Then, it’s the crowd. People everywhere, plugging up the street. The more people I have to maneuver past, the more my irritation rises.
Luckily, Hare catches up and yanks on my arm with a solution. “This way, Lord Rot.”
He shoves sideways past the flow of the crowd, heading toward the canals, and then jumps right off the ledge of the street. There isn’t a splash, so I follow. Unlike him, I don’t have to push anyone away as I cut across. Even with so many fae, none of them touch me, leaving at least a few inches of space. Maybe because of some instinct telling them to stay away.
Smart instincts.
When I make it to the edge of the walkway, I spot the ledge below right next to the water. I jump up and over, landing easily. As soon as I do, Hare waves me over from a narrow gondola, a paddle already in his grip. I step from the ledge into the skinny vessel, and the water sloshes with my weight.
The canals are dammed up with other boats, but I quickly realize how Hare got his name, and it has nothing to do with his teeth. He seems to know where every tunnel in the city exists, and he’s just as fast on the water as any rabbit on foot.
He maneuvers us deftly, passing by clusters of other boats and beneath bridges, going down narrow passages squeezed between covered roads and trees. He takes us off the beaten path, finding every nook and cranny our skinny boat can fit through, going down each channel like a rabbit racing away from a fox.
Then he takes us into an underground tunnel, the air dark and musty, but the water empty of other boats.
“Are we actually getting somewhere?” I ask.
I don’t like being down in these covered waterways. There’s barely enough space to stand, and the air is clogged with dripping moisture that clings to the stone. I want to be back out in the air, able to see the golden aura I desperately need to keep in my sights.
“Yes. Nearly there, my lord.”
Seconds later, we come out the other side of the dark, ducking under the low-hanging tunnel exit.
“Here,” he says before the front of our needle-point boat knocks into the ledge of a bricked road.
The noise of the city seems to have amplified now. Hare’s alternate routes must have gotten us closer to…whatever it is that everyone’s swarming toward. As I step off the boat and onto a narrow alleyway, I walk between two buildings and look up once I pass them, realizing with a jolt that I’m closer to Auren. Much closer.
Her aura glosses the air with light, slicking it with shine. But there’s also something that hasn’t ever been in her aura before. Black vaporous tendrils that snake through her goldenglow. They drift through it, like vines down a stream, floating in its surface.
Seeing her aura and mine roiling together like this is a fucking gift. One that knocks the air right out of me. An ebb and flow of light and dark that saturates the sky and sears into my brain.
My chest tightens with anticipation.
I’m coming, Auren. I’m fucking coming.
Hare squeezes next to me, eyeing the busy street ahead. There are people surrounding us, packing us in. “We’ll try to cut across. It’s just that way.” He points. “I know someone who lives a few blocks down who has a rooftop view of the city square. If we can get past all these people and get there, we can—”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.
People suddenly scream. The sound doesn’t come from the square, but from the other direction. The fae in front of us jerk around to look, and I can see some further down the street trying to get away, which makes the packed-in crowd push even closer against the fringes.
Hare and I get jostled back, shoved into the alley again. I yank my spikes beneath my skin as a frown takes over my face. I lean forward to look around the corner of the building so I can figure out what the fuck is happening.
A second later, I see Stone Swords marching. They’re shoving people out of the way, with no care for who gets hurt.
Anger pulses down my veins.
One of them wields magic when the packed crowd doesn’t move quick enough. A torrent of wind magic gusts out like a cyclone. It whips down the bricked street with a powerful vortex, churning with dirt and branches torn from the trees. I can even see ripped clothing spiraling through its mass.
Fae hurry to get out of the way, hands covering their eyes and mouths squeezed shut, while dirt and debris start to battereveryone’s bodies. I jerk my head back as a spray of dust stings my eyes.
“There must be trouble in the square!” Hare says, half hollering in my ear so he can be heard over the gusts. “Looks like someone signaled for reinforcements!”
I blink to clear my eyes and look ahead again. There are a good fifty soldiers from what I can tell, all of them with their marbled shields lifted, blocking them from neck to knee. The crowd is forced aside, allowing the contingent of Stone Swords a clear path as they travel toward the square.
But suddenly, someone from the crowd rushes out. A young male—not even past his teen years—with a round face and a flop of cherry red hair. “Carrick-following traitors!” he shouts as he steps in the middle of the street, directly in their way.
Then he turns his head andspits.
