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“Yell for Ziriel. Tell him you want to make a deal. Quickly!”
“Ziriel!” I said, holding the glittering disk above my head. “I have a deal to make with you!”
The drumming stopped and Ziriel turned to smoke. His body slowly formed in front of me.
There were beads of sweat coating his brow, his chest was heaving with exertion, and yet I thought I saw a hint of thanks in his eyes. He was fey, and I’d just learned that not giving thanks was one of the only things universal across all the courts. He slowly sheathed one of his swords. The long, curved blade had flecks of Rayvien’s blood still dripping from it, but he didn’t clean it. Just put it away. Leaving only the carved, twisting golden hilt exposed as it hung from his left hip.
Ziriel stared at me for a long moment before nodding and turning to Cosette. “Back already?”
“Clearly.” She sounded bored and she stared off to the side, as if he wasn’t worth her time, but I knew by the rigid stance that she was anything but bored.
“And yet, your guards left.” Ziriel held his arms out as he looked around the arena.
There had to be at least a couple thousand Gales fey in here, maybe fifty of them in white. Maybe more. I wasn’t sure. But the odds against us were terrible.
“You don’t have any protection here but Van and this dog.”
A growl rose up in me. Being called a dog wasn’t something that I would ever—ever—tolerate.
Cosette grabbed my arm just as I was about to shift, and shoved her candied moonlight magic into me, pushing down my wolf.
I almost yelped at the feeling, but she was right. I couldn’t start a fight. Not right now.
“Are you threatening us?” Cosette’s voice was cold and had none of the parts of her I knew or loved in it.
It was her facade, and I knew it, but the sound of her voice becoming something so frozen and hard terrified me.
“Not currently. Just stating a fact so we’re all on the same page.” The grin on his face was so cocky, I wanted to punch him, but I didn’t.
“You want them to attack her?” I asked, but it wasn’t really a question. That was his goal.
My wolf was slowly rising despite Cosette’s tight grip on my arm. Her sweet lunar magic was still fighting to keep him calm, but I pulled away from her.
For once I didn’t give a shit. No one threatened Cosette.
“If they did, they couldn’t hurt her.” He turned to Cosette. “Could they? You are an archon’s daughter. But which one?”
“Does it matter?” Cosette said it like she didn’t care about her father, but I knew she did.
“Yes. Yes, it does. To me.” He rose two feet up from the ground, and half of his legs disappeared, hidden in a cloud of smoke as he drifted toward us. “I want that piece of information.”
“Why?” Her tone was teasing, but still had that thread of ice in it. “Do you want to meet him?”
“Yes. I’ve only ever met one archon, but if his daughter is here—I will get to meet another. Having more friends in Heaven only helps me.” He floated closer. His eyes burned red with greed and power. “Will you introduce us? Will you call him down to us?”
“Absolutely not.”
What Ziriel didn’t know was that Cosette had never spoken to her father. Never met him, not even once. But she wasn’t giving that away. Everything in her posture, attitude, and words gave the impression that she wouldn’t do it, not that she couldn’t.
They stared at each other for a while, before Ziriel looked at me. “Let’s see this bargain you have.”
I held it up again.
“It’s quite large.”
There were so many jokes I could’ve made with that one sentence, but the way he was looking at me—the way his eyes had turned black with rings of red in them—made nothing seem funny anymore.
Ziriel held out his hand, snapping his fingers when I didn’t move fast enough.
