I turn towards my companions as we all find ourselves inside Nysara’s living room. “We should split up. We need to interrogate as many people as possible. So if we head to different?—”
“No!” Nysara interrupts, her voice surprisingly forceful.
Drawing back a little, I turn to stare at her in confusion.
She casts a hesitant glance at Orion and lowers her voiceslightly as she explains. “My king, it has been less than a day since you all made this entire city think that a host of dragon clans were heading here to destroy it. The city is still in chaos. There are silver clan soldiers everywhere, trying to restore order. If you go out there now, you three will be immediately recognized as fae. And you,” she looks to Draven, “are the Shadow of Death. Everyone knows what you look like.”
“So glamour us to look like silver clan soldiers,” I say.
“It’s too inefficient.” There is annoyance in her words when they’re directed at me. Then her tone becomes respectful, almost pleading, as she looks to Orion again. “I am very good at my job, and I would do anything for you, my king.”
By the wall, Isera rolls her eyes again.
“So if you want me to find out where they’re going, I will,” Nysara continues, her gaze still solely on Orion. “And I will do so very quickly. So please, just give me a chance to prove it.”
The desperation in her voice surprises me. I’m not sure what the story is with Nysara, but based on her and Orion’s conversation in his throne room, I get the feeling that she might have been sent here as punishment for something. It sounded like she wants to go home to the Unseelie Court, but that she is not allowed to.
The Unseelie King holds her gaze for a second and then gives her a nod. “Go.”
Relief floods her features. “Thank you, my king.”
Her dress flutters around her as she whirls around and hurries towards the door. Before she has even left the dining room, her hair has already become blond and her ears round as she glamours herself to look like the dragon shifter she pretends to be while living in Frostfell.
The front door shuts behind her with a click.
In the living room, the rest of us… pace.
Tension crackles in the air around us as Draven, Isera, Orion, and I pace back and forth across the smooth floor. I hate waitingfor someone else. It’s one of the most frustrating feelings. Just standing here uselessly, doing nothing, while someone else is out there doing what I could be doing as well.
The minutes drag on until I feel like I’m about to crawl up the walls. That terrible restlessness mixes with the already thrumming storm of emotions in my chest. Flexing my hand, I try to suppress the urge to use my magic so that I can feel better. I shouldn’t be using it unless I have to. Every time I do, it gets harder to stop and the new cravings get worse and worse.
A clock above the mantlepiece ticks loudly into the silence. I cast a glance at it while trying to swallow down that urge to create an emotion from nothing. It has been a while now since Nysara left. Grey is opening portals every five minutes to check if we’re ready to go back. Part of me wants to just wait in the Unseelie Court instead. But that somehow feels even worse. At least here, I will be able to see from the windows if two huge silver dragons take flight from the Ice Palace before we can figure out where they’re going.
I shift my gaze back to the window again. Morning sunlight falls in through it, illuminating the dark wooden dining room table that Nysara and I sat at the night when she shattered my whole worldview and told me the truth about this world. Even the same crystal decanter of wine is still waiting there on a silver tray on the table. I draw in another long breath, trying to force my heart to stop beating so fast.
My gaze lingers on the house next to Nysara’s. Maybe I could create an emotion, just a small one, and put it inside one of her neighbors. Just for a few moments. Just to help me get my head back on straight. It wouldn’t even?—
Loud knocking comes from the back door.
“Nysara!” a male voice yells.
I whip around and suck in a sharp breath.
Oh shit.
CHAPTER FIVE
More hard knocks come from the door. They’re so loud that they echo from the back door, all the way through the corridor, and into the dining room we’re still hiding inside.
“Nysara!” that male voice calls again. “Are you there?”
Alarm shoots up my spine when I realize that I recognize the voice. It belongs to the dragon shifter who interrupted me and Nysara the first time I was here. Karleus. Her neighbor, who is very much in love with her, who was about to break the door down last time she didn’t reply, and who will definitely not just give up and go home.
Oh Goddess, I need to make him leave before he draws too much attention to this house. To us.
Isera opens her mouth to say something. But right before she can, Orion lurches forward and slaps a hand over her mouth. Lightning flashes in her eyes, but Orion just snaps commanding eyes to me and shoots me a pointed look.
I leap into motion.
