“Good.” Tycho’s brown eyes shift back to me. He might be injured, but there’s enough fury in his gaze that a lesser man might back down.
I don’t.
“What do you want?” he says. “If you’re here to cause trouble, you’re just wasting time—”
“I’m not.” I nearly feel my lip curling as I consider this next part, but I say, “I came to talk to you. We should have a plan.”
He stares at me for a solid ten seconds. “Youwant to make a plan withme.”
“Your soldier has already declared he will not act on the order of the queen—”
“And he shouldn’t. Wouldyouobey Grey’s order?”
“That is beside the point—”
“Whatisyour point?”
“If you’d shut up for a moment,” I growl, “I’d tell you.”
He clamps his mouth shut and glares. Beside us, Jax glances up, but then he thrusts the shortened length of Iishellasan steel into the fire and pulls at the bellows again.
“If you’re both going to be in here,” he says, “start sharpening those.”He nods at a pile of odds and ends toward the other end of the table. “There should be a whetstone or two under there.”
For a moment, neither of us moves, but then Tycho shifts past me, moving scraps of wood and lengths of dried leather until he unearths a few dusty stones. He takes two in one hand and brings them back.
He sets one on the table in front of him, and then, without warning, he flings the other one at me.
I swear and scramble to catch it. But because he immediately gets to work one- handed, I do the same. For a little while, the workshop is full of sounds: Jax and his hammer, and us with steel against stone.
But I’m glad for the work, because there’s something settling in this. Maybe it’s just because I’mdoingsomething. An hour ago, Callyn chastised me for not doing exactly this, and maybe I should’ve taken it more seriously.
Eventually, Tycho says, “Alek. What were your thoughts?”
If he said it belligerently, I’d throw this whetstone back at him, but he sounds fairly genuine, so I keep my eyes on my work. “You’re injured, but you have two soldiers. Are they capable?”
“Yes.” Tycho glances at the blacksmith. “And Jax. He’s got killer aim.” He pauses, glancing past me down the lane. “And I’ve seen Callyn swing a sword.”
“So have I.” I set down the first sharpened arrowhead. “But she’s never fought in a battle.”
“She was in a battle right here,” Jax says coolly.
I want to scoff, but Tycho looks at him. “But she didn’t fight,” he says quietly. “There’s a difference.”
I wait for Jax to argue, but he doesn’t. He hesitates, and then he nods.
“You stopped the Truthbringers here once before,” I say. “How did you do it?”
“We got lucky,” he says. “And they didn’t have a scraver lending magic from their side.”
“But still,” I press. “How?”
“The king and I stood our ground from here,” says Jax. “I took out as many as I could with a bow, and he used his sword for any who got past. Tycho set a fire in the woods to trap them in the lane.”
I look between the two of them, waiting for more, but that’s all he says.
“That’s it?” I say.
Tycho nods. “Nakiis showed up with Igaa and some others, and they were able to help in the end, but for the most part . . . that’s it.”
