Vassa rolled her eyes, then looked to Lucien, who sank onto the sofa beside Jurian. Like the Fae male had settled similar arguments between them before. But Lucien’s attention was upon Cassian. “Did you come with news or orders?”

Keenly aware of Eris’s presence near the fire, Cassian kept his gaze upon Lucien. “We give you orders as our emissary.” He nodded to Jurian and Vassa. “But when you are with your friends, we only give suggestions.”

Eris snorted. Cassian ignored him, and asked Lucien, “How’s the Spring Court?”

He had to give Lucien credit: the male was somehow able to move between his three roles—an emissary for the Night Court, ally to Jurian and Vassa, and liaison to Tamlin—and still dress immaculately.

Lucien’s face revealed nothing of how Tamlin and his court fared. “It’s fine.”

Cassian didn’t know why he’d expected an update regarding the High Lord of Spring. Lucien only gave those in private to Rhys.

Eris snorted again at Cassian’s fumbling, and, unable to help himself, Cassian at last turned toward him. “What are you doing here?”

Eris didn’t so much as shift in his seat. “Several dozen of my soldiers were out on patrol in my lands several days ago and have not reported back. We found no sign of battle. Even my hounds couldn’t track them beyond their last known location.”

Cassian’s brows lowered. He knew he shouldn’t let anything show, but … Those hounds were the best in Prythian. Canines blessed with magic of their own. Gray and sleek like smoke, they could race fast as the wind, sniff out any prey. They were so highly prized that the Autumn Court forbade them from being given or sold beyond its borders, and so expensive that only its nobility owned them. And they were bred rarely enough that even one was extremely difficult to come by. Eris, Cassian knew, had twelve.

“None of them could winnow?” Cassian asked.

“No. While the unit is one of my most skilled in combat, none of its soldiers are remarkable in magic or breeding.”

Breeding was tossed at Cassian with a smirk. Asshole.

Vassa said, “Eris came to see if I could think of any reason why his soldiers might have gotten into trouble with humans. His hounds detected strange scents at the site of the abduction. Ones that seemed human, but were … odd, somehow.”

Cassian lifted a brow at Eris. “You believe a group of humans could kill your soldiers? They can’t be that skilled, then.”

“Depends on the human,” Jurian said, the male’s face dark. Vassa’s was a mirror.

Cassian grimaced. “Sorry. I— Sorry.”

Some courtier.

But Eris shrugged a shoulder. “I think plenty of parties are interested in triggering another war, and this would be the start of it. Though perhaps your court did it. I wouldn’t put it past Rhysand to winnow my soldiers away and plant some mysterious scents to throw us off.”

Cassian flashed him a savage grin. “We’re allies, remember?”

Eris gave him an identical smile. “Always.”

Cassian couldn’t stop himself. “Maybe you made your own soldiers vanish—if they even vanished at all—and are just making this up for the same bullshit reason you just spewed out.”

Eris chuckled, but Jurian cut in, “There have been tensions amongst the humans regarding your kind. But as far as we know, as far as we’ve heard from Lord Graysen’s forces, the humans here have kept to the old demarcation lines, and have no interest in starting trouble.”

Yet was left unsaid.

Would asking about the human queens on the continent reveal Rhys’s hand? The conversation had shifted toward it, so he could bring it up as idle talk, rather than as the reason he’d come here … Fuck, his head hurt. “What about your—your sisters?” He nodded to Vassa. “Would they have anything to do with this?”

Eris’s gaze shot to him, and Cassian reined in his curse. Perhaps he’d said too much. He wished Mor were here. Even if putting her and Eris in a room together … No, he’d save her that misery.

Vassa’s cerulean eyes darkened. “We were just getting to that, actually.” She gestured to Cassian. “You’ve heard the same rumors we have: they’re stirring again across the sea, and are poised to start trouble.”

“Are they stupid enough to do it is the real question,” Jurian said.

“They’re anything but stupid,” Lucien said, shaking his head. “But leaving a human scent at the site is so obvious a clue that it seems unlikely it was one of them.”

“Any move they make is heavily weighed,” Vassa said, glancing to the wall of windows overlooking the destroyed lands beyond. “Though I cannot think why any of them would capture your soldiers,” she said to Eris, who seemed to be monitoring each word out of their mouths. “There are other Fae on the continent itself, so why bother to cross the sea to take yours? And why not the Spring Court’s? Tamlin wouldn’t notice anyone missing at this point.”

Lucien cringed, and Cassian, while inclined to smirk at the thought of the asshole suffering, found himself frowning. If war was coming, they needed Tamlin and his forces in fighting shape. Needed Tamlin ready. Rhys had been visiting him regularly, making sure he’d be both on their side and capable of leading.

How Rhys had managed not to kill the High Lord of Spring was something Cassian still couldn’t understand.

But that was why Rhys was High Lord, and Cassian his blade.

He knew if he ever got the name of the human bastard who’d put his hands on Nesta, nothing would stop him from finding the man. A conversation he’d had with Nesta years ago, when she’d still been human, forever lurked in the back of his mind. How she’d stiffened at his touch, and he’d known—scented and seen the fear in her eyes and known—that a man had hurt her. Or tried to. She’d never told him the details, but she’d confirmed it enough by refusing to share the man’s name. He’d often contemplated how he’d kill the man, if Nesta gave him the go-ahead. Peeling his skin from his bones would be a good start.

His friends would understand the wound it pressed. How far the pain of that ancient wound would push him to go. A razed Illyrian camp was all that remained of the first and last time he’d let himself sink to that level of rage.

And Rhys had appointed him to play courtier. To put aside the blade and use his words. It was a joke.

Eris uncrossed his legs. “I suppose this could be to sow tensions amongst us. To make us eye each other with suspicion. Weaken our bonds.”

“Hybern would have done that,” Jurian agreed. “He might have taught them a thing or two.” Before Nesta had beheaded him.

But Vassa said, “The queens require no teaching. They were well versed in treachery before they ever contacted Hybern. And have dealt with greater monsters than him.”

Cassian could have sworn flames rippled across her blue eyes.

Both Jurian and Lucien stared at her, the former’s face utterly unreadable, and the latter’s pained. Cassian suppressed his jolt. He should have asked someone before coming here how much time remained before Vassa would be forced to return to the continent—to the sorcerer-lord at a remote lake who held her leash, and had allowed her to leave only temporarily, as part of a bargain Feyre’s father had struck.