He runs a hand through his chestnut-colored hair and bends to scoop up a stack of parchment. I move closer as he spreads them on the table, noticing the darkened circles around his eyes, the unkempt stubble on his chin and jaw. He’s clearly slept about as much as I have in the last week.
“I’ve never seen wards so tight. There’s absolutely no way to get in unless we do it on foot. And even that presents its own set of issues.”
“Those creatures,” I mutter, sifting through the sketches.
“The Stryga.” Zadyn palms the table as we study his work. “He could have an army of them waiting on the other side of those walls.”
Grotesque images of the mangled, half-male, half-beasts flood my mind. Their snarling jaws wet with innocent blood, the curved horns protruding from their lupine skulls, their taloned claws wrapping around Serena’s limp form as they disappeared from the hall.
“Dover, you live at the castle. Maybe you can offer some insight,” Zadyn says.
“I haven’t lived there in years. Kai and I reside at his estate in Malfa. It’s been decades since we’ve even visited.”
Helpful.
“Has there been any activity there?” I ask, falling back on my military instincts.
Zadyn shakes his head. “They have an illusion over the entire perimeter. I haven’t seen a single soul from overhead in the days I’ve been scouting.”
“No one? Not even going in and out?”
“Not one.”
“Fuck,” I mutter, turning to pace around the dim room.
Keep it together and think.There has to be a way.
“I could try to water walk us in,” Mar suggests, but Zadyn shakes his head.
“Doing so would set off the alarms. So would using any kind of magic to force entry.”
“We should have brought the dragon,” she says, crestfallen.
“If we had, she would have sensed Serena in danger and would have obliterated the entire castle and everyone in it. We need to do this cleanly, with the smallest amount of bloodshed possible,” Zadyn cautions, eyeing each of us.
“Derek is sending troops, but it will take too long for them to arrive,” I add.
He had begged me to wait for them, insisting I would need backup. But I don’t think he realized that the rage I have burning inside of me would fuel me with the power of fifty soldiers.
“Let’s avoid starting a war at all costs. We do that on Vod soil, and we doom ourselves. If we do this right, we can get her out. The four of us.”
“Someone has to leave eventually,” Dover adds. “That could give us the opening we need.”
“We don’t have time to keep waiting,” I snarl, my patience slipping. “It’s been nearly ten days. We can’t just sit here twiddling our thumbs while she?—”
“Jace.”
My name coming from Zadyn’s mouth has my attention snapping to him.
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
And I do. Because I’ve seen the way he looks at Serena. It’s more than how a familiar looks at their bonded.
It’s the same way I look at her.
We eat quicklyoutside a small tavern below Zadyn’s flat. The sky above us is a deep red, as if it too is bleeding without her.
I set the pewter mug down and look at the others. “I want to go by the castle and see it for myself.”
