I bark a laugh. “Peace? Is that what you call giving power-hungry fae the means to destroy their own people?”
“I don’t care what the fae do to each other, so long as it serves the greater good of Eisleigh.”
I study his face, the tick in his jaw. “There won’t be a treaty with the fae, will there?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I wonder…does Dahlia suspect you plan to betray her? Will her gifted soldiers turn on her as soon as the other warships arrive, or after the armies have killed her enemies?”
He refuses to rise to my bait. “I have no idea what you mean.”
I’m right. I know it. He didn’t forge a deal between the King of Bretton and Queen Dahlia. He just found a convenient way to get human soldiers on fae soil without a fight.
“I don’t know who disgusts me more right now,” I say with a sneer. “You, for obvious reasons. Or Dahlia, for being a big enough fool to trust you.”
His eyes blaze as he takes a step forward. “Watch your mouth. Don’t forget whose life is at stake.”
That silences me, but my mind remains active, fire coursing through my veins, gathering at my core in a fiery orb. It glows so hot with my rage that it takes all my restraint to keep it beneath the surface of my skin. I can’t summon it forth for the others to see. Not yet. Not until I connect to the other elements, figure out how to send my flames outward in all directions at once—
Mr. Duveau takes a sudden step forward. All fire drains from me as he presses the barrel to Amelie’s forehead. “Stop!” he shouts at me. “Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re doing, stop. I can see the calculations in your eyes.”
“Evie,” she cries, voice strangled.
I raise my hands in surrender, force my words out as calmly as I can. “I’m not doing anything.”
Revolver still pressed firmly against Amelie’s forehead, Mr. Duveau calls out to the soldiers still making their way across the beach with our tubs. “Hurry up! Fill them with the coldest water you—”
“Get away from her.” The voice that rings out from the beach isn’t one of the soldiers. It’s Cobalt. Shimmering blue scales cover every inch of his nix form, chest heaving as he pins Mr. Duveau beneath a glare with his single eye. His empty eye socket remains hidden behind the leather patch he had on before. The soldiers on the beach turn their rifles on him, but he pays them no heed.
Keeping his gun in place, he whirls to the side to eye Cobalt. “What are you doing? We’re in an alliance,” he calls out.
“Amelie wasn’t supposed to be part of it.”
A guttural sound comes from my sister, and I turn my head to catch the hate twisting her face. She no longer seems to care about the revolver kissing her skin. “Cobalt,” she mutters, then changes her tone, her pitch. “Cobalt. Cobalt.”
My blood goes cold. This may not be the best time for Amelie to focus on vengeance. I hush her, but she continues to say his name again and again, her voice growing louder each time.
Luckily, Duveau seems too distracted by Cobalt to notice. “You’re wrong,” Mr. Duveau says. “This is indeed vital to my agreement with your people.”
As the soldiers on the beach inch closer to Cobalt, he extends his sharp fingers, curling them as if he’s preparing to swipe.
“Stand down or die,” Mr. Duveau says. “I doubt your friends will be too upset if I kill you, considering they’ve all agreed what must be done.”
Cobalt pauses, gaze locking on Amelie. His brow furrows as Amelie continues to speak his name.
Mr. Duveau whirls back to her, finally aware of her mutterings. “Why are you doing that?” He pulls back the gun just enough to tap it against her forehead. Fire lights the tips of my fingers, the orb reforming at my core. When Amelie doesn’t stop, Duveau swings the gun away from her, as if preparing to strike her with it.
“Cobalt!” Amelie shouts, the power of his name ringing through her voice. “Kill these men.”
At the same moment, calls of alarm come from the lighthouse, followed by gunfire.
30
Cobalt spins into action in a whirl of blue, darting toward the nearest set of soldiers. Gunfire rings out all around, both above and below the cliff. From here, I can’t see what’s going on at the lighthouse, but I can feel it. I can feel my mate’s proximity. He actually came.
Which means those bullets above the cliff are for him.
My heart lurches over Aspen’s unknown fate, but I force my attention back to the scene before me. With the chaos of gunfire, the beach falls under a haze of disrupted sand, leaving only a vague image of the action taking place, of several dark shapes and one blue. The human shouts I hear are far more telling.
