Irithys didn’t move. Didn’t try to run or erupt. She just stood there like a living, burning ruby. As if being free of the crystal after all these years—
Lidia shut down the thought, her voice as dead as her eyes as she said, “Let’s see how motivational you can be, Your Majesty.”
Hilde glared daggers, but didn’t cower or tremble.
Yet Irithys turned to Lidia, hair swirling above her. “No.”
Lidia arched a brow. “No?”
Across the table, Hilde was still bristling—but listening carefully.
Irithys said boldly, unafraid, “No.”
“It wasn’t a request.” Lidia nodded to the hag. “Burn her hand.”
Hilde snatched her gnarled hands off the table. As if that could save her.
Irithys’s chin lifted. “I may be your captive, but I do not have to obey you.”
“Hilde is a traitor to the Republic—”
“These are lies,” Hilde interrupted.
“Your pity is wasted on her,” Lidia went on.
“It is not pity,” Irithys said, ruby flame darkening to a color like rich wine. “It is honor. There is none in attacking a person who cannot fight back, enemy or no.”
Lidia’s upper lip curled back from her teeth. “Burn. Her.”
Irithys glowed a violet blue, like hottest flame. “No.”
Hilde let out a caw of laughter.
Lidia said with a calm that usually made enemies start begging, “I will ask you one more time—”
“And I will tell you a thousand more times: no. On my honor, no.”
“You have no honor down here. It means nothing in this place.”
“Honor is all I have,” Irithys said, the heat of her indigo flames strong enough to warm Lidia’s chilled hands. “Honor, and my name. I will not sully or yield them. No matter what my enemy has done. Or what you threaten me with, Hind.”
Lidia held the sprite’s blazing stare and found only unbreaking, unrelenting will there.
So Lidia inclined her head mockingly at the queen. And with a wave of her hand, she activated the magic Rigelus had gifted her for the week. Like a ball of ice melting in reverse, the crystal orb formed around Irithys again.
“Then I have no need of you,” Lidia said, and picked up the crystal, stalking for the door.
Irithys said nothing, but her flame burned a bright, royal blue.
Lidia had just opened the metal door again when Hilde called from the table, “And what of me?”
Lidia threw the imperial hag a cool look. “I suggest you beg Rigelus for mercy.” She didn’t let the hag reply before slamming the door behind her.
Mercy. Lidia had held none in her heart two days ago, when she’d walked past Hilde in the upper corridors and slipped her own comm-crystal into the hag’s pocket. With Ruhn in the dungeons, no one was accessing the other end of the line, anyway. The crystal was, for all intents and purposes, dead. But in Hilde’s possession, when Mordoc had sniffed it out on Lidia’s suspicion … the crystal once again became invaluable.
She could think of no one, other than the Asteri themselves, that Irithys might hate more than the hag who had inked the tattoo on her burning throat. No one that Irithys might enjoy hurting more than Hilde.
And yet the Sprite Queen had refused.
The mistress was nowhere to be found when Lidia returned to the heat and humidity of the mystics’ hall, nor when Lidia set Irithys back on her stand in the center of it.
“What of the other prisoners?” Irithys demanded as Lidia stepped back.
Lidia paused, sliding her hands into her pockets. “Why should I waste my time trying to convince you to assist me with them?”
Indeed, time was running thin. She had places to be, and quickly.
“You went to an awful lot of trouble to get me out today. For nothing.”
Lidia shrugged, then began prowling for the exit. “I know when I’m losing a battle.” She tossed over a shoulder, “Enjoy your name and honor. I hope they’re good company in that crystal ball.”
* * *
Bryce and Nesta walked in fraught, heavy silence for ages.
Bryce’s feet had begun aching again, the soreness continuing all the way up her legs. Normally, she would have resorted to talking to distract herself from the discomfort, but Bryce knew better than to ask prying questions about this world, about Nesta’s people.
It would be too suspicious. If she sought to tell them as little as possible about herself and Midgard, then they probably wished to do the same regarding their home.