“There are some Archangels who might disagree with you.”
Aidas’s mouth twitched upward, but he said, “It will likely take time for Rigelus to figure out a way to wield the lightning he extracted from you. Though I admit I am … disturbed to learn of his new experimentation. It does not bode well for any of us, if Rigelus is tangling with the dead.”
“Why now?” Hunt asked. “I’ve been enslaved to them for centuries, for Urd’s sake.”
“Perhaps they’ve at last learned what your father bred you to be.”
Even the miserable itching in his back was forgotten at those words. “What the fuck does that mean?”
But Aidas only shook his head. “A tale for another time, Athalar.”
“A tale for now, Aidas. These cryptic mentions of my father, the black crown, secrets about my powers—”
“Mean nothing, if you do not get out of these dungeons.”
“Then stop fucking popping out of the shadows and find a key.”
“I cannot. My body isn’t real here.”
“It was real enough in Quinlan’s apartment.”
“That was a portal, a summoning. This is like … a phone call.”
“Then send one of your buddies through the Northern Rift to help us—”
“The distance from Nena is too great. They wouldn’t arrive in time to make a difference. You will get answers, Athalar, I promise. If you survive. But if the Asteri can use your lightning to raise the dead, in ways swifter and less limited than traditional necromancy, then the armies they might create—”
“You’re not making me feel any better about giving some over.” Another bit of guilt to burden his soul. He didn’t know how he wasn’t already broken beneath the sheer weight of it.
“Try not to give him more, then.” But Aidas threw him a pitying look. “I am sorry that one of your companions will die tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” Hunt said hoarsely. “Any idea who they’ve picked?”
Aidas angled his head, more feline than princely. Like he could hear things Hunt couldn’t. “The one whose death will mean the most to both you and Bryce.” Hunt closed his eyes. “The Fae Prince.”
This was all Hunt’s fault. He’d learned nothing since the Fallen. And he’d been fine with taking on the punishment himself, but for others to do it, for Ruhn to—
“I’m sorry,” the Prince of the Chasm said again, and sounded like he meant it.
But Hunt said hoarsely, “If you find her … if you see her again … tell her …”
Not to come back. Not to dare enter this world of pain and suffering and misery. That he was so damn sorry for not stopping all of this.
“I know,” Aidas said, not needing Hunt to finish before he vanished into darkness.
29
Bryce had dropped down between worlds. And yet when she landed, she collided sideways with a wall.
Apparently, magical interstellar travel didn’t care about physics.
Her head throbbed; her mouth was painfully dry. The rough fibers of a carpet scraped her cheek, muffling the sounds of an enclosed space. It was dry, vaguely musty. Familiar-smelling.
“Isn’t this interesting,” drawled a male voice in her own language. It was the most wonderful sound she’d ever heard.
Though she’d have wished, perhaps, for the words to have come from someone other than the Autumn King.
He loomed over her, his hands wreathed in flame. Above him, a golden orrery clicked and whirred. She’d landed in her father’s private study.
The Autumn King’s lips curled in that familiar cruel smile. “And where have you been, Bryce Quinlan?”
Bryce opened her mouth, power rallying—
And sputtering out.
“For an old bastard, you move fast,” she groaned, straining against the gorsian shackles on her wrists. No chains attached to them, at least—just the cuffs of the shackles. But it was enough. Bryce couldn’t so much as summon a flicker of starlight.
Her father knew it. He strolled to his giant wooden desk like he had all the time in the world.
In those initial seconds when she’d landed here, in the worst fucking place in the whole fucking world, he’d not only disabled her power with those shackles—he’d also disarmed her. The Starsword and Truth-Teller now lay behind him on his desk. Along with her phone.
Bryce lifted her chin, though she remained sitting on the ground. “Are Ruhn and Hunt alive?”
Something like distaste flashed in the Autumn King’s eyes. As if such mortal bonds should be the least of her concerns. “You show your hand, Bryce Quinlan.”