3 LONNIE
THE CUTTHROAT DISTRICT, INBETWIXT
The thieves’ den was a large, rectangular room with a bar on one side and a training ring on the other. The ceiling was adorned with shiny copper panels, while the walls were constructed of stone and illuminated by small wisp lamps every few feet. On the left side of the bar, a heap of crates and barrels leaned against the wall. On the right, a handful of small tables and chairs were arranged. When Scion and I had visited, the tables had rarely been occupied, but in the last week they were often used for strategy sessions. That seemed to hold true today.
Every seat around the tables was occupied, and there were more people leaning against the walls or sitting on the floor. Many faces turned toward me, and unlike the last time I’d been here, there were few smiles in the crowd. Most expressions were anxious, some outright fearful. I sighed. Being the object of so many stares, and terrified ones at that, was entirely too exhausting.
I pushed through the crowd, and finally spotted a genuinely friendly face. Making my way over, I leaned against the edge of the table where Iola sat. “Morning.”
Iola looked slightly better than during the battle, having had a few meals and a bath. But she was still recovering from being accidentally poisoned over a month ago. Her tea-stained hair was braided and her borrowed clothing was clean, but she remained pale, sickly, and bedraggled. Every time I saw her the guilt that had taken root within me over these last several days seemed to grow, like it was a living thing within me.
“Oh, hi,”
Iola said, flustered. Her cheeks turned slightly pink. “Hello.”
I raised a bemused eyebrow. “Are you alright?”
“Of course. I’m glad you finally came—down here that is.”
Her cheeks flamed scarlet. “Oh, gods. Here, do you want my chair?”
I stared at her, nonplussed. “No, you sit. What is wrong with you this morning?”
Behind me, Bael laughed, and leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “Scion doesn’t knock, little monster. I think you were right—your friend was sent to get us, and probably gave up, so they sent…reinforcements.”
Now, my face was growing hot as well, and I stared down at my shoes as I mumbled. “Well, your sister should stop ordering Iola around. It wasn’t her job to fetch us in the first place. This whole thing was entirely avoidable.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“Where is Aine, anyway?”
I asked, glancing around.
Before Bael could respond, he was cut off by a jovial shout across the room. “Good of ya to finally join us, lass!”
A boisterous voice echoed through the room and I looked up. Through the crowd, I could make out Cross’s bright red hair, and Scion’s dark head beside him, bent low over something spread out over the bar. To my mingled relief and disappointment, the prince didn’t look up at me, but Cross met my gaze over the heads of the many thieves.
The leader of the guild was clad in a suit of molded armor, resembling Scion’s obsidian gear but with a lighter weight and a leather-like texture. It was a stark contrast from his usual casual attire, giving off the impression that he expected to be ambushed at any moment.
“Apologies for my lateness,”
I called back. “I see my penance is there are no chairs left.”
The thief master grinned. “Not to worry, we’ve almost finished planning.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Planning?”
“We’ll be moving you out tomorrow night.”
My heart skipped a beat, and a real smile spread across my face. That was the first truly good news I’d heard in days.
We’d been searching for a way to leave the city safely, both because I wanted to travel to Aftermath, and because most of the Everlasts were eager to join the rest of the family in Overcast. Unfortunately, news of the capital attack had spread quickly, and now other cities were beginning to show where their allegiance lay. When we’d arrived, the streets of Inbetwixt had still been safe to walk on, but now, only five days later, we would have to leave under cover of darkness, or risk a run in with the rebellion.
“What if he’s waiting for her at the gates?”
Bael asked loudly.
There was no question in my mind—or anyone else’s, as far as I could tell—whom he meant by “He.”
“Our spies in the capital report that the afflicted are keeping the entire rebel army busy for the time being,”
Cross replied. “Even if Dullahan does realize we’re moving tomorrow, I doubt he’d be able to make it here.”
“Is there any way to be sure the Dullahan won’t see us?”
asked one of the thieves sitting too far into the crowd for me to make out their face. “We all know he’s a seer, but every seer I’ve ever met had limitations.”
“That’s a good question,”
Cross commented. “Sci, do you know how much your brother can actually see?”
All eyes turned to Scion, and he visibly stiffened. I could practically see him struggling to resist the urge to deny that Ambrose was his brother, but apparently, he was unwilling to scald his own throat twice in an hour.
“He’s not fucking omniscient, if that’s what you’re asking,”
Scion ground out. “He doesn’t know everything we do.”
“But what’s his range?”
Cross asked. “Is he limited by distance? A certain amount of time into the future, or certain people…”
He trailed off, looking hopefully at Scion to pick up the thread of the conversation.
Scion set his jaw, looking furious as he mulled over his answer. Anyone would assume he just hated his brother, but I would’ve bet everything I owned that the real problem was Scion didn’t want to spread information about the Everlast family’s abilities to such a large audience. Ambrose Dullahan might be a traitor, a murderer, and an exile of the royal court, but he was still an Everlast, and what hurt one, hurt them all.
“Ambrose is much the same as our grandmother was,”
Scion said finally. “He’s not limited by distance, but is more aware of those he is close to. He cannot see anything of his own future, however, so he always travels with a companion.”
“Anything else?”
Cross asked.
Scion’s frown deepened to the point that if his face could’ve wrinkled, the expression would be permanently etched there. “I’m not certain,”
he admitted. “At the height of her power, Queen Celia was plagued by such constant visions she was effectively blind to the world around her.”
I raised my eyebrows, and was far from the only one in the room to look surprised. I hadn’t known that about the former queen, though, it did make sense. In all the years I’d worked in the palace, I’d only seen Queen Celia one time. She rarely left her room, and was almost more of a myth than a living person. If she saw so much of the future that she’d lost track of the present, that explained much. It might also explain some of Ambrose Dullahan’s behavior, except…
“He didn’t seem unaware of his surroundings when I spoke with him,”
I piped up. “And I certainly would have noticed if he were blind.”
Bael leaned over to me, speaking low. Though as the room was made up of mostly Fae, it hardly mattered. “Ambrose is only two hundred odd years old, little monster. Grandmother Celia was over one thousand when her visions reached that height. He’s likely not there yet.”
I pressed my mouth into a thin line. Bael had probably meant his comment to be helpful, but as with so much else he shared with me, it only sent my mind reeling. Never before had it occurred to me that magic might grow with age. Most of the Fae I knew personally were relatively young by their standards. How powerful would they be in one hundred years?
I supposed it didn’t matter. I was mortal, and wouldn’t be here to see it.
“Alright,”
Cross spoke over the now whispering room, and raised a hand to call everyone’s attention back to him. “I’ve always thought it was near pointless to try to outrun a seer, and given this information, it’s best to just assume the Dullahan knows everything, which makes it all the more important that we have a strong plan in place if we’re to get everyone out alive.”
“If you’ve already determined that the rebels are busy ridding the capital of the Afflicted,”
I said, trying to ignore the guilt that rose higher in my throat. “And we all agree that there’s no way to evade Ambrose Dullahan, can we return to the plan at hand?”
“You seem entirely too flippant about your own life,”
Scion snapped, addressing me directly for the first time.
“He doesn’t want to kill me,”
I said, my voice rising above the crowd again. “I mean, if that’s what you’re worried about…he didn’t seem that way when we spoke.”
“He doesn’t want to kill you, yet,”
Bael muttered. “But if we wait too long to leave, I’m sure he’ll make a more direct threat.”
I nodded. That, I agreed with, but we weren’t talking about what might happen in several weeks, only how to leave the city.
I’d had a lot of time to mull over why Ambrose Dullahan might want me to join him, and there were only two options as far as I could tell.
One, that he wanted to use my magic. However, as I’d barely been able to do that so far, and according to Cross, I’d created nothing but problems for the rebel army in the form of afflicted monsters, that seemed unlikely. The second option, and the one that I tended to think far more plausible, was that he did want to kill me—just not yet. Bael agreed.
While I’d all but completely rejected the Wilde Hunts, and had openly refused to travel to Nevermore for the third trial and had lost the obsidian crown, I was technically still the queen. If Ambrose believed in the validity of the hunting season, as the rest of his family seemed to, we suspected he wanted to kill me on the correct night to ensure that there was no challenge to his leadership. If so, there was just under two weeks until I’d meet the rebel king again, and I did not want to be in Inbetwixt if that happened. Nowhere would be perfectly safe, especially when trying to evade a seer, but I’d prefer that Cross and his thieves not have to die just to protect me from another attack.
“How will we be leaving?”
I asked loudly, practically begging Cross to step in and redirect the conversation.
To my relief, he took the hint. Cross spoke as if addressing me alone, but the room listened with rapt attention. “Our tunnels extend all over the city, and we can escort you to the edge of the wall.”
“And then what?”
“And then we can ride to the nearest town.”
Bael muttered under his breath. “We can always shadow walk if need be, but horses would be preferable.”
“We can get you horses,”
Cross said.
I shot him a grateful look. “Fine. So you’ll be bringing me and Bael and...”
I trailed off. This was a bit of a sore subject, and the ensuing pause emphasized my discomfort.
“I would like to come,”
Iola said. “But…”
She trailed off, and my eyes shot to her. Truthfully, I was not sure if she would be able to handle a journey across the country with her health as poor as it was, but if she wished to come then I couldn’t leave her. I’d agreed, during the battle, that we would stay together. In a way, I felt responsible for her, at least until she learned to stand on her own.
“You do not have to if you don’t wish to,”
I said quickly.
She looked uncomfortable. “It’s only, I don’t know where else I would go.”
I met Cross’s eyes over the crowd, a question in my gaze. “I’m sure there’s room for more refugees here.”
“Yes, of course,”
the thief master answered.
I smiled, as did Iola. At least here, she had a good chance of recovering fully, whereas on the road to Aftermath…in truth, I was not sure she’d last a week.
“Anyone else?” I asked.
“Not us,”
Gwydion’s voice said from somewhere behind me, interrupting my thoughts. “We’ll be taking Elfwyn to Overcast.”
I stood up straighter and craned my neck to see him, having not realized he was in the room. Bael’s brother stepped forward, the crowd shuffling to make room for him. Taller and more muscular than Bael or Scion, who were both large in their own right, Gwydion was the largest fairy I’d ever seen. He had the build of a fighter, rather than the healer he claimed to be.
“I suppose that’s you and Thalia, then?”
I asked, lightly.
Gwydion nodded, and gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m sure you can understand, Aftermath is no place for a child.”
I snorted. I’d been raised in Aftermath, but it wasn’t worth pointing out. They all knew, they simply didn’t care, and I didn’t want to travel with Gwydion, anyway. I’d been suspicious of him since realizing that he’d not fully healed Iola. Now, looking at Scion’s face, and the multitude of injuries on everyone else, I was more concerned than ever.
I searched for Thalia in the crowd. “Are you content with returning to your parents’ home?”
She gave me a sad smile. “It’s the best option.”
That was not really a “yes”
but I took it to mean that she’d made up her mind as well. I nodded, and turned away from them. “Fine. I assume Aine will go with them as well.”
“We’ll smuggle them out, much the same way we are doing with you, tomorrow evening,”
Cross offered. “It’s easier to do it in two groups.”
I nodded, having not really expected their help. Most of the Everlast family—everyone who’d managed to escape with us, that was—seemed to believe I’d lost my mind wanting to go to Aftermath. Their firm belief that Aftermath was nothing but a desolate, dangerous, wasteland, won out over anything else.
Bael reached up and squeezed my thigh. “We’ll be better off in a small group, anyway, little monster.”
I smiled at him, and leaned back against the table, somehow exhausted from nothing more than this conversation. There was a long silence, and it took me a beat to realize that one person had yet to voice his intentions.
My gaze met Scion’s silver eyes across the room, as if he’d already been watching me. I expected him to look down as he had done every time we’d mistakenly caught each other’s eye in the last few days, but he didn’t.
I forgot to breathe as my heartbeat sped up, my pulse pounding in my throat. My lips parted, and I leaned forward slightly, unsure if I intended to move, or had simply lost the ability to hold myself up. I watched his hand twitch, clenching at his side, and then he tore his gaze away from me, staring at the floor.
“Are you alright, little monster?”
Bael asked, bemused.
I sucked in a breath, like I’d been underwater, and shook my head to clear it. “I’m…tired.”
A technical truth, if not the full truth. I was tired, but more so, I was reeling from the realization that I never once thought Scion wouldn’t accompany us to Aftermath. It never even crossed my mind that we’d have to leave him…and why? Why would I assume such a thing when he’d made no mention of it, never shown any indication of wanting to come? Worse, why did I care?
Why did I feel like I was about to lose something vitally, crucially, important?