Aoife steps aside so that he does not have to circle her to get to me. He steals my trembling fingers from my side and wraps his solid hand over them, then leans over to press his cheek to his mother’s.
Words are spoken, volleyed back between mother and son. My eardrums quiver so frenziedly that I don’t even try to concentrate on the conversation. “Could Imogen be out of range?” I finally ask, my voice as tremulous as the rest of me.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps, Dante locked her in an obsidian cage. Obsidian blots out our powers.” His mouth sets into a grim line. “All of them.” Lore speaks softly as though he senses that a stronger pitch will unmoor my heart. “Why don’t you go see your friends, Little Bird?”
He nods to the heart of the tavern where Syb and Mattia stand huddled together beside a blindfolded male with long blond hair and a soiled white shirt untucked from dark breeches. It takes me a moment to remember that Gabriele was the one to intercept them and bring them up here.
I glance at Lore, who kisses my knuckles before releasing my hand, then take a step in Syb’s direction, but stop and turn back toward the Sky King. “You’re staying, right? You’re not—not—”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I sink my teeth into my lower lip to keep it from wobbling, then take off like a minnow freed from a fisherman’s net, sore muscles be damned. “Syb!” I yell her name.
She presses away from Mattia’s side, picks up her skirts, and sprints toward me. We collide in a tear-filled hug and hold each other a long moment before either of us manages to utter a single word. Not that words are necessary with true friends; I already know all that must be racing through her head.
When we finally pull apart, her wet cheeks look like polished obsidian and her eyes shine like silver medallions.
She sniffles. “Gia was arrested.”
“I heard.”
“And Antoni . . . we didn’t find him. And—and—Imogen and Vance—”
“I heard.” I squeeze her, calm, the Cauldron only knows how. “On what grounds were they arrested?”
“Tavo said—he said they stole classified information from Isolacuori, and he had an order to raid the house. Gia wouldn’t let them in, so they blasted the door with a cannonball and—and Riccio was standing—” Her voice breaks. “He’s dead. And they took Gia after they found—after they opened the cellar door.”
“We’ll get Giana out, Syb. She’ll be fine. Dante will release her. Drugs may be illegal, but they’re hardly a crime against the Crown.”
I’m not sure if Syb hears me because she says, “Catriona’s the one who told Dargento about the dust. We should never have let her inside our home.”
I sigh. Blaming a dead woman will lead us nowhere. “They were probably just biding their time, waiting to convict you on any offense.”
Her nostrils flare. “I’m going to tell the whole fucking world that Dante ordered his brother’s death. Just you wait and see.”
Mattia steps over, hands stuffed in the pockets of his dusty slacks, the whites of his eyes as crimson as the top of Syb’s dress. We may have lost a friend, but he lost his cousin. I cannot even begin to imagine how his heart must ache.
The cool breeze that is my mate slicks across my neck and shoulders before funneling into his two-legged shape. “Cian went to negotiate Gia’s release.”
“If she’s hurt, I will kill all of them. Tavo first. Dargento second. And then Dante. All of them!” Syb threads her arms around Mattia’s waist and leans into him.
His big body is so slumped I’m not certain which one is supporting the other. He presses his mouth to the crown of her head. “How about you leave the killing to”—he glances at Lorcan, then around at the other Crows who stand at a distance from us—“other people, Sybille?”
Lore spears his fingers through mine and squeezes my hand. “It will be our pleasure to rid Luce of these Faeries, Mattia.”
My breath snags in my throat as I realize what this means.
War is no longer on our doorstep.
War has come.
Fifty-Nine
Awar we will win.Lore’s growl rolls through my marrow at the same time the sky detonates.
Rain begins to plummet against the cupola, pelting the space which I assumed was open, but apparently is not.
They’re wards.
