House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

She pressed even closer, arm wrapping around his waist. “I love you, too,” she whispered back. “Team Caves, all the way.”

He huffed a laugh. “Let’s get T-shirts.”

“Don’t tempt me. If Avallen wasn’t a backwater island with no interweb, I would have already ordered them to arrive at Morven’s castle.”

He grinned, that weight in his chest lifting for a precious moment. “There’s really no interweb?”

“Nope. The mists block all. Legend has it that even the Asteri can’t pierce them.” She made a silly little eerie woooooo noise and wriggled her fingers. Then she paused, as if considering, before adding, “Vesperus mentioned things called thin places—wreathed in mist. The Prison in the Fae world was one. And it seems too coincidental that the ancient Starborn Fae also established a stronghold in a place wreathed by mist that keeps out enemies.”

Hunt’s brows rose. “How can the mists possibly keep a wall up against the Asteri?”

“The better question is why would the Asteri leave Avallen alone for so long if it is capable of keeping them out.”

Hunt pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I suspect you’ll find out the answers in the most dramatic way possible.”

She snuggled closer to him, and he held her tighter. “You know me well, Athalar.”



* * *



Ithan didn’t dare point the Godslayer Rifle at the Astronomer. But he remained poised to do so as Jesiba said, “What is this about?”

The crowd—draki, vamps, daemonaki, and many others he couldn’t name—was silent as death. They had all come to witness this retribution. Ithan’s mouth dried out.

The Astronomer’s slate-gray eyes blazed with hatred. “The wolf stole something of mine.”

Jesiba shrugged. “The matter of the sprites and the dragon has been settled between us.”

“Do not toy with me, Jesiba,” the Astronomer snapped. “We both know he took more than those firelings.”

Ithan stepped up. His hands grew sweaty against the sleek wood and metal of the rifle. “A tank is no place for a wolf.” Or anyone, he thought. “And besides, she wasn’t yours to begin with. She had no slave mark.”

“Her father sold her to me. It was an unofficial passing of ownership.”

“She was a child, and you had no right—”

Ithan had killed her. He had no right to speak of her like he wasn’t as bad as this man before him—

“You are a thief, wolf, and I demand payment! I demand her returned to me!”

Words were suddenly impossible. Ithan couldn’t speak.

But a lovely, lilting female voice said from behind the crowd, “The Fendyr heir shall never again be yours, Astronomer.”

The crowd hissed, and parted to reveal Queen Hypaxia Enador walking into the chamber, robes floating behind her on a phantom wind.

From the corner of his eye, Ithan caught Jesiba’s smirk. “Hypaxia,” the sorceress said. “Just the necromancer I was looking for.”





45


That Jesiba was able to clear the crowd without so much as a word was testament to her grip on this place, this House.

Ithan found himself torn between looking at Hypaxia and the Astronomer—and avoiding both of their gazes.

The Astronomer waited until the crowd had left before saying to the witch-queen, “If you know where the wolf is and withhold that information, then the law says you are—”

“No law applies here,” Hypaxia cut in, “as the Fendyr heir was not a legal slave. Just as you said.” Gods, Ithan wished he had one fraction of her steadiness, that serene intelligence. Hypaxia went on, “So there was nothing for Ithan Holstrom to steal. He merely allowed a free civitas to make a choice about whether to remain in that wretched tank … or to leave.”

And then he’d killed her.

Jesiba was giving him a warning look, as if to say, Do not fucking breathe a word about that. Ithan returned her a look, as if to say, Do you think I’m that dumb?

She glanced pointedly at his CCU SUNBALL T-shirt.

He rolled his eyes and turned to the witch-queen facing off against the Astronomer.

“That wolf cost me untold sums of gold. The loss of one mystic—”

“I’ll pay it,” Ithan said hoarsely. His parents had made some wise investments before their deaths. He had more money than he knew what to do with.

“I require ten million gold marks.”

Ithan burst out coughing. He was well off, but—

“Paid,” Jesiba said coolly.

Ithan whirled to her, but the sorceress was smiling blandly at the Astronomer. “Add it to my monthly tab.”

The Astronomer glared at her, then at Ithan, and finally at Hypaxia, who looked at him with icy disdain. But he only spat on the ground and stalked out, long stringy hair flowing behind him.

In the silence, Jesiba faced Hypaxia and said, “I called you days ago and told you to come immediately. Is your broom not working?”

Ithan whirled on Jesiba. “This is the necromancer you had in mind?”

Honestly, he didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it himself. He’d just worked with her, for fuck’s sake, when they’d tried to conjure Connor at the Autumn Equinox. Maybe because it hadn’t worked and the Under-King had arrived instead, he’d written her off, but—