“Slade,” I warned.
“I’m kidding,” he said. “Mostly.”
“We might need him,” Thorne added. “If our theory is correct, he’s the only one the Harvest Throne will share its magic with.”
“Fine,” Slade pouted.
Thorne traced the route from the townhouse to the palace. “We go in hidden. Through the servants’ quarter. Aurelia, you’ll need a disguise.”
“Heliconia will sense me no matter what I look like,” I said.
“What if we could cloak your magic?” Thorne suggested.
“How would we do that?”
Thorne shrugged. “A spell or something. Maybe a witch?—”
“There are no witches remotely powerful enough to fool Heliconia,” Slade warned.
“So I don’t bother hiding,” I said. “We make a grand entrance.”
“Dramatic,” Slade said with a gleam. “I like it.”
“How will we get past the guards?” Thorne asked.
Everyone was silent at that. But I couldn’t let go of the idea that was forming.
“What if we could persuade them to let me through?” I asked, and now it was my turn to have a gleam in my eye.
“How?” Thorne asked.
“Callan.”
We spent the next hour arguing about contingency plans—what if Heliconia sensed me, what if the Obsidian patrols spotted Slade, what if Callan refused to help, what if we all got killed before we got in the door…
We didn’t have perfect answers.
But we had a plan.
A thin, reckless plan.
It would have to be enough.
Chapter Forty-Two
Aurelia
The bell above the jewelry shop door didn’t ring when I slipped inside. But I still heard it echo inside my head from the first time I’d come here. Then, it had been a friendly chime as Callan led me from glass case to glass case, hoping to impress me with the coin he’d spend on something shiny for his almost-bride. All while lying to me about how his father planned to bleed the entire court dry of their magic. Me included.
Tonight, the shop was dark. According to Slade, it had been closed since the day the Withered attacked us here. The bell had been silenced—just like the shop owner himself had been silenced on Callan’s order.
My heart ached for the elderly fae who’d lost his life that day, likely for the simple crime of trying to warn me about what was really happening to Autumn citizens. Then, the Withered had attacked us.
Rydian had saved my life—again.
And everything had changed.
It seemed a fitting meeting place for tonight’s subterfuge. Here I was, planning to stop a wedding. Again. At this rate, Iwas probably qualified enough to fall back on it as a career if being the Chosen One didn’t work out.
