House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2) by Sarah J. Maas

Hunt ran a shaking hand over his sweaty face, then settled back onto the pillows, brushing a knuckle down Bryce’s soft cheek. She murmured, shifting closer, and Hunt obliged, sliding his arm over her waist and folding a wing around her. As if he could shield her from all that hunted them.

On both sides of the Northern Rift.





22

Ruhn finished off his beer, setting it on the coffee table before the massive TV in the living room. Declan, seated to his left, did the same. “All right,” Dec said, “espionage time.”

Flynn, smoking some mirthroot that Ruhn desperately needed a hit of, chuckled. “Our sweet son Ruhn is all grown up and spying for rebels.”

“Shut up,” Ruhn growled. “I knew I should have done this in private.”

“Where would the fun be in that?” Dec asked. “Plus, shouldn’t someone be here in case it’s, I don’t know, a trap or something?”

“Then why the fuck is he smoking?” Ruhn nodded to where Flynn blew smoke rings.

“Because I’m a self-destructive yet insanely charming idiot?” Flynn grinned.

“Emphasis on insane,” Dec muttered.

But Ruhn wanted them with him tonight, when most of the city was asleep, as he attempted contact with Agent Daybright. He had the comm-crystal, though he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it—how to even begin connecting his abilities with its communication affinity. All hypotheticals, no guarantee of success. He couldn’t decide whether or not it’d be a relief to fail. To be able to walk away from this.

“So, are we supposed to meditate with you or something?” Flynn set down the mirthroot.

“How the Hel would that help?” Ruhn asked.

“Solidarity?” Flynn suggested.

Ruhn snorted. “I’m good. Just … put a wooden spoon between my teeth if I go into some kind of fit.”

Declan raised one. “Already thought of that.”

Ruhn put his hand on his heart. “Thanks. I’m touched.”

Flynn clapped Ruhn on the back. “We’ve got you. Do your thing.”

There wasn’t anything else to say, anything else Ruhn needed to hear, so he closed his eyes, leaning back against the cushions of the couch. He clenched the crystal in his fist, the stone eerily warm.

A mental bridge—that was how he always pictured the link he made between his mind and someone else’s. So that was the image he summoned, funneling it through the crystal in his hand, as surely as Bryce had funneled her own powers through the crystal of the Gate this spring. Cormac had said the crystal had similar properties, so … why not?

Ruhn extended the bridge from himself, through the crystal, and then out into the vast unknown, sprawling into a darkness with no end. He clenched the crystal tighter, willing it to lead him where he needed to go, as if it were a prism filtering his powers out into the world.

Hello? His voice echoed down the bridge. Into nothing.

He visualized the crystal’s milky core. Imagined a thread running from it, down along this mental bridge, out toward another end.

Hello? This is Agent …

Well, fuck. He should have come up with a code name. He sure as Hel couldn’t risk his own name or identity, but he wanted something cool, damn it.

This is your new contact.

No answer from Daybright came. Ruhn kept extending the bridge, letting it span into nothingness. Pictured the crystal and its thread, letting himself follow its trail into the night.

I’m here to—

Yes?

Ruhn went still at the faint female voice. Light glowed down the bridge, and then there she was.

A female of pure flame. Or that was how she chose to appear. Not how Lehabah had been made of flame, with her body visible, but rather a female cloaked in it, only a flash of a bare wrist or an ankle or a shoulder through the veil. She was humanoid, but that was all he could glean. She looked like one of the radical sun-priests who’d gone rogue and immolated themselves to be close to their god.

Who are you? he asked.

Who are you? she challenged. Not one hint of her face.

I asked first.

Her flame flared, as if in annoyance. But she said, The little black dog sleeps soundly on a wool blanket.

Ruhn blew out a breath. There it was—the code phrase Cormac had given him to confirm her identity. He said, And the gray tabby cleans her paws by the light of the moon.

Utter nonsense.

But she said, I’m Agent Daybright, in case that wasn’t clear enough. Now … you are?

Ruhn peered down at himself, swearing. He hadn’t thought to hide his body—

But he found only a form of night and stars, galaxies and planets. As if his silhouette had been filled by them. He lifted a hand, finding not skin but the starry blanket of the sky covering his fingers. Had his mind instinctively shielded him? Or was this what he was, deep below the skin? Was this fire-being standing thirty feet down the mental bridge what she was, deep below her own skin? Or fur, he supposed.

She could be a faun or a satyr. Or a witch or a shifter. Or an Asteri, as Cormac had suggested. Maybe the fire was that of the holy star in her.

She merely stood there, burning. Well?

Her voice was beautiful. Like a golden song. It stirred his Fae soul, made it perk up. I, ah … I hadn’t gotten that far yet.

She angled her head with what seemed like predatory intent. They sent a novice?