Trev—I almost forgot he was here—clears his throat, then mutters the warning, “Hison.”
“Is there a problem?” Hison has doubled back and is standing only a few paces away.
Aren focuses on the high noble and says, “Lena expects her humans to be taken care of. McKenzie’s well-being is my priority. I want her out of the elements.”
“It’s not much farther,” Hison practically spits. It was so much easier to work for the fae when I didn’t realize just how much some of them hated me.
It takes less than a minute to reach our destination, a small, detached home near the city’s marketplace. I can’t see it from here, but that marketplace is on the river. That’s where the gate is, too. Kyol fissured me through it when he stole me away from Thrain.
I’m uncomfortable being back here, but I don’t let it show. I follow Hison and Aren through the door and into the living area. The room is dark, lit only by the moonlight coming in from a window, but I can still make out the blue silk shimmering overhead. It’s a common fae custom to pin thin drapes to the ceiling. They’re soft and light, moving like waves when we walk beneath them. They’re supposed to be relaxing, but I still feel tense, which is stupid. Thrain is dead. Dead, dead, dead.
Unless Naito is right and banek’tan do exist.
I don’t know why I let that thought creep into my mind. I’m 99.9 percent certain no one can bring fae back from the dead.
“Is this close enough?” Hison asks. He’s standing in front of a window.
“It’s close enough,” Aren answers. He motions me forward. “The fae will come out of that door.”
That door is barely ten feet away. It’s just across the narrow street and nearly hidden behind the snow-covered branches of a leafless bush, but it won’t be a problem to draw the fae’s shadows; the problem will be to do it without the fae seeing me.
“This is fine,” I say, taking the pen out of the spine of the sketchbook tucked under my robe. Now that we’re out of the weather, I’m much warmer. I don’t take my hood off, though. If a chaos luster flashes across my face when the fae steps onto the street, he might figure out this is a setup.
Hison orders his assistant, the one with the name-cord, to go. From what I understand, he’s to check on the fae prisoner, then “accidentally” leave a door unlocked.
I sink down to one knee beside the window and wait.
Aren squats beside me. “Trev and I will fissure after him.”
That will leave me alone with Hison and his guard. Lovely. “How am I getting back to Corrist?”
“I shouldn’t be gone more than a few minutes,” he says. He looks directly at me. “McKenzie—”
The door across the street swings open. I don’t have time to see the fae’s face; he disappears into his fissure the instant he steps outside.
I flip open Naito’s sketchbook, rest it on my knee, and start sketching. I draw three thick, wavy lines at the top of the page. It’s the Daric Ocean. I frown at the shadows, scratch down a few bottomless triangles. It’s the same mountain range, too. The fae didn’t fissure to the exact location Aylen did, but it’s close enough to be extremely coincidental.
I flip to the next page, narrow down my map. He’s close to a winding street on the west side of the city. He might even be on it, but I’m not 100 percent sure. I wait for the shadows to shift, see a thin dark line appear in the center of my vision. An intersection. I mark an “x” where the shadows tell me he exited, then turn to Aren.
“He’s gone to Eksan,” I say. “I just drew—”
Trev fissures out.
“Thank you.” Aren rests his hand briefly on my bent knee before he rises.
“Aren—”
“I’ll be back soon,” he says. Then he disappears into a slash of white light.
ELEVEN
I’M ANNOYED. so annoyed, I don’t get drawn in by Aren’s shadows. I get that he needed to go, but it was obvious I was trying to tell him something. Trev had already left. Would it have killed Aren to wait five seconds? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence—Eksan is a huge city—but it’s possible there could be a connection between the remnants and Aylen. Between the remnants and Lorn. He called Aylen an “associate of an associate.” That could mean anything.
“What do we do with this?” Hison’s guard asks. She’s staring at me.
I’m so close to saying something because, really, what are the consequences if they learn I speak Fae? Hison will be pissed at Lena for letting me learn the language, but he’s already not happy I’m here in his world.
I look at the spot where Aren disappeared. How long until he gets back? He said “soon,” but if the fae didn’t fissure directly to the remnants, Trev and Aren will have to follow him. And then, there’s always the chance the fae will double fissure—that’s how Aren evaded us for so long. Toward the end, we had a second shadow-reader standing by at a gate. After I mapped the fae, one of Kyol’s men would fissure to that human, then take him or her through the gate to the location I sketched out. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but we did come closer to capturing Aren that way.
That’s probably why he started fissuring more than two times. It’s an impressive talent. After traveling a substantial distance, most fae have to wait two or three minutes before they’re able to enter the In-Between again.
“Jorreb will come back for her,” Hison says. “If she didn’t lead him into a trap.”
“You think she’s feeding information to the remnants?”
Okay, so maybe this is why I don’t want them to know I can speak Fae. People are loose with their tongues when they don’t think I can understand them. Also: what the hell? I’ve been working my ass off for the rebels.
“It would explain why she tolerates being near the protégé of a false-blood.”
I stare down at the sketchbook still propped on my knee. I retrace one of my marks, clenching my teeth together so I don’t say anything. Sethan wasn’t a false-blood. Lena isn’t either. They’re Descendants of the Tar Sidhe just like Atroth was. I confirmed that with more than one former Court fae after we took the palace.
“Humans don’t care about false-bloods,” the bodyguard says.
“This one does.”
I can feel Hison’s gaze. He’s waiting for me to look up. If I don’t, I think it will be suspicious, so I raise my eyes from the sketchbook and meet his. I’m through with letting fae intimidate me.
“What?” I stand, so my demand has more of an impact.
Hison doesn’t look away. “Did you understand Jorreb’s conversation with her?”
“Some of it. He told her why she is here,” the bodyguard tells him.
“No mention of Thrain?”
The name makes my blood turn cold. No, no, no. Kyol killed him—I saw his soul-shadow—and banek’tan do not exist. Thrain is dead. Aren would tell me if he wasn’t.
But Aren did say Lena shouldn’t have sent me here. Is this why?
“You speak Fae.”
Hison’s statement pulls me out of my near panic. I shake my head, clearing my mind, and focus on the high noble. My thoughts obviously showed on my face, but Thrain in Fae is the same as Thrain in English. His conclusion that I speak his language is a guess.
“What about Thrain?” I ask.
The bodyguard translates what I said. Hison’s eyes narrow. He looks directly at me when he says, “Jorreb is his protégé.”
Aren? It takes everything in me to look confusedly back and forth between the two fae. Inside, though, I feel sick. Is it true? Hison could just be trying to get a reaction from me, but this could explain why Aren asked if I was okay in Rhigh. If he’s connected to Thrain, he could know Thrain kept me here.