“He’s my gods-damned son. I think I do.”

Aelin shrugged. “You don’t even get to decide if you’re allowed to call him that.”

Those tawny eyes flashed; the tattooed hands curled into fists. But Rowan said, “Gavriel, she does not intend to keep you from him.”

“Tell me where my son is. Now.”

Ah—there it was. The face of the Lion. The warrior who had felled armies, whose reputation made wintered soldiers shudder. Whose fallen warriors were tattooed all over him.

But Aelin picked at her nails, then frowned at the now-empty hall behind her. “Hell if I know where he’s gone off to.”

They blinked, then started as they beheld where Lysandra had once been. To where she had now vanished, flying or slithering or crawling out of the open window. To get Aedion away.

Aelin just said to Gavriel, her voice flat and cold, “Don’t ever give me orders.”

Aedion and Lysandra were already waiting at the Ocean Rose, and as they entered the pretty courtyard, Aelin barely dragged up the energy to remark to Rowan that she was shocked he hadn’t opted for warrior-squalor.

Dorian, a few steps behind, laughed quietly—which was good, she supposed. Good that he was laughing. He had not been the last time she saw him.

And it had been weeks since she’d laughed herself, felt that weight lift long enough to do so.

She gave Rowan a look that told him to meet her upstairs, and halted halfway across the courtyard. Dorian, sensing her intent, paused as well.

The evening air was heavy with sweet fruit and climbing flowers, the fountain in the center gurgling softly. She wondered if the owner of the inn hailed from the Red Desert—if they’d seen the use of water and stone and greenery at the Keep of the Silent Assassins.

But Aelin murmured to Dorian, “I’m sorry. About Rifthold.”

The king’s summer-tanned face tightened. “Thank you—for the help.”

Aelin shrugged. “Rowan’s always looking for an excuse to show off. Dramatic rescues give him purpose and fulfillment in his dull, immortal life.”

There was a pointed cough from the open balcony doors above them, sharp enough to inform her that Rowan had heard and wouldn’t forget that little quip when they were alone.

She held in her smile. It had been a surprise and a delight, she supposed, that an easy, respectful calm flowed between Rowan and Dorian on their walk over here.

She motioned for the king to continue with her and said quietly, well aware of how many spies Rolfe employed within the building, “It seems you and I are currently without crowns, thanks to a few bullshit pieces of paper.”

Dorian didn’t return her smile. The stairs groaned beneath them as they headed for the second floor. They were almost to the room Dorian had indicated when he said, “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

She opened and closed her mouth—and opted, for once, to keep quiet, shaking her head a bit as she entered the chamber.

Their meeting was hushed, thorough. Rowan and Dorian laid out in precise detail what had happened to them, Aedion pushing for counts of the witches, their armor, how they flew, what formations they used. Anything to feed to the Bane, to amplify their northern defenses, regardless of who commanded them. The general of the North—who would take all those pieces and build their resistance. But the sheer ease with which the Ironteeth legion had taken the city…

“Manon Blackbeak,” Aedion mused, “would be a valuable ally, if we can get her to turn.”

Aelin glanced at Rowan’s shoulder—where a faint scar now marred the golden skin beneath his clothes.

“Perhaps getting Manon to turn on her kin would ignite an internal battle among the witches,” she said. “Maybe they’ll save us the task of killing them and just destroy each other.”

Dorian straightened in his chair, but only cold calculation swirled in his eyes as he countered, “But what is it that they want? Beyond our heads, I mean. Why ally with Erawan at all?”

And all of them then looked to the thin necklace of scars marring the base of Aelin’s throat—where the scent permanently marked her as a Witch Killer. Baba Yellowlegs had visited the castle this winter for that alliance, but had there been anything else?

“We can contemplate the whys and hows of it later,” Aelin declared. “If we encounter any of the witches, we take them alive. I want some questions answered.”

Then she explained what they’d witnessed in Ilium. The order Brannon had given her: Find the Lock. Well, he and his little quest could get in line.

It was never-ending, she supposed while they dined that night on peppered crab and spiced rice. This burden, these threats.

Erawan had been planning this for decades. Maybe for centuries, while he’d slept, he’d planned all this out. And she was to be given nothing more than obscure commands by long-dead royals to find a way to stop it, nothing more than gods-damned months to rally a force against him.

She doubted it was a coincidence that Maeve was sailing for Eyllwe at the same moment Brannon had commanded she go to the Stone Marshes on its southwestern peninsula. Or that the gods-damned Morath fleet was squatting in the Gulf of Oro—right on its other side.

There was not enough time, not enough time to do what she needed to, to fix things.

But … small steps.

She had Rolfe to deal with. The little matter of securing his people’s alliance. And the map she still needed to persuade him to use to assist her in tracking down that Lock.

But first … best to ensure that infernal map actually worked.

29

Too many animals loitering about the streets at this hour would attract the wrong sort of attention.

But Aedion still wished that the shifter was wearing fur or feathers compared to … this.

Not that she was sore on the eyes as an auburn-haired and green-eyed young woman. She could have passed for one of the lovely mountain maidens of northern Terrasen with that coloring. It was who Lysandra was supposed to be as they waited just inside an alley. Who he was supposed to be, too.

Lysandra leaned against the brick wall, a foot propped against it to reveal a length of creamy-white thigh. And Aedion, with his hand braced against the wall beside her head, was no more than an hourly customer.

No sound in the alley but scuttling rats digging through rotten, discarded fruit. Skull’s Bay was precisely the shithole he expected it to be, right down to its Pirate Lord.

Who now unwittingly held the only map to the Lock that Aelin had been commanded to find. When Aedion had complained that of course it was a map they could not steal, Rowan had been the one to suggest this … plan. Trap. Whatever it was.

He glanced at the delicate gold chain dangling around Lysandra’s pale throat, tracing its length down the front of her bodice, to where the Amulet of Orynth was now hidden beneath.

“Admiring the view?”

Aedion snapped his eyes up from the generous swells of her breasts. “Sorry.”

But the shifter somehow saw the thoughts churning in his head. “You think this won’t work?”

“I think there are plenty of valuable things on this island—why would Rolfe bother to go after this?” Storms, enemies, and treasure—that was what the map showed. And since he and Lysandra were not the first two … only one, it seemed, would be able to appear on that map inked on Rolfe’s hands.