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

It made it hard to be annoyed with her when he thought about it like that.

“How do you get used to it?” Sigrid asked over the hiss of cooking meat and bartering shoppers. Behind her, the sprites were still hovering by the array of opals, exclaiming over the stones. How the three sprites had adapted so quickly to this strange, open world was beyond him. They’d been trapped by the Astronomer, too, locked in his rings.

Ithan asked, “Used to what?”

Sigrid peered at her hands, her thin body beneath the sweats. Passing shoppers noted her—him—and gave them a wide berth. “Feeling like you’re stranded in a rotting corpse.”

He blinked. “I, ah …” He couldn’t imagine himself in her shoes, suddenly a body of flesh and blood and bone after the weightless years in the isolation tank. “You just need time.”

Her eyes lowered. It didn’t seem to be the answer she was looking for.

“Sigrid,” he said again. “You’re … you’re doing great.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked.

“That’s the name Sasa chose for you,” Ithan said, offering a friendly smile.

“Why do I need a name? I’ve lived this long without one.”

“An Alpha should have one. A person should have one. The Astronomer let you take the Drop—you’ll be alive for centuries.”

When pressed, she’d revealed that she’d somehow made the Drop in the isolation tank. She couldn’t tell him when or how, but he’d been relieved to hear she had that protection.

“I don’t want to talk about the Drop.” Her voice was flat, dead.

“Neither do I.” He would have liked some answers about what she’d experienced, but not now. Not when they’d reached the three waiting males. The sprites, finally emerging from the depths of the opal stall, raced over, three plumes of flame streaming across the bone-dry warehouse.

“So, do we go knock?” Flynn asked, pointing to the metal, vault-like door at the top of the stairs. The entrance to the Viper Queen’s private lair.

Marc caught Ithan’s eye. Had he explained to Sigrid that Marc would escort her home?

Ithan cringed. No, he hadn’t.

Marc glared. Coward, the leopard’s look seemed to say. But he tensed, going still. “Stay quiet.”

The others obeyed, the two Fae males reaching for the guns at their sides. The Meat Market bustled on unawares, selling and trading and feeding, and yet …

Marc’s tawny eyes scanned the warehouse, the skylights. He sniffed.

Ithan did the same. As shifters, their senses were sharper than those of the Fae.

From the doorway behind them, the blend of smells from the open night leaked in, the reek of the sewers beyond …

And the scent of converging wolves.





3


“I don’t know what language the tattoo is in,” Bryce insisted. “My friend got it inked on me when I was blackout—”

“Do not lie,” Rhysand warned with soft menace. He’d kill her. Whatever the language was, it was apparently so bad that it might as well say Stick knife here.

Amren stalked around Bryce, peering at the tattoo no doubt still glowing from beneath the material of her white shirt. “I can feel something in the letters …” Bryce tensed. “Get Nesta.”

Azriel murmured, “Cassian won’t be happy.”

“Cassian will deal. Nesta will be able to sense this better than I can.” Bryce turned, placing Amren and Azriel back in her line of sight right as the former insisted, “Get her, Rhysand.”

Bryce’s knees bent into a defensive crouch. How much would this hurt? Would she stand any chance of—

Rhysand vanished again.

Before Bryce had finished rising to her feet, he returned, a familiar female with golden-brown hair in tow. As she had earlier in the foyer, the female wore dark leathers akin to those on Azriel and Rhysand, and stood with an unruffled, cool sort of calm. A warrior.

Her blue-gray eyes slid over Bryce.

Bryce slowly, almost numbly sank back into her chair. Whatever was in those eyes—

The female said quietly to the others, voice flat, almost bored, “I told you earlier: There’s something Made on her. Beyond that sword she carried.”

“Made?” Bryce, caution be damned, asked the newcomer—Nesta, she could only assume—at the same time Amren pointed to Bryce’s back and asked, “Is it that tattoo?”

Nesta just said, “Yes.”

All of them stared at Bryce once more, expressions unreadable. Which one would strike first? Four against one—she wasn’t getting out of here alive.

Amren said quietly to Rhysand, “What do you want to do with her, Rhys?”

Bryce clenched her jaw. Even if she stood zero chance of winning, like Hel would she take her death lying down. She’d fight in whatever way she could—

Nesta jerked her chin at Bryce, haughty and aloof. “You can fight us, but you’ll lose.”

Fuck that. Bryce held the female’s stare, finding a will of pure steel gleaming in it. “You try to touch that tattoo and you’ll find out why the Asteri want me dead so badly.”

She regretted the retort instantly. Azriel’s hand drifted toward the dagger at his side. But Nesta stepped closer, unimpressed and unintimidated.