Chapter 29
Everly
Iwas still standing in the stagnant air when the door opened with a whisper-soft click, and Soren slipped inside with the self-satisfied ease of someone who had recently escaped captivity.
His raven-black hair was still damp at the ends, as though he’d run a hand through it while fleeing, and his clothes looked rumpled in a way that suggested haste. I was unreasonably relieved to see him and even his facade of nonchalance under the circumstances.
Whatever family I was creating here, I knew that he had wormed his way in as well, spy or not.
“I see you’ve returned,” I said with all the lightness I didn’t quite feel, lifting the note from the nightstand. “So much for the healer’s orders to rest.”
“I have escaped,” he corrected, shutting the door behind him with a practiced flick of his wrist. “Amias attempted to imprison me with hot food, clean clothing, and the unconscionable demand that I sleep. But, I have liberated myself. Go ahead, be impressed by my bravery.”
I let out a slow breath, unable to hide the smirk tempting the corners of my mouth. “Let me guess. You hid in a broom closet until he gave up?”
He placed a hand over his chest, scandalized. “Do not trivialize my tactical retreat. It involved strategy, timing, and a regrettable encounter with mops.”
A genuine laugh escaped me then. “Well, all good spies have a getaway plan.”
His amber gaze met mine as he dramatically inclined his head.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “They do.”
I had meant it as a joke, but his response was too careful to misinterpret. A question began to take shape in my mind, one stained with the blood of the fae spy I had sent to an early grave.
“Soren,” I said cautiously, “how many contacts do you have? Fae you rely on for… information.”
It was the least subtle question I had probably ever asked in my life.
He blinked once, slowly. “Define rely.”
“That’s not a comforting answer.”
“It wasn’t designed to be.” He moved toward Nevara’s bedside, his expression sobering as his attention settled on her silent form. “Spies survive by evaluating risk, not by trusting the motives of others.”
He offered a small grin. “Or, so I hear at least.”
“Indeed,” I said, then hesitated before asking what I really wanted to know. “Do they ever… die?”
Soren’s head snapped toward me. A furrow appeared between his brows, faint but unmistakably wary.
“Is this about the…delivery the palace received?” he asked.
A shudder slid down my spine. The barrels. The heads. The smell I would never forget.
I really shouldn’t have been surprised that he already knew. Barrels of dismembered limbs were never going to be a discreet or well-guarded secret.
He nodded as if I’d spoken the thought aloud, and shards, perhaps I had.
“Nothing that gruesome stays a secret for long. And I make it a point to know when heads begin arriving uninvited.”
I closed my eyes and took a slow breath in, trying to force the memory out as I exhaled.
Soren’s expression was softer when I opened my eyes again.
“Anyone who serves their Court in that capacity understands the risks,” he continued. “Your spies were trained for what they encountered. They would have known the dangers long before they crossed into the Wilds.”
I pursed my lips. “You sound exactly like Draven.”
He let out a low, dry laugh, his eyes crinkling from the movement. “I’m sure he would be pleased to hear you say so.”
No. I’m not. Draven said through our bond, and I might have been amused if I wasn’t so irritated at the interruption.
Returning my attention to Soren, I shrugged. “I think he would be flattered, actually; but you didn’t answer my question.”
Soren hesitated for a moment, his amber eyes cleverly assessing me. I wondered if he would deflect again, if maybe asking him something like that here in this room with the weight of Nevara’s life hanging over him was the last thing I should have done.
But then he surprised me.
“You’re not really asking whether I’ve lost people,” he said softly. “You’re asking whether I know what it’s like to send someone into danger and then live with the knowledge that they didn’t return.”
I swallowed hard before answering him with a single dip of my chin.
“Yes,” he said, offering up a sad smile. “In the past. But I have since learned not to rely on communication that is so… mortal.”
I blinked at him, confusion knotting between my brows.
“What does that even—”
A sharp pop cracked through the hearth. And I turned just in time to see the flames leap higher, arching subtly, purposefully, as though something inside them had stirred at the sound of his voice.
The fire coiled upward, its shape fracturing into brief, flickering patterns that felt unsettlingly intentional.
Soren didn’t look at the hearth, but his head angled ever so slightly, as if listening to a whispered report rather than the crackle of wood.
My breath caught.
Oh.
Oh.
A light flicked on in my mind, illuminating something I should have noticed ages ago.
I thought back to the flames he’d summoned in the gardens when we fought the Mirrorbane, and the stories Wynnie told me about the Frostdrake attack, and the way the fire in the hearth always seemed to bend toward him, leaning in like an eager listener rather than an obedient weapon.
I’d assumed it was just the difference between Winter and Autumn mana, the natural pull between elements and the fae who wielded them…
But now, watching the hearth crackle in patterns far too deliberate, and the smoke twist in slow, serpentine ribbons—as though ferrying their secrets toward the ceiling—I realized Soren hadn’t merely been summoning flames before.
He’d been communicating with them.
When he inclined his head toward me, I realized I had spoken the words out loud.
“Amber-bonded mana carries farther than most fae realize,” he said. “Fire keeps secrets. Smoke carries them.”
Batty clicked in what sounded suspiciously like approval.
I leaned forward, every instinct screaming at me not to waste the opportunity.
“Soren,” I said, not caring that my tone belied every ounce of desperation I felt. “If you can reach other Courts this way… could you reach the Wilds? Can you reach my mother, or at least… see if she’s… reachable?” I stopped myself just short of saying alive.
Soren’s eyebrows rose, but before he could answer, the door swung open.
Amias strode inside with purposeful steps, carrying a crystal case wrapped in a glimmering cloth. His expression was tight with focus, and the vine tattoos on his fingers writhed in anticipation, curling and uncurling as if they sensed the poison clinging to the air.
“Good,” he said briskly. “You’re both here. I have something new that I’m eager to try.”
Soren shifted aside at once, jaw clenched, and I rose from the chair, unable to steady my racing pulse.
Amias set the crystal case on the bedside table with a delicate finality, peeling the cloth back to reveal a slender vial filled with an iridescent liquid that shimmered with soft pinks and golds, as though a sunrise had been coaxed into a bottle.
The tattoos along his fingers quickened, creeping like living roots hungry for whatever lay inside the vial.
“A friend at the Everbloom Sanctum sent this,” he explained, voice taut. “A distilled Spring essence designed to counteract venom with accelerated cellular repair. Risky. Volatile. But our options grow thinner by the hour.”
I swallowed hard as he uncorked the vial. A subtle scent of blooming petals cut through the cold. His hands remained steady as he injected the shimmering essence into a vein at Nevara’s wrist.
For several long seconds, the entire room held its collective breath, even the wind outside stilling to a muted whir. But nothing changed.
Then, miraculously, the black strands that had crept through her shimmering hair began to pale at the roots, softening from pitch to slate.
The sickly discoloration clouding her nails lightened as well, shifting toward a dull gray.
A fragile thread of hope tugged at my chest, and a shaky laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Relief pressed hot behind my eyes.
But the change faltered. The gray held, quivered, then deepened once more.
The color in her hair darkened rapidly, strands turning ink-thick and glossy as oil spreading over water.
Her nails hardened into obsidian, the discoloration racing from fingertip to fingertip with unnatural speed, as if the venom had been roused rather than soothed.
Amias froze, horror seizing his features. Soren cursed under his breath and gripped the bedframe. Batty pressed herself tight against my neck, a soft, frightened trill vibrating against my skin.
The truth hit all of us at once, cold and absolute. The Spring essence wasn’t healing her.
It was helping the venom along.