“That’s no reason to fight a daeyari. We have to be smart. Patient. If we can wait for—”
Fi grabbed the severed antler from her table and thrust it into Boden’s hands. He paled, fingers cradling carved points.
“What is this?” he whispered.
“We visited Tyvo. Trying to find an ally. But we failed.” Fi loomed over Boden, hands on her hips, hair spilling in angry rainbow curls. “We’re on our own, Bodie. No waiting for someone else to fix this.”
He knew that. Everyone on this ever-frigid Plane knew if you got stranded in the snow, you didn’t sit down and resign to freeze. You got up, stoked a current, and kept walking.
Boden glared at Antal. “So you cut your neighbor’s antler off? How doesthathelp?”
“Ididn’t.” Antal tipped his chin at Fi. “She did.”
The antler fell slack in Boden’s lap. A stillness came over him as he looked up, looked at his little sister with bafflement thinning his lips.
“Fi?” he whispered.
She felt minuscule. No different than when she’d been a little girl with scraped knees and puffed cheeks, holding back tears while Boden patched her back together.
The greater Fi’s doubt, the firmer her words. “I won’t wait until Verne comes for us. I won’t run away again. We need to do something, and with adaeyariwilling to help—”
Fi waved at Antal, her star evidence, arrogant shirt buttons and all.
He returned a bland look, tail twitching.
“I agreed to maybe helponeof you,” he said.
“Stop it,you moody housecat! We don’t have time for your aloof bullshit.” Fi had found him charming moments ago. He was still a little charming, lips curled to bare one canine of protest. She faced Boden. “And we don’t have time to wait and second-guess. We all want Verne gone. We stand the best chance if we work together.”
Boden always went silent when he was thinking. His fingers strummed the severed antler, an appraising look that shifted to Antal. What frost had coated him on the journey up the cliffside had melted, glinting dew along his beard and the seams of his coat.
“You have a daeyari,” Boden said slowly.
“Yes,” Fi said. Still an alarming concept.
“You think we can trust him?”
Wait until Boden learned what else Fi had been thinking about this daeyari.
No. Scratch that. Boden wouldneverlearn that particular indiscretion, or Fi would have to throw herself into the Void.
“So far,” she said.
“And he’s agreed to help?”
They both looked to Antal.
“To our mutual interest,” the daeyari said begrudgingly. Fi would take it.
Boden rubbed a hand to his temple. “And you’ve been up here, planning to go against Verne. Just the two of you?”
“There’s onlyoneof her,” Fi said.
Boden arced a brow.
“And Astrid,” Fi conceded. And a reincarnated Beast daeyari. She made the executive decision to save that logistical detail for a time when Boden looked less haggard.
“A small force is preferable.” Antal startled Fi with his contribution, muttered though it was. “We’ll be less likely to alert Verne. She won’t have time to prepare, or worse, to seek support from the Twilit Plane.”
