Cormac announced, “We’re in. Tharion’s in the waiting room. I slipped off to the bathroom. All plans are a go. Ready, Athalar?” Hunt, then Bryce, then Ruhn. That had been the order they’d settled on, after an hour of arguing.
Hunt drew his gun, keeping it at his thigh. That helmeted head turned to Bryce, and she could feel his gaze even through the visor. “See you on the other side, Quinlan,” Hunt said, taking Cormac’s gloved hand.
Prince to prince. She marveled at it.
Then they were gone, and Bryce struggled to get down a breath.
“I feel like I can’t breathe, either,” Ruhn said, noticing. “Knowing that Day’s in there.” He added, “And knowing that you’re about to go in there, too.”
Bryce gave him a wobbly smile. And then decided to Hel with it and threw her arms around her brother, squeezing him hard. “Team Fuck-You, remember? We’ll kick ass.”
He chuckled, holding her tightly. “Team Fuck-You forever.”
She pulled away, scanning her brother’s violet-blue eyes. “We’ll get her out. I promise.”
Ruhn’s golden skin paled. “Thanks for helping me, Bryce.”
She nudged him with an elbow. “We Starborn have each other’s backs, you know?”
But her brother’s face turned grave. “When we get home, I think we need to talk.”
“About what?” She didn’t like that serious expression. And didn’t like that Cormac was taking so long.
Ruhn’s mouth tightened. “All right, since we might very well die in a few minutes—”
“That is so morbid!”
“I wanted to wait until shit had calmed down, but … You outrank the Autumn King in power.”
“And?”
“I think it’s time his reign comes to an end, don’t you?” He was completely serious.
“You want me to back you in a coup? A Fae coup?”
“I want to back you in a Fae coup. I want you as Autumn Queen.”
Bryce recoiled. “I don’t want to be a queen.”
“Let’s ditch the whole reluctant royal thing, okay? You saw what the Fae did during the attack this spring. How they shut out innocents and left them to die, with our father’s blessing. You mean to tell me that’s the best our people can do? You mean to tell me that’s what we’re supposed to accept as normal Fae behavior? I don’t buy that for a second.”
“You should be king.”
“No.” Something else shone in his eyes, some secret she didn’t know, but she could sense. “You have more power than I do. The Fae will respect that.”
“Maybe the Fae should rot.”
“Tell that to Dec. And Flynn. And my mother. Look at them and tell me that the Fae aren’t worth saving.”
“Three. Out of the entire population.”
Ruhn’s face turned pleading, but then Cormac appeared, panting and covered in sweat. “Athalar’s waiting.”
“Think about it,” Ruhn murmured as she approached Cormac. “All clear?”
“No issues. The intel was right: they don’t even have wards around the place,” Cormac reported. “Arrogant worms.” He extended a hand to Bryce. “Hurry.”
Bryce grabbed the prince’s hand. And with a last look at her brother, she vanished into wind and darkness, stomach whipping around and around. Cormac said over the roaring of the space between places, “He asked you to be queen, didn’t he?”
Bryce blinked up at him—though it was difficult with the force of the storm around them. “How did you know?”
“I might have caught the end of your conversation.” Bryce clung harder as the wind pressed. Cormac said, “He’s right.”
“Spare me.”
“And you were right, too. When we first met, and you said the Oracle’s prophecy was vague. I understand that now. She didn’t mean our union in marriage would bring prosperity to our people. She meant our union as allies. Allies in this rebellion.”
The world took form at the edges of the darkness.
“But after today …” Cormac’s words grew heavy. Weary. “I think the choice about whether to lead our people forward will be up to you.”
Hunt couldn’t shake the tremor from his hands. Being here, in this palace …
It smelled the same. Even in the hallway directly outside the archives, where he hid in an alcove, the stale odor of this place dragged claws down his temper, set his knees wobbling.
Screaming, pain blinding as they sawed off his wings slowly—
Shahar was dead, her broken body still dust-covered from Sandriel dragging it through the streets on her way in here—
Pollux laughing as he pissed on Shahar’s corpse in the middle of the throne room—
His wings, his wings, his wings—
Hunt swallowed, shutting out the memories, focusing his mind on the hall. No one was around.
Bryce and Cormac appeared, and she’d hardly thanked him before he vanished, off to grab Ruhn before teleporting back to the lab. Sweat gleamed on the prince’s face, his skin sallow. He had to be exhausted.
“All right?” Hunt murmured, brushing back her hair with a gloved hand. She nodded, eyes full of worry—and something else. But Hunt flicked her chin and went back to monitoring.
They stood in tense silence, and then Ruhn was there, Cormac with him. Cormac’s skin was ashen now. He disappeared immediately, back to the lab.
“Tell Declan we’re a go,” Hunt said.
Ruhn’s shadows cloaked them from sight as he thumbed in a message on a secure phone that Declan had retrofitted against tracking. In five minutes, Tharion would contact them on it to tell them whether or not to move.
Bryce’s fingers slid into Hunt’s, clutching tight. He squeezed back.
He had no idea how five minutes passed. He was barely breathing, monitoring the hall ahead. Bryce held his gloved hand through all of it, her jaw tense.
Then Ruhn lifted his head. “Tharion said Cormac just blew up the jeep.”
Hunt nudged her with a wing. “Your turn, Quinlan.”
Ruhn said, “Remember: Every minute in there risks detection. Make them count.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” she said, but smiled grimly up at Hunt. “Light it up, Athalar.”
Hunt pressed a hand to her heart, his lightning a subtle flare that was sucked into the scar. As the last of it faded, Bryce teleported into the archives.
To find whatever truth might lie within them.
71
Bryce’s breathing turned so jagged that she could barely think as she tumbled alone through the darkness.
They were in the Asteri’s palace. In their sacred, forbidden archives.
And she was … in a stairwell?
Bryce took steadying inhales as she surveyed the spiral staircase, crafted entirely of white quartz. Firstlight glimmered, golden and soft, lighting the carved steps downward. At her back was a door—the other side of the one they’d watched Sofie walk through on the surveillance footage.
The one labeled with the number Sofie had etched into her biceps.
Bryce began to creep down the stairs, her black utility boots nearly silent against the quartz steps. She saw no one. Heard no one.