Fi didn’t hesitate. Not for people complicit in daeyari coups. Not when the threat of more guards remained. Survival came first.
As the man fell limp beneath her, bootsteps thundered outside, two guards emerging from the courtyard. They looked at Fi. The body of their comrade. Both lifted energy crossbows.
The shadows moved faster.
One man disappeared from the doorway in a flash of tail and antlers, his scream melting to a gurgle. The second man had barely swiveled his crossbow before Antal shoved him to the wall, claws rending his throat open in one deep slash.
Horrifying to watch.
But damn was a daeyari useful in a fight.
They were in motion now, too much blood on the floor to turn back. Fi burst into the office to find Cardigan wide-eyed behind his desk. His green pinstripe vest strained its buttons as he reeled, attempting to meld with his leather chair. Across from him, Boden lurched to his feet.
“Fionamara!” he shouted with theatrical surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Great delivery, Bodie.” She patted his shoulder. “Really top notch. But we’ve progressed solidly into Plan B territory.” In other words: no more pleasant chatting. Time to take what they needed and kill anyone who got in their way. Just… happened a little out of order.
Boden shifted from bristle to groan. “Well fuck, Fi, you didn’t give me much time.”
“Things escalated!”
“You.” Cardigan slammed his hands to the desk. “You dare intrude upon my home? Damage my vintage door?”—to Fi’s credit, she hadn’t meant to hit the door so hard on entry—“Stain my carpet?”—blood, it was definitely blood on her boots—“Guards! I’ll have you—”
Cardigan fell mute. Jaw slack.
Antal appeared in the doorway like a winter chill. Like death from the Void. The daeyari’s eyes burned red, fangs bared. This creature who lounged in Fi’s rafters, all the fiercer by contrast, a heart-stilling reminder of exactlywhatshe’d let into her home.
She and Boden stepped aside.
“Antal,” Cardigan wheezed. “My Lord Daeyari. So good to see you well. I heard what happened in Thomaskweld. Such unsavory business with—”
Antal vaulted over the desk. Cardigan sent paper and inkwells scattering like confetti as he flailed to escape, unsuccessful as the daeyari grabbed his collar and slammed his head to the wood.
“What did you do to my energy conduits in Thomaskweld?” Antal demanded.
Red energy bloomed as Antal’s fingertips pressed Cardigan’s temple, the same magic he’d used on Fi to turn her thoughts to sludge. Cardigan’s eyes went glassy, his voice a rasp.
“We installed… unstable copper alloy… prone to degradation…”
“Yousabotagedthem?”
“I… we… yes.”
“For Verne?”
“Yes.”
In their planning, they’d humored the possibility where Cardigan turned out to be a witless pawn. With his confession, Fi watched any chance of a merciful resolution melt away. Antal’sclaws tightened on Cardigan’s skull until blood welled beneath the tips.
“What else?” Antal said.
Cardigan gasped, a spark of pain warring against watery eyes. “We sold faulty conduit parts throughout the territory… to the Tsuga Cartel… the Glacier Crest Market.”
“The Glacier Crest Market?” Boden clamped his hands against the desk, bent level with Cardigan. “That’s where Nyskya gets our materials.”
“How unfortunate,” Cardigan mumbled.
“What happens to the people who rely on those conduits?”
