I reached Val’s room and knocked, grateful for the distraction from my troubled thoughts. The door flew open a second later, and Val let out a string of curse words that would rattle any sailor. Her flaming red hair hung around her shoulders in loose, frizzy waves, and wrinkles consumed every inch of her pale green tunic. Before I could manage a word of hello, she threw her arms around me and practically dragged me into her room.
“Thank the light. I’ve been going mad with worry,” she whispered fervently as she kicked the door shut with a bare foot. “What happened? You look like shit. Is that blood?”
“It’s a long story, but, ah…” I lifted my finger and pointed at the wall beside her dressing cupboard. “Mind telling me one thing first? What the fuck is that?”
A towering pile of books teetered on the floor just below a maze of parchment clippings attached to the wall. One of the clippings held nothing more than a paragraph, while another was an entire page’s worth of writing. Several of the papers were connected to each other by bits of twine. My eyes dropped to the stack of books. One of them lay open on the floor. Half of the page had been cut out.
Val grinned and motioned at the mess. “Thisis the answer to everything.”
“Please tell me you haven’t ripped pages out of books.”
“All right. I won’t tell you, since you can see it for yourself.” Suddenly, her grin vanished. “Before we go into all this, can you please tell me what happened out there? Are you all right? How is everyone else? Is Nellie safe? Niamh…she got back safely, right?”
I gave her a look, noting the flush in her cheeks, and a slow smile lifted the corners of my lips. “Interesting you should ask about Niamh.”
“She’s…nice.”
“And beautiful.”
“And really fucking fierce,” Val said with a sparkle in her eye. “Don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” I strode over to her and slung my arm around her shoulder, gazing up at the strange array of pages attached to the wall. “Andyouare brave and beautiful and strong. And also…slightly deranged.”
Quickly, I filled her in on everything that had happened, making sure to point out Niamh was safe and sound here in Endir. When I was finished, I motioned to the wall. “Now it’s your turn. What in the name of light is all this?”
Val laughed. “I swear there’s a reason for this. Look—this paragraph here is about Andromeda.”
I leaned closer and read the words, squinting in the dull light that emanated from the hearth. “Death will rise from the ashen remains of a great city.” Mouth parting, I turned to her. “This sounds like it refers to Albyria burning down. Where did you get this?”
“There are dozens of books in the library that detail the history of the fae world. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like any of them cover the period called the Fell. That’s what the mortals call it, when the gods came the first time.”
I nodded. “That’s what Druid Balfor said.”
She tapped another note. “See? It’s here in these books. It was just harder to find because it’s woven in with the rest of the history, and it’s rarely directly referenced.”
“So you’ve spent the past few days combing through the library and finding any passage that might connect to what’s going on now.”
“I had to do something,” she said, fisting her hands. “You were out there tracking down Oberon. Nellie was training with Gaven until she ran off.”
“Nellie was training?” I asked, surprised. “With what?
“Her claws and fangs.”
That explained a lot.
I turned back to the wall. “We’ll need to tell Kalen everything you’ve learned, although if anyone was going to find this information, it’s good it was you.”
At that, I explained what the Mist Guard had discussed during the earlier meeting, including her part of the plan. I hated the idea of her sailing to the mortal kingdoms instead of staying by my side, but I had to admit, this was the safest task the Mist Guard could have given her. The journey to the Kingdom of Storms would be dangerous. Staying in Endir might be a better option, but tensions between fae and humans were still high. I didn’t want her in the city if things went wrong. And if the shadowfiends decided to launch another attack…next time, they might have even greater numbers than before. They’d never bested Endir’s protective walls, but things were changing.
Val sat hard on the high-backed chair beside the hearth, her face pale. “They wantmeto journey to Talaven? As some kind of diplomat?”
“Something like that,” I said, taking the chair across her. “The others are worried Talaven won’t want to exchange information with a group of fae. But if Niamh and Alastair have a human with them, perhaps the humans will share what they know. It helps that you’ve been doing research already. You have some insight.”
Val nodded. “What about you?”
“I’m going to the Kingdom of Storms.”
She arched a brow. “That’s a terrible idea.”
