I returned to both tidying and searching Fear’s room. I turned things over before setting them back on their shelves or in cabinets and ran my hand over anything with fabric, looking for a telltale hard edge.
I righted the overturned inkwell, running my hand over the smooth, cool wood of the desk. He had moved on to collecting and thumbing through his now-disorganized papers, frowning over them.
The edge of the rug had buckled near the windows; I knelt to pull it up, checking beneath it, before I stretched it flat again.
Nothing.
“What are you looking for?” Fear sounded curious.
I looked up to find him perched on the edge of his desk, watching me.
“I’m just trying to help. But if you don’t want me here, I could go back to letting Sera kick my ass while Kiegan mocks me. Helpfully, of course. They’re both so painfully helpful.”
His lips ticked at the corners. I always had the terrible feeling he saw right through me. “I appreciate your help. And theirs.”
“Well. Now that I know my death isn’t imminent, I’d like to be useful out in the field.” There was no hiding my frustration when I added, “Once we aren’t trapped here because of me.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s Lightbringer.” That last sentence was pointed, but not at me.
“I’m sure Bismyth appreciates the distinction.”
Fear covered the distance between us in a few steps, tilting my chin up to his gaze in his usual commanding way. His palm caressed my cheek tenderly. “I promise you they do.”
“Everyone is eager to leave the Trials. The queen…”
“Seems to be coming unwound? Don’t worry, Cara. Your gifts are a thousand times more important than flying or swinging a sword. Every shifter in Bismyth either sees that, or they will soon.”
His gaze held mine, all shades of warm gold. Warmth blossomed in my chest, mingling with the sudden uncertainty I felt after talking to Maura. “You can be very convincing.”
“Because it’s the truth.” He pressed a kiss to my temple, his arms sliding around me. I pressed my cheek to his chest, savoring the comfort and solidity of his body against mine.
It was only from this angle that I caught a glimpse of gold glinting, almost hidden underneath the wardrobe.
It took effort to gently untangle from him. “Let’s finish so we can get some rest. It’s been a long day and tomorrow will be another.”
He nodded, but I was aware of the way he was observing me. I made myself wait, working slowly toward the wardrobe. I collected the clothes that had been thrown across the floor, then moved to hang them up again or put them on the shelves. He didn’t react to me in his wardrobe, even though that was where he had hidden the compendium and his stuffed raven and other secrets that probably even the gods didn’t know.
I knelt and picked up the coin. Rees, who had been sleeping nearby, moved over to rest his big head in my lap. He was very insistent. I began to pet him both because I was always willing to be Rees’s high priestess and because I wanted to look over the coin surreptitiously.
The coin looked old, but I wasn’t sure if it truly was. There were flames engraved on one side, which made my stomachtighten painfully. I wasn’t sure it had been hidden in my room. I had never found it or never noticed it among all the gold Fear had peppered through my room.
Had the gifts of gold truly been hoarded for his mate? Or had it been a trick wrapped within another trick?
When I held the coin, a ghost rush of heat prickled across my arms. Rees raised his head from my lap, looking at me in alarm.
The heat crept up past my elbow and my lungs closed, a short, involuntary tightening, the body registering threat before the mind had finished its argument. My heartbeat was suddenly loud in my own ears. I grounded my fingers in Rees’s fur, clinging to him for comfort.
At least I could trust Rees.
I had to get rid of the coin. I palmed it and rose to my feet, pretending to remake the bed that had been torn apart.
I was afraid of what nightmares would find me tonight, but I still tucked the coin under the sheet, where it would be below my head.
And I hoped against hope, as Rees whined and settled back down before the fire, and as Fear began an amusing rant about the faults of Obsidian shifters, that there would be no nightmares tonight. That I was just an unreasonable, untrusting, miserable mortal who should manage some faith for the man I’d come to love.
I fell asleep that night tangled in his arms and hoping for rest.
Twenty-Five
