Death for death.
There was a date at the top of each letter. The same date, year after year. Xenia flipped through the pile—several hundred. One for every year since Arran had stolen the dragon.
The name at the bottom chilled Xenia’s fury.
Lizbeth Burkhardt.
It also shook loose a piece of information from Xenia’s subconscious mind.
The line from a book she’d read on herbology years ago in the Temple library:Dienswort has an acrid, bitter scent and its dried leaves are the main ingredient in veiling potion.
Those vials she’d found in Elodie’s box. That bitter scent.
Veiling potion.
Oh, High Gods.
She needed to get out of this room.
She banged on the walls, clawing and kicking even more furiously.
No one came, no one answered. But she couldn’t stop trying.
Cael was in more danger than she’d ever imagined.
CHAPTER SIXTY
The Koenig’s throne room looked quite a bit more joyous than it had on the day Cassandra had arrived in Tartarus.
An arrangement of round black tables topped with lit candles ringed the room’s outer edge. Beside the dais, a quartet of musicians were plucking out jaunty tunes that powered twirling couples across the dance floor.
Aside from the decorations, the other difference was the sheer amount of Fae in the hall. Nearly every single prisoner from the city below had been invited to tonight’s pre-trial feast, it seemed.
The Brethren who’d delivered the invitation yesterday morning—just after Tristan had finally, after three days of trying, managed to contact Cael before the cuff’s magic had sputtered out—had also dropped off two garment bags, one for Cassandra and one for Mireille. Each held a dress with a note—a command really—to wear them tonight.
Cassandra, Mireille, Ronin and Tristan had spent a long hour debating what to do.
On the one hand, Cassandra felt she should spend tonight resting to prepare for tomorrow’s appeal. On the other, to refusethe Koenig’s invitation would be a grave insult. And he might very well send a few Brethren down to fetch her anyway.
They’d all agreed it was safer to play along. To keep indulgences to a minimum. And to leave as early as possible once they’d shown their faces. Well, three of their faces. Tristan would attend as a Ghostwalker only, hidden beneath his wings and a scent-suppressing potion Mireille had concocted. Cassandra had begged him to stay at the apartment tonight, to not risk exposure. Of course, he’d refused. She could feel his tense presence behind her now.
She spied Silas at a table in the corner in quiet discussion with a Beastrunner female from the Kennel volunteers. Cassandra nodded a greeting when they noticed her, then scanned the room for humans.
She breathed a small sigh of relief when she didn’t find any.
As they pushed deeper into the hall, many heads swiveled toward Mireille. Not that Cassandra could blame them.
Mireille’s burgundy silk dress featured a strapless, gathered bodice that hugged her shapely figure and cascaded layers of chiffon past her feet. She lookedstunning. And when she’d emerged from her bedroom earlier, Ronin looked like someone had punched him in the chest.
Cassandra’s own dress was lily-white silk in a halter-style to accommodate her wings. In a likely unintended consequence, it also showed off the results of her training: her sleek, muscled shoulders, her toned upper arms. Tristan had smiled appreciatively at her new Fae strength on proud display, then murmured something about the bastard having excellent taste.
The dresseswereundeniably beautiful.
But that’s all they were.
A blatant attempt by Aedelmar to put Cassandra and Mireille on display for him and his Brethren. To transform the females into decorations instead of the weapons they were.
Ronin hadn’t received a costume from the Koenig, so he wore a pair of slim leather trousers and a sky-blue cotton shirt. To which he’d clipped a piece of maroon silk from the underside of Mireille’s skirts in solidarity.
