Also, a white-haired soldier rushed to your home.
Cato. That must be Cato. He’s a good man. Did he reach Nonna? Did he get them out?
Bronwen and Giana had already gotten them away to safety.
My palm drops to my pounding heart.
They are safe, Behach Éan.
“But Phoebus . . . Phoebus is not.” I whimper.
Lorcan doesn’t deny it. After trembling with adrenaline, my body now shakes with fear.
“What about Phoebus?” Dante says.
“Silvius took him. Took him to-to-to—”
“Can you finish a godsdamned sentence?” Tavo snaps. “Fuck you too, Crow.”
Dante sets a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Where did Silvius take him?”
“To the safe.” I snag my wobbly lip with my teeth.
“What safe?” Gabriele’s voice is quiet but tense as a halyard.
“His family’s safe. Where one of Lore’s crows was kept,” I whisper.
“No more loyal a family to the crown than the Acoltis,” I hear someone say.
I don’t know who and don’t care where the Acoltis’ loyalties lie. All I care about is the fact that Silvius has my best friend. The second he discovers that the safe is empty, that Phoebus helped me . . .
The words he’d spilled inside my ear the day he escorted me to the castle hurtle back into my mind, along with one of the visions Lorcan sent me. I picture the commander holding a knife to Phoebus’s neck instead of Nonna’s.
Oh, Gods, I’m going to be sick. I rush to the bath and throw up my dinner.Lore, don’t let anything happen to Phoebus. Please.
I’ve left one of my crows in the east to watch over him.
I scoop out water that hasn’t yet clouded with the contents of my stomach and splash my mouth.
You must set off now, though, or Antoni’s efforts will have been for naught.
My spine straightens at the mention of Antoni. I spin around. “We leave now. Right now!”
Seventy-Two
The hum of adrenaline grows to a deafening crescendo inside my head, pounding against my skull like the waves beyond the cliffs. I keep picturing Phoebus in shackles. How scared my friend must be. And all because of me.
Cauldron, if anything happens to him, I’ll—I cannot think this way. Lore said he’d keep him safe, and I choose to believe he will.
I rush past Dante and jostle his friends.
I hear Dante order Gabriele to follow me, and Tavo to settle our bill. As I streak out of the tavern, my vision narrows to a single point.Ahead.
Before the day is over, a new order will fall upon Luce. One that I will fight to bring about alongside a Crow King and a Fae Prince.
I march through the humid darkness, already imagining myself on the southern coast of Luce, freeing Lore’s crow from its underwater prison, and then smashing the bowl trapping his other.
The boy startles as we come around the corner and springs off the bale, a stick whittled to a point held high.
