“But not all.”
Tilting his chin down, Nox focuses his gaze on me “No, not all.” Shaking his head, he runs a hand through his wet hair, holding the longer strands back from his face. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about from the beginning?” When that option doesn’t seem to appeal to him, I kick my feet up on the coffee table too and sink deeper into the couch. “There is nowhere else I have to be, Brother. Nowhere else Iwantto be. I offered help before, and I’m offering it again. Don’t shut me out.”
Releasing his hair, his hand falls to his lap, and then he begins.
He starts with a place called the Middle and the woman named Selene who resides there. He tells me of the pain he’s been in, how the medicine from Galen only numbs him for a short while before everything floods back in. He recounts everything Stephan did to him when he ambushed him on his way to get to Rhea, and then of his nights spent in Colter until he found him. I learn of the plan he concocted to catch Stephan in the dungeon and how the cruel words of the bastard had pushed Nox past the line of anger he was teetering against. When mybrother’s voice grows lethally quiet, goosebumps bloom over my skin.
“He was there. The night she was taken,” he answers, the air stilling in the room at his words. “He was the one who lured Daje and Rhea out. He followed and watched as the other mages knocked them both out and then when they handed her off.” His dark gray eyes hold mine, the silver flecks in them practically gone. “To thesirens.”
My blood chills, my head snapping back in surprise. “The sirens? They are involved?”
“I don’t know how deeply, and I feel fuckingfoolishfor assuming King Dolian could have orchestrated this all on his own. I’m also inclined to believe that if Stephan was there to draw Daje and Rhea out of the room, then he likely had to make sure the hallway was empty so there wouldn’t be any questions asked.”
It takes me a moment to catch his meaning, but when I do, my eyes close in devastation. “Barron.”
“Stephan didn’t confess to it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m going to send a few guards to search his property, just in case Barron’s body is there.” Gods, our parents will be distraught by this. And Barron’s partner… I swallow against the tightness in my throat.
“Anything else?” I ask.
Nox’s brows draw low, his face pinched in thought. “Stephan had gone to the Mortal Kingdom. That is how he found me. And when I asked a barmaid in the tavern where I spotted him, she said he would often disappear for long periods of time.”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? If he was conspiring with King Dolian, they would have to be communicating somehow.”
“Yes, but”—he places his feet on the floor and leans his elbows on his knees with a wince—“I’ve been thinking about how Stephan was able to justleavewhenever he needed to return tothe Mortal Kingdom with information. Even with his position as a guard who just fills in where needed, someone in his chain of command had to have noticed that he would be gone for days to a week at a time. Someone with a high enough clearance to approve his leave—and not worry about anyone questioning it.”
“How high?”
He cradles his head in his hands, wincing as his fingers massage his temples. “When Arin was kicked out of the guard, the decision came from the council.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, feeling a headache of my own beginning to bloom.
“No protest at that?” he asks, his lips pulling up in a ghost of a smirk. “I expected at leastsomebite back about how our council couldn’t possibly be behind this.”
I give him a dry look but take my time formulating my thoughts. “I might have desperately wanted to believe that these people chosen to support our father as king were doing so with genuine, good-natured, and sound advice before. But the more that I’ve learned, the more I’ve seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, the more I’ve come to realize that at some point, things shifted. The council views our family as a threat, and they only needed the right set of circumstances to prove that threat to themselves. To our people.” I pause, letting out an incredulous breath. “Now I only wonder what else they might be plotting in order to get what they want. Elora was right to suspect them.”
Nox’s gaze softens, just slightly, as he lifts his head from his hands. “So now what? Our only source of information is dead. Cass, Daje, and Elora—” He interrupts himself with a deep breath, patting at the pockets of his pants before he stands and walks to his bedroom, leaving me to stare at the now empty space on the couch in front of me.
“Good point,” I grumble, leaning my head back against the couch as I contemplate that very question.What next?
Nox returns and stands at the edge of the coffee table, a letter with a broken seal in his hands. “They got it,” he says, tired eyes landing on mine. “They found the dragon glass.”
“What?” Leaping from the couch, I stand next to him as he lifts the letter up in the air, angling it so that a small flare of sunlight from a nearby window bleeds over the page. “I don’t—”
“Look in the spaces between the lines,” he cuts in. “Right where the sun is shining.”
I follow his commands, my eyes adjusting as I focus them on the parts of the paper that appear blank at first glance. But when I lean in a little more closely, the faint swooping of letters becomes visible in the light. “Is that magicink?”
“It is. Imbued to activate by the sun’s light. It’s how Cass and I have spoken in coded messages while I was in the Mortal Kingdom.”
“What does it say?”
“It took them a day of searching, but they found a small collection of what we’ve been calling dragon glass. Cass isn’t sure if it will be enough, but Daje is eager to begin the journey back to our side of the border.”
I nod, an invisible weight lifting from my chest. Retrieving the dragon glass is only the first step in repairing the Mirror, but just knowing that at least they foundsomesparks hope. “How long do you think it took a raven to fly the letter here?”
“A week?” he states, though it sounds more like a question. “Hard to say without knowing the exact distance it had to cross. But this is good news.” Then, in a teasing voice that almost sounds foreign after so much time watching my brother in anguish, he adds, “And soon, you’ll be able to talk with King Kai.”
