Dorian flushed. “Stop fondling them. This is getting obscene.”
Caius met Dorian’s gaze. “Thank you. I shall try to be worthy of such a gift.” He bumped his shoulder against Dorian’s. “You know, you’re taking the idea of a coup rather well.”
Dorian shrugged. “Whatever your play,” he said, “I’ll back it. As I’ve always said, you are my prince, and I will follow you anywhere.” He pushed away from the column, pivoting so he was walking toward the castle backward. “Besides, I plan on taking great delight in watching Tanith get her just deserts. I never liked her.”
Caius laughed, and it felt as though a great weight had been lifted. With Dorian at his side, the impossible seemed merely improbable.
When Dorian reached the archway leading to the kitchens, he gestured for Caius to follow him. “In other news, a little birdie told me there was pie.”
Caius’s stomach growled at the thought of pie, loud enough for Dorian to hear. Caius looped an arm around Dorian’s shoulders, tugging him toward the delicious smell. “Was this little birdie named Echo, by chance?”
“Possibly.” Dorian’s lips quirked into a small smile. “But you know what they say: a revolution without pie is a revolution not worth having.”
Caius chuckled. “I don’t think anyone says that.”
“Well, they should,” Dorian replied. “Because it’s true.” He angled his head to scan Caius with his one good eye. “Now let’s get some food into you. Helena was right—you look absolutely terrible.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Something pricked at Echo’s arm. She slapped at the offending sensation, but it was too late. The mosquito had already bitten her, adding to the constellation of bug bites on her exposed arms. It was the first time Echo had visited the rain forest of Puerto Rico, and with luck, it would also be the last. The human family she had left as a child had been of Puerto Rican descent, but that part of her felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. She had memories of cuddling a stuffed coqui, the tiny frog native to the island, but her human ethnicity hadn’t mattered so much to the Avicen, and for the most part, Echo hadn’t given it much thought since the Ala had taken her in. Though she sometimes felt a faraway sadness for the heritage she knew so little about, she was finding it hard to appreciate Puerto Rico’s natural beauty at the moment. As picturesque as El Yunque National Forest was, Echo was too much of a city girl for all this greenery. And the mosquitoes. Good gods, the mosquitoes.
“I told you to wear long sleeves.” Rowan didn’t even bother trying to hide the smugness in his voice. While Echo couldn’t deny the satisfaction of an appropriately timed I told you so, she vastly preferred to be the one delivering it.
She shot him a scowl as they tramped through the undergrowth, mindful of the chaotic network of vines and roots that threatened to trip them with every step. They walked in single file—Sage and a few Warhawks in the lead; Echo in the center; Caius, Violet, and several Avicen mages behind her, with Dorian bringing up the rear—as it was easier to navigate the jungle that way. Echo had no idea where they were going, but she trusted Sage not to get them lost. An Avicen settlement was nestled deep in the jungle, seemingly as far from the cosmopolitan nest as one could possibly get, and conveniently located close to one of the seals on the map the Ala had made. Echo knew that such settlements existed, but she had never seen one herself; the Ala had told her of them in her youth when explaining the complex path of Avicen history. Most Avicen opted to live in human cities—the center of power was in New York, as it had been for centuries—but there were a few holdouts who preferred a life of solitude and isolation to the bustle and boisterousness of city life, even if said city provided a teeming mass of humanity to act as a shield against possible Drakharin aggression. Although, Echo thought as she surveyed the riotously colorful wilderness around them, perhaps isolation was its own protection. After all, the city had provided little deterrent when an attack had finally come, and the warning Sage had sternly delivered before they’d stepped through the gateway she and her mages held open ricocheted through Echo’s mind: Stay on the path. Do not stray. The jungle is filled with traps you won’t see until it’s too late. I’m not bringing any corpses back with me if you’re stupid enough to go off on your own.
Sage really did have a way with words.
In response to Echo’s vitriolic scowl, Rowan tossed a sweetly innocent smile at her over his shoulder. Which meant he wasn’t looking where he was going. Echo replied with a saccharine smile of her own as Rowan, blissfully ignorant of the dangers Echo saw fit not to warn him about, walked smack into a low-hanging tangle of vines and branches.
Echo stepped around Rowan as he struggled to free himself from the grasping vines.
“I do believe Sage told you to watch your step,” she said breezily.
Rowan swore in two languages—English and Avicet—as his shirt snagged on a thorn. With the animals scurrying to and fro, the cries of exotic birds, and the rustle of foliage, the jungle was far from quiet, but the sound of cotton ripping as Rowan struggled was loud enough to bring a smile to Echo’s lips. She could do smug just as well as—no, better than—Rowan ever could.
The Ala had sent them on their journey to the jungle settlement with a litany of instructions they were to follow to the letter, lest they risk being strung up from one of the towering canopy trees by their own intestines. Echo had started to say something flippant about the threat, but a pointed look from the Ala had said loud and clear that it was not mere hyperbole.
These are not like the Avicen you have come to know, the Ala had warned. They will not take kindly to a human in their midst. And they may even see an approach from their northern brethren as an unwelcome incursion into the territory they have so fiercely guarded.
A cheerful thought. Echo replayed the Ala’s instructions in her mind as she walked. Anything to distract her from the sweat beading on her brow and the ache in her muscles as she hiked through the jungle’s uneven, inhospitable terrain. El Toro, the forest’s highest mountain peak, was occasionally visible through the canopy. Like the rest of the rain forest, it was lovely, from afar. Echo slapped at another mosquito on her forearm, cursing it and its entire family.
The Ala’s first instruction: Get close to the camp, but let them find you. Do not enter their gates without an explicit invitation.
Echo had inquired as to what might happen should they simply walk through the settlement’s front door.
Their archers will strike you down before you’ve taken a single step over the threshold, the Ala had said. So don’t do it. Echo thought that last bit was specifically meant for her.