His chin dipped toward Reve and I followed the gesture, resting my chin in my palm, elbow propped against the table as if bored. I tilted just enough to catch their voices.
“He’s sure he knows where they are?” Reve murmured, suspiciously coherent, to someone beside him.
The man, the one who hadn’t even been granted an introduction, nodded once. Another at his opposite side was already slumped over, face mashed into the wood, his snore rattling the whole damn table.
“He said they’re collecting soldiers,” the nameless one whispered. “Heading out within the next week or two.”
The tavern’s dim lanterns shuddered in their hooks, shadows jerking along the walls like they, too, were eavesdropping.
Reve noticed, eyes sliding up to find mine. The careless blue of them darkened as he folded his arms across the table. “Excited?” His brows arched.
I sighed, dragging my gaze away. “Sure.”
If the Den had windows, I’d be staring through them, glancing at how close to nightfall we’d slipped.
When we had arrived, the sky had turned to a golden sepia. A canvas of blush and ember clouds. In here, it was always the same. A haze of flax and smoke, blurring and endless.
A place where time didn’t move.
I jabbed Callum with my elbow, leaning closer. “How much longer? I can’t choke this swill down, and we’re fifteen minutes away from this turning into a full-blown orgy.”
To prove my point, I nodded toward a girl with midnight hair on her knees with a man’s fist tangled in her strands, his cock buried down her throat.
Reve’s pupils blew wide as he turned and watched, his mouth parting as the tip of his tongue danced across his lips.
Disgust, or worse, warped my insides.
Callum’s freckles caught the lamplight like rust igniting as he motioned toward the door. “She’s here.”
I looked over my shoulder—
The Fae woman who stepped through was a tempest wrapped in flesh. Her skin was a rich sable, her curls thick and untamed, spilling down her back in a dark cascade. The arc of her cheekbones sat high and severe; brows arched above eyes of dusk-stained seas.
She moved like the chaos in them, all measured and ominous.
An onyx raven lay claim on her shoulder, its beak sharp enough to slice throats, talons digging into the sapphire folds of her cloak. One jeweled eye glowed, a bruised fire threaded in umber.
The sailor’s song strangled mid-verse as silence flowed through the Den. The crowd parted for her, hands reaching, too curious and foolish.
She didn’t even glance their way, only lifted a single gloved hand, dismissive as a queen swatting flies. The raven moved with her, wings unfurling like a blade leaving its sheath. The men stumbled back, their hands raised in surrender.
When her eyes caught mine across the room, the corners of her lips lifted with purpose.
If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve sworn she floated toward me. I couldn’t tell; I was too transfixed from her.
She stopped before me, leaning down, a gloved hand slipping beneath my chin as mine hovered at the hilt of my dagger, nails already edged.
Her eyes weren’t made from the grey of the ocean as I’d thought, but moonlit waves. Soft enough to make you believe drowning might feel like flying.
Her guide lifted me to my feet, Callum surging up beside me, his hand latching onto my arm, body wedged between us.
“Let go of her, Nezra.” His voice strained with restraint, every syllable fraying.
She didn’t so much as glance at him. Her stare stayed on mine, unwavering, fingers still resting against my chin, a trap disguised as tenderness.
Then I felt it, the faint prickle where her thumb pressed, again and again, in a measured rhythm. A pattern. Arune.
Once. Twice. Three times.
