Page 45
“For Master Tartanis,” Cedric finished for him.
Raefe nodded.
“Elyria’s father.”
Raefe nodded again. “I figured you two would have had a heart-to-heart after that whole mess. Sorry for letting my temper get the better of me yet again.”
Cedric saw red. “Sorry? You blame your temper for what you said to her? What you did to her?”
Raefe pursed his lips tightly, then sucked them between his teeth as though the effort of keeping in whatever he wanted to say was very great indeed. He managed it, though, swallowing whatever defense had been on the tip of his tongue to instead say, “Rehashing all of that will get us nowhere. Not when you’ve come a very long way for a very specific purpose, I assume.”
Cedric watched the fae’s eyes dip to around neck height, and he knew he was envisioning the bondmark Elyria had left on him, the claim he’d taken such umbrage with in the fall.
“How much do you know?” Cedric asked guardedly.
Raefe’s eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head. “Sephone has kept me apprised of things learned, as I’ve needed to know them. And it turns out that my suspicions about what’s been going on behind closed doors here in Luminaria may not be too unfounded. I was just following a suspected cultist to see if I could finally get a sense of how they’ve been getting into the castle when your ass showed up.”
Cedric’s heart lurched so hard he found it difficult to catch his breath. “She’s being held in the castle?”
Raefe took a moment before replying, something that had Cedric shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Before you showed up, I wasn’t entirely sure whether my mind had been playing tricks on me. The castle has been sealed since the end of the Crucible, mind you. Some sort of celestial ward cast around the entire fucking thing. Gives quite a sting if you get too close.”
“So, when you said you were trying to see how the cultists enter the castle . . .”
“Yes.”
There was a pang behind Cedric’s ribs, like the thread was being strummed. “I don’t think the ward was placed by any celestial, Raefe.”
“Neither do I, anymore. They must be using some blood mage nonsense to get past, but I’ve yet to witness how. Keeping a low profile has been paramount to me being able to observe as much as I have. I pass well enough for human from a distance—”
Cedric’s gaze flicked to Raefe’s torn ear.
“—but it’s to everyone’s benefit that I remain . . . unobtrusive.”
“Then how do you propose we—” Cedric swayed on his feet, dizzy, disoriented. The bond in his chest pulsed hard.
Too hard.
A sharp pain spiked through his sternum, and he doubled over with a strangled yelp, Ashrender clattering to the ground beside him.
Raefe grabbed his shoulders in an attempt to steady him. “Whoa, what’s hap—”
Cedric’s hands gripped the sides of his head, his thoughts blurring. There was screaming inside his skull. Fear and horror pulsing through him.
“Elle,” he choked out. “Something is wrong.”
He tugged on the tether between them, yanking, pulling, slamming his consciousness against it like a man trying to break down a door.
Nothing.
He couldn’t hear her.
Couldn’t feel her.
Couldn’t use it to go to her.
But he knew.
He knew she was there, just on the other side of it, blocked and muted as it was.
