nose with no fewer than three pronounced crooks in it. ‘Hytherion, I mean. We’re ready to go the moment you need us.’
I stared at him.
Only now did his eyes narrow in confusion, frowns and scowls around him mirroring the surprise. ‘He said you knew about it. About the plans.’
What in the world?
‘I … I didn’t know about anything.’ Zera help me, wasthatwhat he had been doing, those few times I’d caught sight of him around the camp – instructing various groups about their tasksin the hypothetical case Thysandra finally spilled her secrets? ‘Who did he ask? Just the lot of you? Or—’
‘Oh, no, there’s a few fae, too,’ the alf said, with the thinly veiled eyeroll that seemed to be a traditional obligation among alves when mentioning my father’s people. ‘Should I go and fetch them?’
I swallowed. ‘I suppose that would be—’
He was already gone.
They were looking at me with so much expectant confusion, the rest of them – and gods help me, could I blame them? A hundred and thirty years without their fertility, wings, memories, and whatever else the Mother had taken from them … and here I stood, the solution to their every problem, stammering and stalling rather than doing what needed to be done.
My team was ready. Time was running out. So what excuse did I have tonotgo on my way and get to work?
Was that what Creon had wanted me to do, since he’d made these preparations? Was that why he’d run –some twisted attempt not to distract me while I had better things to think about?
The world was starting to blur around me a little.
‘Could … could someone go and find him?’ I no longer cared how pathetic it must sound – unbound fae, godsworn mage, begging for someone to run after her wayward lover in her place. They would be gossiping anyway. ‘Tell him I need to have a word with him as soon as possible. Just fade him to the Cobalt Court if I’m there. Please.’
By the looks on their faces, no one was particularly excited about getting close enough to a volatile Silent Death to fade him anywhere.
‘Please,’I said again, as if that would make a difference. ‘I would very much appreciate—’
‘Oh, I’ll go look for him,’ Naxi impatiently cut in, still tugging at my hand at regular intervals. ‘Are you coming, then? We’re wasting time we shouldn’t be wasting.’
After weeks of obsessive stubbornness, I’d almost forgotten that killing the Mother might be the one thing Naxi wantedmorethan Thysandra. No sense in objecting, then – she’d sooner bite me than allow me to run off and go looking for Creon now.
‘As long as you find him as soon as possible …’
She rolled her eyes. ‘The longer you stand here, the longer it’ll take.’
Ruthless – but she wasn’t wrong.
I finally allowed her to haul me with her, cursing Creon and his bloody secrets under my breath when it turned out the alves were, indeed, not the only ones he had instructed over the course of the morning. A small battalion of fae had joined that initial group. There were a handful of nymphs and vampires, too, and even a few phoenixes he must have found among the last people to stay behind in the Underground, every single one of them aware of plans I hadn’t even caught a single glimpse of yet.
Just in case, he’d said – but he must have had a strong suspicion Thysandra would talk, surely, to go to such lengths to prepare?
‘So,’ Naxi started breathlessly as she finally let go of my wrist, her every syllable trembling with excitement. ‘The easiest way to identify the bindings, Thysandra told me, is to use the catalogue book that is hidden somewhere at the Crimson Court, but obviously that will be a little hard for us to reach right now …’
Grim laughs went up around us.
‘But the individual bindings are labelled, too.’ Naxi beamed at me. ‘Good thing we didn’t move them to the Underground, it turns out. The names have been inscribed into the shelves on which they are lying.’
I frowned. ‘What?’
