I try to explain as Finn sits beside me, resting on his hands and sucking in fresh air. Imerys guzzles water from a flask beside him, her face dark with soot.
“You saved us,” Gossamer says, patting Finn on the arm. “I owe you a debt.”
I might be imagining it, but I’m pretty sure she caresses the muscle in his biceps for a second longer than necessary.
Maybe Finn senses it too. “No debt, my lady,” he says, lifting his fingers for her to settle onto. He lowers her to the ground. “It was my pleasure. And now I am one up on Eris.”
I look around. “She’s not here?”
“What do you mean?”
I tell him what happened.
Finn pushes to his feet, cursing under his breath. “Eris doesn’t simply vanish. If she was on watch tonight, then she’d be stuck to your ass like a burr.” He doesn’t say that something’s wrong, but I read it on the grim line of his face. “I’ll find her.”
And then he’s gone.
A huge dome of shadowy clouds envelops the library and collapses in upon it. Thiago stands in the yard, holding his palms outstretched.
“What’s he doing?” I whisper.
“Everything needs oxygen to breathe,” Thalia says. “Even fire.”
The clouds of smoke roil and thrash, but it looks like they’re being contained within an invisible glass dome. Flame licks at the edge of the ward, but they’re slowly being choked out.
Another figure steps from the shadows.
Prince Kyrian, his face grim as he wields his own magic. Twirling his finger, he sweeps Thiago’s darkness into tight coils that seem to crush the building. Flames writhe, but they’re slowly dwindling as if his smoke-coils choke the life from them.
The fire burns low… and dies.
Finally, it’s done.
The air reeks of smoke. Blackened marks scorch the library tower, and every window in the place is merely an eyeless gaping hole.
But some of the library remains untouched.
And nobody died.
Though, as I see Princess Lucere bearing down upon me, I don’t think we’ve escaped entirely unscathed.
“What in Maia’s name did you do?”
Chapter Thirteen
“Me?”
“Your natural gift is Fire, isn’t it?” Lucere snarls. “I think if we need to find the culprit, then we need look no further than right here.”
Thiago steps forward. “Vi had nothing to do with this.”
“Were you with her?” Lucere demands, turning on him in a rage. “Was she in bed with you when this happened? Can you vouch for her whereabouts?”
And he pauses.
“I was on the battlements,” I reply softly, “with Eris. I couldn’t sleep.”
Thiago cuts me a look telling me not to say any more. “Vi has no reason to attack you and your court—”
“Doesn’t she?” Lucere demands coldly. “Perhaps she didn’t like the way you danced with me. Perhaps she—”
“If you think me foolish enough to attack a foreign kingdom over something so petty as jealousy,” I snap, “then you know me not at all. I am not my mother. And I know who Thiago chose all those years ago. He spent thirteen years winning my heart, over and over again, and you think I’d believe that his head is turned by another woman?”
The color fades from Lucere’s cheeks, but I see a faint smile on Thiago’s sultry mouth.
I step closer. “From the moment I have arrived in this court, you have greeted me not as a fellow royal but as an enemy to be held with contempt. You have insulted me. And you have sneered at my relationship, but let me assure you, I do not see you as a threat. I pity you instead.”
“How dare you?” she demands.
“I dare because I have held my tongue until this moment,” I reply, “because at least one of us remembers their manners.”
“Princesses,” Kyrian chides. “Let’s not accuse anyone of any wrongdoing unless we have proof.”
She makes a move toward me, her face absolutely furious, but Corvin snatches her arm, and when she turns on him in a rage, he stares her down.
“No,” he says softly. “Whether she was involved in this fire or not, we will not offer anything less than courtesy, nor will we—”
“She wasn’t involved,” a soft voice says.
All of us turn our heads.
Imerys stands with her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes soft and aching. “She saved my life, Luce. All I could think of was Gossamer, but the princess came in after me. She warded the flames away so we could get out.”
Lucere’s color mottles. I think she’d probably set me on fire right now if she could.
“Your Highness!” someone calls.
We all turn, which is the problem when four of you have spent your life listening to that title.
Finn staggers around the corner of the main tower, carrying someone in his arms. There’s a guard beside him, hauling another guard.
“They’re all asleep,” Finn says. “Just lying there. Like this.”
And I finally see what’s in his arms.
It’s Eris.
Her dark lashes remain soft as they shield her eyes, and her arm hangs laxly so that her fingers almost brush the ground. Nearly six feet of solid muscle and contained rage, and at that moment she’s so still I don’t know if she’s even breathing.
I shove past Lucere, my blood running cold. Finn carries Eris with ease, but I can’t help reaching for her.
Eris of Silvernaught doesn’t do vulnerability. To see her sprawled bonelessly in Finn’s arms feels like the last shock I can take for the night.
“Is she all right?” I demand.
Healing is a gift in my bloodlines, though I’ve never spent time studying the art and I’m too tired to even access my gifts right now, but the pulse in her throat remains steady beneath my fingers.
“Asleep.” Finn frowns as he lays her on the cloak Thiago spreads on the ground. “Wake up, Eris.” He taps her cheek.
Her head lolls to the side, and in that moment—if she wasn’t wearing the firm leather body armor she lives in—she’d almost look like the sleeping fae princess of the tale.
“E?” There’s an odd tremor in Finn’s voice.
“Let me.” Thiago kneels and lays his hands flat on her chest, closing his
