House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

“Your sister,” Lidia said, “was right to wonder what was going on with this place. Do you think Morven’s hiding anything?”

“You’re the super spy-breaker,” Ruhn said, going to the hearth and tossing a few logs into the ashes. “You tell me.”

The muscles in his forearm shifted as he grabbed some kindling and flint and lit the fire with a sort of efficiency that shouldn’t have made her mouth water. He glanced over a shoulder, those blazingly blue eyes curious, and she realized he’d asked her a question, and she’d just been … staring at him. At his arms.

She cleared her throat and went about hunting for two mugs. “Morven never gave the Asteri or me cause to look into this place. He always appeared when summoned, and offered his services without question. He was, as far as Rigelus was concerned, a perfect minion.”

“So there was never any discussion about these mists and Morven getting to hide behind them whenever he wanted?” The fire sparked to life, and Ruhn rose, stepping back to monitor it.

“No,” Lidia said. “I think Rigelus believes the mists to be some … charming quirk of Midgard and the Fae. Something that added a bit of personality to this world. And since Morven and his forefathers played nice, they were left alone.”

Ruhn slid his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. “I guess I’m surprised that after the truth about Cormac came out, the Asteri still didn’t come poking around Avallen to see what might have caused the prince to turn rebel.”

“Morven slithered right to the Eternal City,” Lidia said, clenching her jaw. “And disavowed his son immediately.”

“Right, with my dad in tow.”

She scanned his face, the pain and anger that he didn’t hide. “Yesterday, when I said you should act more like a prince …”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I know the kind of monsters you’re going up against.” She dipped her eyes to his forearms, where the childhood burn scars were now mostly gone, but a few shiny pink streaks remained, untouched even by Pollux’s ministrations.

“I can look after myself,” he said tightly, fitting the kettle onto the hook over the fire and swinging it above the flame.

“I know you can,” she tried, failing miserably at explaining. “I’m just … I see how good you are, Ruhn. You wear your emotions on your face because you feel in a way that Morven and the Autumn King do not. I don’t want them to use that against you. To figure out how to hurt you.”

He slowly faced her, those beautiful blue eyes wary, yet tender. “I think that’s a compliment?”

She huffed a laugh, and plopped two tea bags into the least dusty mugs she’d found. “It’s a compliment, Ruhn.” She met his gaze, and offered him a small smile. “Take it and move on.”



* * *



They found nothing new that day. Flynn and Dec seemed content to let them do the work, because they didn’t show up. Or perhaps they’d gone off on some important errand and couldn’t let them know, with no way to text or call.

“Listen to this,” Lidia said, and Ruhn stopped his endless browsing to walk over to where she’d opened an ancient scroll. He’d noticed the way she’d been looking at him earlier—the pure desire in her eyes, her scent. It had distracted him so much that he’d barely been able to light the fire in that sorry excuse for a kitchen.

But Ruhn reined in the urge to scent her, to bury his face in her neck and lick that soft skin. Lidia pointed at the unfurled scroll before her. “The catalog listed this scroll’s title as The Roots of Earthen Magic.”

“And?”

Her mouth quirked to the side. “I think it’s strange that both Flynn and Sathia can’t stand Avallen.”

“What does that have to do with defeating the Asteri?”

“I figured it might be worthwhile to pull out some of the earliest writings about earth magic—what role it played in the First Wars, or soon after. This scroll was the oldest I could find.”

Flynn had picked a Hel of a time to not show up. “And …?”

“This doesn’t offer more than what we already know about the usual sort of earth magic the Fae possess, but it does mention that those with earth magic were sent ahead to scout lands, to sense where to build. Not only the best geographical locations, but magical ones, too. They could sense the ley lines—the channels of energy running throughout the land, throughout Midgard. They told the Asteri to build their cities where several of the lines met, at natural crossroads of power, and picked those places for the Fae to settle, too. But they selected Avallen just for the Fae. To be their personal, eternal stronghold.”

Ruhn considered. “Okay, so if Flynn and Sathia say this place is dead and rotting …”

“It doesn’t line up with the claims recorded here about Avallen.”

“But why would the ancient Fae lie about there being ley lines here?”

“I don’t think they lied,” Lidia said, and pointed to the maps on the other table, where Dec had discarded them. “I think the Avallen they first visited, with all those ley lines and magic … I think it existed. But then something changed.”

“We knew that already, though,” Ruhn said carefully. “That something changed.”

“Yes,” Lidia said, “but the mists haven’t. Could that be intentional? They left the mists intact, but the rest was altered—entire islands gone, the earth itself festering.”

“But that would only have hurt the Fae—and we all know they’re self-serving bastards. They’d never willingly part with any sort of power.”

“Maybe they weren’t willing,” Lidia mused. “Whatever happened, the mists kept it hidden from the Asteri.”

“What do you think they wanted to hide? Why rot their own land?”

Lidia gestured to the catalog behind them. “Maybe the answer’s in there somewhere.”

Ruhn nodded. Even as he wondered if they’d be ready for whatever that answer might be.



* * *



Bryce stood with Baxian on the bank of a second river, surveying the path on its distant side, her star glowing dimly toward it. The river passageway was narrow enough that she would have to teleport them across. She kept her starlight blazing bright, the ghouls a whispering malice around them.

There had been nothing helpful in the carvings so far. Fae slaying dragons, Fae dancing in circles, Fae basking in their own glory. Nothing of use. All surface-level shit. Bryce ground her teeth.

“Danika was the same, you know,” Baxian said quietly so the others wouldn’t hear. “With the wolves. She hated what so many of them were, and wanted to understand how they had become that way.”

Bryce turned toward him, her starlight flaring a bit brighter as it illuminated the downward sweep of the river. It dimmed as she faced the Helhound fully. “The wolves are by and large way better than the Fae.”

“Maybe.” Baxian glanced to her. “But what of your brother? Or Flynn and Declan?” A nod to where Sathia, Tharion, and Hunt sat together. “What of her? Do you think they’re all a lost cause?”

“No,” Bryce admitted. Baxian waited. She let out a long breath. “And the Fae I met in the other world weren’t so bad, either. I might have even been friends with them if circumstances had been different.”

“So the Fae aren’t inherently bad.”

“Of course not,” Bryce hissed. “But most of the ones in this world—”

“You know every Fae on Midgard?”

“I can judge them by their collective actions,” Bryce snapped. “How they locked people out during the attack—”

“Yeah, that was fucked up. But until Holstrom defied orders, the wolves weren’t helping, either.”

“What’s your point?”

“That the right leader makes all the difference.”

Bryce recoiled at the words: the right leader. Baxian went on, “The Valbaran Fae might not be the most charitable people in our world, but think about who’s led them for the last five hundred years. And long before that. Same with the wolves. The Prime isn’t bad, but he’s only one decent guy in a string of brutal leaders. Danika was working to change that, and she was killed for it.”