It was nearlymidday by the time Ian crawled back down into the shady alley and slinked off toward the upper city. He’d tried his best to catch Flor and Lumi up on what he knew about Harlow’s work with the dragons and where Fox was, but it didn’t seem enough. It was never enough. Flor had suggested the shapeshifter fly off to the mountains, but they insisted their place was in the city, helping where they could. In the end, Ian couldn’t offer more than platitudes.
The moment he walked into his aunt’s house, he saw her sitting at the dining room table, as if she’d been waiting for him. His stomach dropped and his head throbbed. He hadn’t even bothered to come home after work last night or tell her where he was.
“Fuck,” he said, “I’m so sorry, Cecilia. I meant to tell you?—”
He cut off as he approached, noticing what was sitting on the table in front of her. It was a small stack of letters—the paper yellowed with time, the ink of his name barely visible on the top one.
“When you didn’t come home, I was worried,” she said. “You’ve been acting so strange lately—stranger than normal. I know it’s an invasion of privacy, and you can call me a terrible aunt later, but…” she trailed off, looking up at him for the first time since he’d come home. Her eyes were bloodshot. She’d been crying.
Ian wanted to scream. He wanted to run. After over a decade of spying and hiding—this was the thing that would be his downfall. His stupid heart that had refused to burn that small pile of letters from Leon. Instead, he tucked them under the floorboard beneath his bed. Like a fool.
But then Leon had died, and Ian couldn’t do it.
“How long?” she said.
He swallowed back the vomit that rose in his throat.
“How long have you been working with the resistance?” she said, voice low.
Ian closed his eyes, letting out a breath. There was almost a sense of relief at hearing the words spoken aloud. How long had he spent waiting for this day? The wait was over.
“Since before my eighteenth birthday.”
“And Leon?”
“Soon after me.”
She shook her head and her lips turned up in a sad smile. “I always knew you two...”
Ian ground his teeth. He didn’t want to think about Leon right now.
“You should burn these,” she said after another beat, sliding the letters across the table to him.
He didn’t move, staring down at the letters. “I…”
He blinked.
She looked up, resolve straightening her shoulders.
“I want to help.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FOX
The stench of death and rot choked the air, and Fox gagged. His eyes went wide as the creature came into focus. It was hulking—massive—over a foot and a half taller than even Fox, who’d never felt particularly dwarfed in his life, and that wasn’t counting the large antlers that protruded from its bone-white face. Its body was something resembling a man’s, its legs stretching down into those of a deer, with hooves where feet belonged. But it was its face that was most unsettling. Fox could have mistaken it for a creature wearing a skull, yet only pure blackness swirled behind the eye sockets, leaking out in wisps of smoke. Even as he watched, a few maggots crawled from its maw, dropping to the ground.
“King’s balls,” Nesto said, and Fox almost had a moment of surprise at the curse falling from his lips. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. The creature lunged, an unearthly growl expelling from its gaping mouth.
Fox drew his sword, bringing it across the beast’s chest with a deep cut. Black smoke curled from the wound before it knit itself closed. The creature grabbed him and threw him to the side like a sack of flour, his leather vest the only thing stopping its claws from tearing at his flesh.
Fox slammed to the ground, struggling to fill his lungs as heprocessed what he had just seen. Of course, his blade did nothing—it was king-damned steel. He didn’t have iron on him. The army had moved on to steel as the better metal—their progress leaving them at risk now against the faeries. Fox wanted to laugh at the irony.
Another scream from Belni rang out behind him before cutting off with a gurgle and a thud. Fox turned to see Gilian and Rom jumping forward, their blades slicing at the creature, drawing nothing but its ire.
Fox needed to think. Sofia’s book hadn’t given many details on the creature beyond something akin to “stay away and don’t test your luck,” but he remembered one note in the margins in pen, annotated by Harlow or another previous owner.
Hearts. It took hearts as a sacrifice to move through its territory unharmed.