Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
“This is a terrible idea,” Finn said.
“It doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice.” Loren tugged up his hood, pausing to make sure the shadows were all tucked under his cloak. “We need fighters to break into the Shaw estate. From everything you’ve said, this Maerin has them.”
Finn grunted, pulling his own hood up to shadow his face. “This way.”
Loren slid out of the narrow alley, hunching his shoulders to try and disguise his height. Finn set a brisk pace, sticking to alleys and the shadowy edges of streets wherever they could.
It should have drawn the wrong sort of attention—skulking through the streets like criminals. But the few people still out barely glanced their way, eyes downcast as they hurried to finish their business before sunset. No one wanted to be caught out on the street after curfew.
“Maerin isn’t what you’re expecting,” Finn said as they turned down yet another empty street. “She doesn’t believe in long-term strategy, or minimizing losses. If she sees a chance to strike at the Arcanum, she’ll take it. No matter what the cost.”
“Are you saying she can’t be trusted?” Loren asked.
“Not exactly.” Finn’s gaze flicked across the boarded-up windows, scanning their surroundings as they crossed another street. “But she certainly isn’t a royalist.”
Loren slammed to a stop. “A what?”
Finn kept walking. “A royalist. Someone who still believes the fae monarchy has something to offer them,” he said, his voice low. “You have to understand, Loren, most of the fae here—fuck.”
Finn grabbed Loren by the arm, yanking him back into the mouth of the narrow alley they’d just passed. Only to swear again when they fetched up against a collapsed building, turning their escape route into an unexpected dead end.
“What—” Loren started.
Then he heard it. Boots on cobblestone, every step accompanied by the faint jingle of metal.
An Arcanum patrol—moving closer.
“Against the wall,” Finn ordered. “Now.”
Loren held his breath, plastering himself into the darkest corner of the dead-end alley. It wasn’t going to be enough. As soon as they rounded the corner, the soldiers would see them, huddled against the wall like cornered rats. An ignominious end to the last king of the free fae.
“Don’t move,” Loren muttered.
Finn flinched, swearing as the shadows spilled out from under Loren’s cloak. But he didn’t move, his shoulder bumping Loren’s as the darkness took Loren’s intention and made it a reality, rising in front of them like a dark curtain.
The patrol turned the corner.
Aetherlight swept across the mouth of the alley, the soldier wielding it laughing as he said something to one of his companions.
Loren held his breath as it skimmed the wall a breath from his face, warping where it struck the shadows.
The soldiers were so close he could see the gold stitching on their black coats.
Could smell them, the burnt stench of stolen magic mingling with the sour tang of unwashed human.
Don’t look. Loren’s heart hammered against his ribs, making him suddenly grateful humans had such poor hearing. There’s nothing to see here. Just a darker patch of shadows—
They walked right past them.
“Fuck.” Finn let out a shaky breath, sagging against the wall. “That was too close.”
“Good thing the fae monarch was here to save you,” Loren grumbled.
“I am a royalist,” Finn snapped, brushing dust off his clothes. “But the people you’re about to ask for help aren’t. All that time you spent in chains? These people spent those years suffering under Arcanum rule. Keep that in mind before you start making demands.”
They didn’t speak again, cutting through another narrow alley choked with refuse and following a winding side street toward the sound of crashing waves.
Finally, Finn turned, sidling between two of the leaning buildings and stopping in front of a boarded-up door just like the dozens of others they’d passed.
Finn raised his hand, but before he could knock the board covering the door shifted. A child peered through the gap, her violet eyes bright in the darkness.
“You’re late,” she said.
Finn scowled. “Good evening to you too, Maya. Are you going to let us in?”
The child studied them a beat longer than necessary, her bright eyes flicking past Finn to Loren’s hooded shape. Then she stepped back, pulling the board aside just enough for them to slip into the cramped entryway.
“I made you three blocks back,” the child—Maya—said, crossing her arms. “I thought that patrol was going to catch you.”
“They almost did,” Finn said. “That’s why you shouldn’t be out after curfew.”
The child scoffed. “They never see me,” she boasted. “I’m faster and smaller than you. It’s what makes me the best lookout.”
“You’re a lookout?” Loren stared at her, trying to reconcile the child standing in front of him with the idea.
She couldn’t have been older than ten—all sharp angles and bones, her slight frame far too thin.
Someone had shorn her silver hair off at her chin, the ends as ragged as her clothes.
Goddess save him, she wasn’t even old enough to have come fully into her magic yet.
She had no business tracking trained Arcanum soldiers through the streets.
“You’re a king?” she retorted, her violet gaze flicking down to where the shadows curled around his boots. Her lip curled, not a flash of fear on her small face. “You could have killed those soldiers with your shadows, but you hid instead. Are you some sort of coward?”
Loren opened his mouth, a hundred good answers dancing on the tip of his tongue—too many civilians in the surrounding buildings, the destruction the Arcanum would have unleashed on the district when they discovered the deaths—but they all stuck in his throat.
Because even he wasn’t sure if it was the truth.
“That’s enough, Maya.” A fae female who shared the same silver hair and violet eyes stepped through the tattered curtain at the back of the entryway. “Go see if that patrol doubled back. And make sure you record it. They’re changing the schedule again.”
“Yes, Mother,” Maya said, straightening immediately. She cast one glance back at Loren—searching for an answer he didn’t have—before vanishing through the crack in the boards like she’d never been there at all.
“Did you just send your own child back out there knowing there’s an Arcanum patrol?” Loren stared at the silver-haired female, trying to reconcile the thin, worn-down female in front of him with the rebel leader Finn had wasted so much breath cautioning him about. “She could be captured—”
“As judgmental as your friend, I see.” Maerin smiled, the expression a little lopsided thanks to the scar running down the side of her face. “Maya was born and raised under Arcanum rule. Don’t you think she has as much right as you and I to fight back against them?”
“She’s a child.” Loren shook off Finn’s warning touch, unable to stop the words tumbling out of his mouth. “She hasn’t even come into her magic—”
“None of us have our magic, Shadowbane,” Maerin said coolly. “Or we didn’t, until your friend Kai Sterling started coming to visit.”
Loren bristled, a retort hovering on the tip of his tongue. But snapping that Kai Sterling wasn’t his friend wasn’t the way to ingratiate himself with these people. The shadows muttered angrily around his feet, hissing their displeasure.
“You have to admit, Maerin,” Finn said, always the mediator. “It’s hard to see a child playing scout. You can’t blame him for being shocked.” He stepped forward, moving between Loren and the rebel leader. “We’re here to talk, not to fight.”
Maerin hummed noncommittally, still staring at Loren. She wasn’t smiling now. “Come. We can speak privately in the back.”
They followed her past the tattered curtain and down a long, narrow hall, its sagging walls braced with scavenged planks. The floor dipped under Loren’s boots, warped and rotted.
These were the people they needed help from? They could barely take care of themselves.
Maerin pushed open the door at the end of the hall, magic flashing across its surface so fast Loren wasn’t even certain he saw it. He ducked his head, stepping through after her—and stopped dead.
“What is this?” he asked, his voice strangled.
None of these fae were soldiers. They were children and mothers and emaciated, magic-starved males—barely strong enough to lift a weapon.
But they sparred in pairs, working through clumsy forms and exercises with the focused dedication of the most eager recruits.
Others labored over smoky forges, transforming scraps of metal and broken tools into weapons that would get any fae caught carrying one executed or worse.
“This?” Maerin glanced around, her lips curving into a cold smile. “This is what we’ve been doing while your people hid and ran away.”
“Maerin—” Finn’s voice turned warning. “We’re on the same side here.”
“Are we?” Maerin cocked her head, studying them both. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.”
She set off across the room before either of them could answer, weaving her way through sparring pairs.
Fae scrambled to get out of her way with respectful nods, curious gazes lingering on Loren and Finn.
Across the room, Loren spotted Kai with a group of fae, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows as he laughed at something the female next to him had said.
“What is he doing here?” Loren muttered, intending the question for Finn alone, but Maerin glanced back over her shoulder, following his gaze.
“Kai comes most nights,” she said. “He helps without asking for anything in return. Which is more than I can say for others.”
She shoved open another door, leading them into a cluttered office dominated by a massive, rough-hewn desk. She slid into the seat behind it, folding her hands on the scarred surface.
“Now,” she said. “What exactly do you want from me?”
Loren sank into the chair across from her, the shadows slipping from beneath his cloak. Finn stepped forward, taking the lead like they’d discussed.