Arthur stands there with fresh bruises, breathing wrong, murder in his green eyes. Water magic coils around his fists.
My shadows form blades before I can think. We're both moving, both ready to destroy each other, when we see what the other is holding—me with her hat, him with what looks like a note in her handwriting.
"Stand down," I tell my people. "Let him through."
The water dissipates slowly. He crosses the room in five strides. "Where. Is. She."
"Taken. This morning."
"The Radiant Court?"
"Who else uses sanctified oil?"
"Joss was supposed to be protecting her." His voice cracks on 'protecting.'
Joss.
Last week: "Let me handle her schedule, you focus on territory." Two days ago: "I know all her patterns, I can protect her better than anyone." Yesterday: "Trust me, Ruvan. Haven't I always had your back?"
Twenty years. Twenty years of never questioning her. The night my mentor died, Joss held the perimeter. When the Brass Hands tried assassination five years ago, she identified the traitor. Every victory, every survival.
"She needs structure," Joss had said about Olivia. "Predictable routines are safer." And I agreed because Joss was always right about security. Joss who knew exactly when to suggest market trips. Joss who volunteered to escort her.
The shadows explode outward. Windows crack. Books fly off shelves. The chair splinters.
"That traitorous bitch."
Arthur sees it too, water magic responding. "Your lieutenant sold her out."
"She thinks Olivia made me weak. Thinks she's saving me from myself." I can see it now—every helpful suggestion was isolation. Every security measure was control. She built Olivia's cage one routine at a time, and I thanked her for it.
"Saving you? You're planning systematic murder with meal breaks now."
The war room fills with my expanded guild, all forty-seven arranging themselves by height because Olivia mentioned once it makes group photos better.
"The healer's been taken."
The chaos is immediate.
"But she was teaching me the bigger words!" Tooth clutches his book, upside down in distress.
"We've been practicing bread for her birthday," Ridge confesses.
Someone asks if we should eat first because she'd be upset if we went into battle hungry.
"Actually yes. Everyone eat."
Arthur stares. "You're feeding them before—"
"You want to explain to her why we went into battle hungry? Remember that lecture? An hour about proper nutrition and tactical efficiency?"
His mouth closes. We both lived through it.
"I know their safehouses." He spreads a map across the table. The abandoned brewery everyone thinks is haunted. The tannery that isn't actually burned down. Temple tunnels that supposedly collapsed. Places I couldn't know without inside information.
"Been tracking them for months."
"And you didn't share?"
