“Is it even possible?”
“There are relics from the age of Altair and Andromeda, amulets instilled with dark magic to curse highly powerful Fae, to steal their magic away from them. Maybe they could be tinkered with to allow the use of that magic held inside. Maybe she found them. They were rumored to be hidden in her own court anyway. Maybe her family has even held them in their archives for centuries. Who knows? The point is, Cass, who else would be powerful enough to curse our father, the King of the Court of Blood and Bone?”
“We thought it was Alban but, if she had the amulet or if he helped her…” Cass whispered, thinking. “We need to tell father.”
Lark was already nodding.
“My thoughts exactly,” he agreed.
“Tell him what, exactly?” Rook chimed in at that. “We think we might know who’s cursing him and even what she’s doing with all of that extra power but we can’t prove it?”
“The gorgon is the proof,” Lark said. “Lycurgus.”
He and Rook exchanged a glance.
“It’s been a while since I attempted a prison break,” Rook mused. “It’s about time for another.”
“Get permission this time,” Lark warned, his gaze narrowing as he spoke to Rook before turning to Cass. “Talk to father. Tell him what’s at stake. Get him to agree to an extraction mission to free the gorgon.”
“You’re not coming?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“I’m supposed to be dead, remember?”
She nodded.
“Father isn’t easy to convince,” she grumbled. “It might take time.”
“However long you need,” Lark replied. “Take Rook for protection.”
“Protection?”
“Ariadne slipped into the Bone Court well enough to steal one of the most powerful living Fae’s magic, leave him nearly dead, and escape undetected. I wouldn’t put it past her to do even worse to you if she found out you were asking questions. Take Rook. I’ll stay here.”
“Lark, someone could recognize you here,” Rook spoke up in sullen warning.
“I’ll stay in the apartment,” Lark replied and, when it was clear that no one believed him, he heaved a sigh and made his vow. “I promise.”
“Good enough for me,” Cass said with a shrug and then looped her arm with Rook’s. They disappeared in an instant, leaving me blinking after where they had been just moments before.
“I’ll never get used to that,” I said and Lark chuckled.
“I’m going to shower,” he told me. “Need to wash this darkness off me.”
I nodded and did my best to look at anything but him as he disappeared into the bedroom, off toward the bathroom inside.
This group had come up with a plan and executed it so quickly that I hadn’t had time to consider all the potential fallout and consequences of said actions. Cass was convincing her father to allow us to snatch the gorgon for proof of Ariadne’s schemes. Rook was to be her guard while she spoke very dangerous words in a very precarious place. I wondered if he would pin her to his side like he did to me every time Lark commanded him to guard me and couldn’t help but laugh at how I thought Cass might react to that.
But that left Lark and I alone in this apartment, an apartment we couldn’t leave, or he couldn’t leave, so that he wouldn’t be recognized. And, since I had no desire to get him caught again, I wouldn’t leave either. Because I knew that if I needed him, if I got into some sort of trouble that I couldn’t fight my way out of, he would come just like he always did. And they would catch us.
I wouldn’t do that to him. I had watched him die once already. I had no desire to see it again.
So that meant that we were trapped here, together, for as long as it took Cass to convince their father to let us sneak into enemy territory and retrieve the one creature who could verify what we suspected my mother to have done, to be capable of. I was stuck in an apartment, alone, with a man who had, just hours ago, told me he believed we were soul mates.
“Do you miss your uncle?” Lark spoke so suddenly that I nearly jumped out of my skin where I stood in the kitchen, making myself a pot of tea. He gave me a sheepish, apologetic grin. “Sorry.”
“Uh, I—” I stuttered as I watched him tug the black t-shirt down from where it had ridden up below his chest. I got the briefest glimpse of hard, toned abdomen before it was gone and I raised my gaze to his face to find him smirking at me and my loss of words. “Sorry, what was the question?”
He snorted, shaking his head so that his wet hair fluffed up a bit.
