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

Bryce arched a brow. “So he serves a king?”

“We have no kings in these lands. Only seven courts, each ruled by a High Lord. Sometimes a High Lady beside them.”

A rock skittered in the distance. Bryce twisted toward it, but—nothing. Only darkness.

She found Nesta watching her carefully. Nesta asked, “Why not let me get impaled earlier? You could have let me walk right into a trap and run.”

“I have no reason to want you dead.”

“Yet you ran from the cell.”

“I know how interrogations tend to end.”

“No one was going to torture you.”

“Not yet, you mean.”

Nesta didn’t reply. At the sound of another scuff in the darkness, Bryce whipped her head to it and found Nesta watching her once more.

“What is that?” Bryce asked quietly.

Nesta’s eyes gleamed like a cat’s in the dimness. “Just the shadows.”





10


Tharion knew this wouldn’t end well. Not with Flynn and Dec pointing guns at the Hind, Marc’s claws gleaming and poised to shred flesh. Not with Holstrom crouched, teeth bared, angled in front of Sigrid. The Fendyr heir glanced between them all with predatory assessment, understanding a threat at hand but not what it was.

Well, fuck. That left him as the voice of reason.

So Tharion did what he did best: dragged up the smile of the person he’d once been and sauntered over to Tristan Flynn.

He laid a claw-tipped finger on the barrel of the Fae lord’s gun, pushing it down. “Take a breath,” Tharion crooned. “We’re all on neutral territory. Even Lidia wouldn’t be so stupid as to harm you here.” He winked at the Hind, though his insides trembled. “Would you?”

The Hind’s face held no emotion, but her chin dipped.

Sigrid stepped forward. “Who are you?”

The Hind’s golden eyes swept over the female wolf. Her nostrils flared delicately. “I think,” she murmured quietly, “the better question is who are you?”

“None of your business,” Ithan cut in.

The Hind gave him a look that said she had her suspicions but it wasn’t her priority—yet. She said to the Fendyr heir, “A moment of privacy, if you will.”

Holstrom growled. “Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of her.”

Declan said quietly, “Holstrom, maybe she can … go join the dragon for a minute.”

Ithan turned outraged eyes on Declan but then seemed to relent. If this was about Ruhn, if the only way for the Hind to talk was to get Sigrid out of earshot …

Tharion chimed in, “Ari locked her door, so I’m pretty sure that means alone time.” He nodded to the door beside Ari’s. “But go ahead and take my room.”

Sigrid scoffed. “I’m not some pup to be ordered about—”

“Please,” Declan said with a helpless gesture. Marc again laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

There was a moment, then, when Ithan and Sigrid looked at each other—when Tharion could have sworn some sort of battle of wills passed between them.

Sigrid bristled, then spat, “Fine,” and stalked off toward Tharion’s bedroom.

The sprites zoomed after her, but the Hind halted them. “You three—wait.”

Sasa, Malana, and Rithi turned, wide eyes on the Hind. But she didn’t speak again until Sigrid had slammed the door to Tharion’s room. Perhaps a bit petulantly.

Tharion didn’t miss Ithan’s sigh.

The Hind glanced at her watch, likely calculating how much time remained until the Viper Queen returned, then said to Flynn and Dec, “I went looking for you two, but no one was at your … house.” Her tone dripped with enough disdain that it was clear what she thought of their house off Archer Street. “But I knew that Ketos had defected and come to the Meat Market for refuge—so I guessed you might be hiding here as well.”

“Guessed?” Declan demanded. “Or someone sold us out?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” the Hind said, crossing her arms. “You’re extremely predictable.”

“Well, you’re fucking wrong,” Flynn said, still not holstering his gun. “We’re not here to hide.”

Declan coughed, as if to say, This is what you choose to lie about? Marc hid a smile.

“I don’t care why you’re here,” the Hind said. “We don’t have much time. Ruhn’s life depends on you listening to me.”

“What the fuck have you done to Ruhn?” Flynn cut in.

Tharion could have sworn something like pain flashed across the Hind’s face. “Ruhn lives. As do Athalar and Argos.”

“Bryce?” Ithan asked hoarsely.

“I don’t know. She …” The Hind shook her head.

But Declan asked, “Baxian got involved? The Helhound?”

Before she could finish, Flynn demanded, “Why are you here?” His voice broke. “To arrest us? To rub our failure in our faces?”

The Hind pivoted to the Fae lord, and—yes, that was pain shining in her eyes. “I’m here to help you rescue Ruhn.”

Even Tharion blinked.

“This is a trap,” Declan said.

“It’s no trap.” The Hind surveyed them bleakly. “Athalar, Baxian, and Ruhn are being held in the dungeons beneath the Asteri’s palace. The Hammer and the Hawk torture them daily. They …” A muscle ticked in her slim jaw. “Your friends haven’t talked. But I’m not sure how much longer the Asteri will be entertained by their suffering.”

“I’m sorry,” Declan spat, “but aren’t you their lead interrogator?”

The Hind turned her unnaturally perfect face toward the Fae warrior. “The world knows me as such, yes. I don’t have time to tell you everything. But I require your help, Declan Emmet. I’m one of a few people on Midgard who can get into those dungeons unchallenged. And I’m the only one who can get them out. But I need you to help hack the cameras in the palace. I know you’ve done so once before.”

“Yeah,” Dec muttered. “But even with the cameras hacked, our plans haven’t exactly turned out great lately. Ask Cormac how well our last big adventure went.”

The words pelted Tharion like stones. The memory of the Fae Prince immolating himself slammed into him. A flash, and Cormac was dead—

“It only failed because Rigelus knew they were coming,” the Hind said, not unkindly. “Celestina sold them out.”

Shock rippled through the room. But Marc murmured to Declan, “I told you: Archangels are creeps.”

Flynn threw up his hands. “Am I the only one who feels like they’re on a bad acid trip?”

Tharion scrubbed at his face. “I’m still on one, I think.” Flynn snorted, but Tharion mastered himself, clearing his throat before saying to the Hind, “Allow me to clarify a few things: You are the Asteri’s most skilled interrogator and spy-breaker. You and your dreadwolves tormented us nonstop not so long ago, in this very city. You are, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty much the soul of evil. Yet you’re asking us to help you free our friends. And you expect us not to be suspicious?”

She surveyed them all for a long moment, and Tharion had the good sense to sit down before she said evenly, “I’m Agent Daybright.”

“Bullshit,” Flynn spat, angling his gun at her again.

Daybright, who was high up in the Asteri’s innermost circles. Daybright, who knew of their plans before the Asteri ever acted. Daybright, the most vital link in the rebels’ information chain …

“She smells like Ruhn,” Ithan murmured. They all blinked at him. The wolf sniffed again. “Just barely. Smell her—it’s there.”

To Tharion’s shock, a bit of color stained the Hind’s cheeks. “He and I …”

“Don’t for one fucking second believe this,” Flynn snapped. “She probably rolled around in his blood in the dungeons.”

Her teeth flashed in a snarl, the first hint of a crack in that cool exterior. “I would never hurt him. Everything I’ve done recently, everything I’m doing now, has been to keep Ruhn alive. Do you know how hard it is to keep Pollux at bay? To convince him to go slow? Do you have any idea what that’s like?” She screamed the last part at Flynn, who backed away a step. The Hind heaved a breath, shaking. “I need to get him out. If you don’t help me, then his death is on you. And I will destroy you, Tristan Flynn.”