There’s always a price for gaining the ability to See through secrets and lies, because sometimes you start to see the future too.
Water. And a storm. My mother has fae who can channel water, but a storm itself? They’re aggressive and unruly and even the best Stormchaser can only direct a storm for a mile or two before it spins out of control.
“And after the water breaks the city, night falls. But this time, it doesn’t lift.”
Our eyes meet.
The curse that gnaws at the north of Evernight has been gaining ground inch by inch for centuries, but it’s still contained to the north.
Evernight. Or ever night.
How is my mother involved in this?
“But every dream I have,” he continues, “circles back to one moment. You. You walk through water as high as your waist and it parts. The water recedes. The city repairs itself. Corpses jerk to their feet and vomit water from their lungs, returning to life. Night falls and there you are, glowing like a beacon in the darkness. Glowing so bright that you become the sun. Dawn breaks over you.”
A shiver runs through me. “I don’t have the power to do any of that.”
“As I said, I don’t care who rules the city. But I care for the city. And there’s a chance you can save the city.” Drawing his hood up over his face, he nods to me. “The Gray Guild will meet on Elms Day to carry out their attack. I don’t know where they meet, but I will know. And I will send word.”
“Wait!” I grab his arm as he turns to go. “There is something else I must ask.”
One of his brow’s arches.
I consider how best to word it. “Thiago’s friend has been cursed, and it’s reputed that you have a hexbreaker among your… crew.”
Instant suspicion. “I have no hexbreaker.”
As expected. Curses and hexes originated in Unseelie. To suggest the possibility of one means there are unseelie in this city who shouldn’t be here.
“If you had a hexbreaker who could break his curse, then we would be very grateful,” I stress.
“Grateful doesn’t fill my coffers.”
I pluck the Sorrow flower from his fingers. “Roses won’t earn you a moment of her time. But this might.”
“What makes you think I wish for a moment of her time?”
The fact that I don’t even need to say Eris’s name.
“You want her attention,” I point out, “or you wouldn’t keep stealing into her rooms.”
His eyes narrow. “I’ll… consider it. Tell her I don’t have a hundred horses, but… maybe I won’t need them.” He tugs the book from the shelf behind me—the one I was looking at—and examines the cover. “You have an interest in old myth.”
“I like history.”
“Crowns too, by the sound of it.”
Clearly, he’s been watching and listening ever since I entered the shop. “Unfortunately for my interests, they don’t seem to have what I want here—”
“Nobody will have what you’re looking for.” An enigmatic smile crosses his face. “After the wars, the Seelie queens decided the information you’re searching for is too dangerous to be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. They tore through their kingdoms and burned every book that might hold details of the Old Ones, and the relics used against them.”
He really has been watching me.
My heart sinks.
Why would they do such a thing?
“All except one queen.” His voice drops as he realizes he’s caught my attention. “Lucidia of Ravenal collected books as though they were weapons. She gathered every treatise on myth that could be found within her kingdom and claimed to have burned them, but rumor suggests the old bitch kept them for herself. Her library at Ravenspire is closed to all but the royal family, and some say the reason for that is because she didn’t want the other kingdoms to know what she held.”
“Some say?”
“There’s not a single locked door on this entire continent that is able to hold me out.” He replaces the book on the shelf beside my head. “They won’t let you in, but let me assure you…. There’s only one place where you may find what you’re looking for, and that’s within the library at Ravenspire.” He winks. “And now I think I’ve been more than generous with my information.”
The shop door slams open, and I jerk my head in that direction, but it’s only a scowling hob, carrying too many parcels in his arms.
“Thank—"
When I glance back, the assassin prince is gone.
“You,” I say softly.
I place the Sorrow rose on the middle of the council table.
Eris was leaning back in repose, but now she slams forward, all four feet of her chair hitting the ground. “That motherfucker.” Her dark eyes narrow on me. “Where did you get that from?”
Thiago prowls around the table. “I needed to talk to the Prince of Shadows—"
“You, what?” Eris stabs her knife through the rose. “You went to see him? When? How many guards did you take?”
“Just one,” Finn says, raising his hand.
A demonic light comes to life in her eyes. “What did he say?”
I tell them everything.
The Gray Guild. The storm coming. Ravenal. My mother’s plot.
But it’s the comment about one hundred horses that draws the most interest.
“My, my,” Thalia says, trying to hide her smile. “Someone’s confident.”
“I’m going to tear that sneaky little bastard apart with my bare hands,” Eris growls. She wrenches her knife out of the table, and shoves to her feet.
“That sneaky little bastard might be the only way we’re going to break Lysander’s curse,” Thiago
