“Not always.”
The gentle hum of his fae magic brushed against mine, familial and comforting.
We stayed like that until the tension drained out of me and I could breathe again.
“Where do you think he is?” I asked, keeping hold of him. Not ready to let go yet.
Dathal hesitated. His body tensed so I pulled back enough to meet his gaze. He would never outright lie to me, but he might withhold the truth if he thought I couldn’t handle it.
“Be honest.”
He huffed. “I’m always honest with you.”
“Don’t try and shield me from anything, then.”
He let out a long, measured breath. “Despite what the high court claim, I wonder if Vai Zh’alek came through the gateway soon after he escaped the prison.” He rubbed a hand down my back when I flinched.
Dathal’s magic fuelled his instincts, giving a weight to his words that others didn’t warrant.
“You feel it?” I asked.
“Sometimes. It’s harder than usual to understand what my magic is trying to tell me. Maybe I’ve been this side of the gateway too long and it’s affecting me, or maybe he’s as slippery as he was before. Either way, I think we should consider the possibility that Zh’alek has been here all along. Hiding.”
I didn’t like the way Dathal’s words echoed my own thoughts. I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was out there somewhere, closer than anyone wanted to admit. But I’d tried. Tried to accept that the high court were right in their assurances that Zh’alek remained in the Fae Realm. But Dathal’s confession confirmed what my own instincts had been telling me all along.
I just hadn’t wanted to listen.
“I agree,” I said, pulling back and leaning against the worktop. “But the high court won’t unless we have proof. Even your word won’t be good enough for them to accept he slipped through without anyone noticing.”
“I know.”
“So what do we do?” As much as I didn’t want to come face to face with Vai Zh’alek ever again, I couldn’t live like this indefinitely—reliant on Dathal and Rys’s pack to keep watch over me all the time.
By the look on Dathal’s face, I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“We wait.”
Knew it.
I fixed him with a flat look of my own. “Wait? That’s your answer?”
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, and I desire nothing more than to find him and remove his head from his body. But we have no idea where he is, Axel. If he’s here in this realm, then he’s managed to keep himself hidden for the last two and a half months. I don’t see that changing any time soon, unless he decides to show himself.”
“You mean come for me?”
“We don’t know for sure that you even feature in his plans.”
I scoffed, giving Dathal the glare that sentence deserved. He didn’t believe that any more than I did. “Look me in the eye and tell me that your magic isn’t screaming at you that he’s here for me?” I poked a finger at his chest. “I might not be his end game, but you know as well as I do that I’ll be part of it.”
Along with Dathal and the Fae High Court, Vai Zh’alek was one of the few people to know what my magic allowed me to do. An accidental discovery that I’d almost paid for with my life.
“I won’t let him near you again,” Dathal said in lieu of answering me.
He meant that with every fibre of his being.
But Dathal couldn’t be everywhere at once.
And I didn’t want to have to rely on everyone else to keep me safe.
