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The over-large, fishlike eyes on that white face moved past him, scouring the sky, the ship. As if knowing Az approached but not that he was already there, inches away.

It was vaguely male and vaguely Fae-like, this creature. White as bleached bones, gangly, with webbed, claw-tipped fingers. Its lips, full to the point of seeming like they’d burst, opened and closed. A fish on dry land.

Its claws dug into the barnacle-crusted hull, keeping it half in the water, half out, and the part of its body that was still in the river—

A fish on dry land indeed. A scaled tail thrashed where legs should have been, as ghastly white as the rest of the creature. Like it had crawled from some lightless hole at the bottom of the sea. Perhaps it had, Az mused as the creature skulked in the shade, squinting at the sky, the ship, the quay.

Alive and not. Dead and not.

He couldn’t make sense of his shadows as they sought to puzzle out what the creature was. It looked around, tail thrashing beneath the water to keep it afloat. His shadows had been right about the fear. The thing in front of him was rippling with it. And yet . . . he did not have the sense that it was lost.

It came here; it was sent, his shadows confirmed. Which meant it was time for questions.

Half a thought had Azriel’s Siphons sending out a bolt of blue light. His power clamped like a manacle around one of the creature’s wrists, binding it to the hull.

The creature flailed, tail whacking the ship, the quay, the water so hard that someone was bound to notice—

“Calm yourself,” Azriel ordered, stepping from the shadows at last.

The creature clawed at the blue manacle on its wrist, so hard it drew blood. Its tail, too, was bleeding in spots where its scales had been knocked off.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Az said, though not at all gently. And not at all truthfully, he supposed. He wouldn’t hurt this thing—yet. Honor was a luxury he didn’t often indulge in.

The creature thrashed again, its too-thin body slamming into the side of the ship just once, then going limp. Slowly, it turned its face toward him. Its saucerlike eyes blinked.

“Tell me what you’re doing here,” Azriel commanded.

The thing’s puffy mouth opened, shut. Fear still pervaded its scent. But it said in a hoarse voice, as if it bubbled up from far, far below its throat, “I come bearing a message to the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court.”

Az kept his face neutral.

Truth, his shadows confirmed.

Wiping any trace of curiosity or surprise from his tone, Az said, “You picked an odd spot to deliver it.”

Again, that strange voice spoke. “Too many people; too much noise; too much everything.” And so it had scuttled into the shade here to hide.

“Who sent you?” Once, he might have already taken this thing to the nearest dungeon and started his usual type of questioning. But now . . . he owed it to Feyre, after seeing her flinch while he interrogated their enemies, to try another way. At least once.

The creature opened and closed its mouth again, like it was struggling to breathe. “Hybern.”

It took a considerable amount of self-control to avoid reeling back in shock. To avoid lifting the sword still in his hand and slicing down, ending this creature’s miserable life with one stroke. Az made himself instead say impassively, “What business does Hybern have sending a message to the Night Court?”

The thing gurgled, spittle bubbling at the corners of its rounded lips. “They wish . . . to meet.”

“That’s not happening.” Az didn’t have the authority to decide that, but he could damn well guess that was what Rhys and Feyre would say.

The thing flapped its tail once, twice. Tried and failed to free itself from the manacle again. It stilled after a moment. “Hybern . . . wishes . . .”—each word was a push of air—“to form . . . an alliance.”

“An alliance—”

But before he could finish, before he could master his own astonishment, the creature shuddered and went limp. With a final sigh, eyes closing almost in relief, its white skin frothed and bubbled. Melted away into the water. And where there had been a creature half dangling from a blue manacle moments before, now only sea-foam remained.

Alive and not. Dead and not, his shadows had whispered. Like this thing had existed between the two states, and now, its purpose fulfilled, it had entirely ceased to exist.

His shadows swept over the foam, the water. Gone, they reported. Returned from whence it came. Salt to salt, water to water.

Some sort of magical construct, then. Az rubbed the back of his neck. It was complicated magic, to make something that could think and endure on its own . . . but ultimately served only one reason for being, and would vanish when it was fulfilled. Soulless, yet driven by need.