58. Lucy
Lucy
Sweep your own threshold last. Those who tidy their wards before their doorstep, invite the messy kind of trouble inside.
We hit the ground on the other side of the wards hard, both of us stumbling.
I looked back through the wall. Pip, tiny and incandescent, glared with her hands on her hips standing on Calder’s shoulder.
Riot stood very still with his arms crossed and his expression showing something I’d learned to read as controlled fury.
Beside him, Silas looked approximately the same.
“I don’t know what kind of bargain you made with that demon, but he looks mad enough to break the wards with just his glare.”
Syn took my offered hand and got to her feet, brushing frost from her coat. “He’s been grumpy since the day I met him. I don’t really care. Besides, there’s a hint of pride there, you just can’t see it. Pretty sure.”
We stood for a moment, both of us catching our breath, the city before us quiet at this early hour.
“Can you speak to him? Through the wards?”
Riot?
Nothing. Not even a hint on his face that he’d heard me.
“I could last night, but I think only because of the panic.” I spun away from them. “We’ve got twelve hours before we will be pulled back out if this doesn’t work. Lyric or the altar?”
Syn took a deep breath, tucking a red curl behind her ear as she surveyed the city in the early morning. “It has to be Lyric. And if we drop the wards, we lose control of everything. The dragons, the city, the people in it. And we could lose Lyric in the chaos.”
“So the altar waits. Let’s start with Tavian. If anyone in this city has records of a red dragon, it’ll be him. Plus, he knows everyone.”
As we ran toward the Keep, she asked, “We’re about to release all of these people on Fuerlis. Are the dragons going to be a problem?”
“No more than the hunters, or your Magistrate.”
She looked over at me and rolled her eyes. “First of all, your king is his own problem. And don’t even get me started on the fucking hunters.”
“We’ll catch up after the chaos?”
She took my hand. “We’ll have all the time in the world. For now, I owe a life debt to a moody Fury that’s holding the veil up so the demons don’t descend on every innocent person in Fuerlis. She thinks he’s dying. Can you think of anyone that’s been really sick?”
I paused. “There was a dragon that was found in the cave. He’d just been knocked out or something. And I have my suspicions about the tattoo artist that found him.”
She spun. “So, where do we go?”
“The Keep. I have no idea where that man lives, but maybe Tavian does.”
The house was quiet when we arrived, the corridors lit low with a stillness that belonged to the hours before anyone intended to be awake. Tavian appeared at the top of the stairs anyway, already dressed.
He took one look at Syn and came rushing down, panic in his eyes. “You found a new person? Are you okay? No Ossira, I see. Did you drop from the sky as well?”
I patted his arm. “No, Tavian. No. Thank you, but she’s okay. Listen, we don’t have a ton of time. I need your help. Have you ever seen a red dragon? Here, or records of one visiting the Keep?”
He thought about it, then shook his head. “Never. Not in all my years here. Dragons are blue and green and well, you’re black. That’s all.”
“Okay, and that man that was found in the tunnels, do you know where we can find him?”
“I don’t.”
“Okay. But what about Emrys, I need to find him too.”
Tavian’s expression shifted. “Good luck with that. He was supposed to be here an hour ago. We were going to make a run to the northern farms, see if there was anything we could do about the food situation.”
“You saw him last night though, didn’t you? After sunset? We were attacked, but Baylor said—”
Ice. Right down my spine, into my gut, and I couldn’t move. “Tavian.” It came out too even. Too steady. “How would a jeweler get into the warded room in the mountain. The one that’s sealed.”
“There’s no way.” He rubbed his temple. “If it’s the room I think, those wards have been there since before—”
He’d said I had a greater destiny.
I was looking at the low light and not at Tavian. Somewhere far off the healer was still talking but the pieces were coming and I could not get out of their way fast enough. Baylor said I wouldn’t have been attacked if the thirteen had come down.
He was pushing me.
Thirteen is my lucky number. Day one. A Moonborn had been in the street and I followed her. I followed her right through his fucking door like he’d left it open for me. Because he had. And he’d broken the wards. Because they were his.
My hand was on the wall but I didn’t remember putting it there.
“The collar isn’t strong enough.” I heard myself say but didn’t recognize the voice. “It can’t break a Tilouri bond. He knew that. He needed more.”
Syneca’s voice cut through. “Needed more what?”
He needed leverage.
“He has Emrys. Shit! He has Emrys.”
Tavian stared at me. “Why would Baylor have Emrys?”
“Because of me.” And there it was, the part that didn’t have ice in it, the part that was just hot and sick and true.
Every kindness. The lucky number, the open door, a greater destiny, all of it bait, and I’d taken it smiling.
“He took him to motivate me. Emrys was hurt because of me. We have to go. We have to go right now.” I turned to Syneca.
“He’s my friend and he was hurt last night.
And I thought he was okay but… we have to find him.
I’m sorry about the red dragon, but Emrys was hurt. ”
Syn stepped forward, and her voice was the opposite of mine: steady, low, already several moves ahead while I was falling backward through every one I’d missed.
“Hear me out. You can’t save him from in here.
Neither of us can. We’re in a cage. Go for Emrys now and the best we do is die next to him. ”
I managed a single breath.
She grabbed my arm. “Forget the other plan. We break the city loose first. The cage opens for everyone at once. The dragons take the sky. The people scatter. And in that, that’s the only window where three people can walk out and not be stopped by those fuckers circling up there.
We’ll find Emrys during the chaos and we leave.
Immediately. When the dragons rise we might see Lyric from the ground.
The team will be watching too. I can’t deviate from finding him, but we can change the way we plan to do it. ”
The logic was a hand on my chest, slowing me down. I hated that she was right.
“Okay. But the second the wards are down we go for him. And if for some reason we can’t break them, we don’t burn the whole day on it. I have to find him.” I heard the crack come back into my voice and didn’t bother hiding it. “He’s good, Syn. And he’s mine. My friend.”
Behind us, metal whispered against leather. Tavian straightened from the cabinet at the end of the corridor with a blade strapped to his forearm, already throwing a scarf around his neck. I looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
“What? You said you were attacked last night. You’re not walking into that without me.”
For one breath, none of us moved. Three of us, one blade, twelve hours, and an entire warded city about to come apart.
Then we ran.