The old courts feared public rebellion. They should have feared the night their daughters learned to move together.
From The Starveil War Cantos, fragment IX
Mira
he Shadeworks get under my tongue before we even reach Reginald.
Rust, wet stone, and cheap incense burned too long. Candle smoke clings to the roof of my mouth like something with fingers. Grimwall Hollow is already unpleasant aboveground, but underneath it, the city stops pretending to have manners. Blue lamps hang low over crooked stalls and water runs through cracks in the floor. People watch without looking like they are watching, which is just rude. If you are going to be creepy, you should really commit to the performance.
Cassie’s hand is in mine. That helps.
It also makes focusing harder, which is inconsiderate, because we are in a criminal market under Grimwall and my wife should not be allowed to make my heart do stupid, hopeful things while there is a man three stalls down selling teeth by size.
Her thumb moves over my knuckle once. I stop tapping. Rude.
My glamour presses faintly at my ears, smoothing points into human roundness, turning my hair autumn-ginger and my eyes green. It makes my face pretty in that safe, human way instead of the kind of fae beauty that gets people staring. Rori and Kael wear theirs, too. Rori looks like a rich girl who came here on purpose and wants everyone to regret noticing her. Kael looks like someone ordered a soldier to pretend to be a college girl and the soldier decided victory was possible through sheer posture.
Cassie walks beside me in a black top and pale denim. Her blonde hair is loose and her blue eyes are sharp. Her jacket sits perfectly over the gun at her side, and I know there is another one hidden somewhere less obvious. Knives, too.
My wife moved back into our bedroom three days ago and brought enough weapons to start a border conflict. I love her so much it is embarrassing.
“You’re smiling,” Cassie says.
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“This is my crime-market face.”
“It is not.”
Rori looks back. “It is absolutely not. That is the
Cassie has guns
face.”
“I hate that all of you perceive me.”
Kael says, “You are not subtle.”
“Betrayal from all sides.”
Cassie squeezes my hand, and my chest warms. Just a little. Just enough to be dangerous.
Rori’s perfume shifts when she reaches into her jacket, floral and anxious. “Speaking of betrayal, Zyrella’s note told me not to embarrass myself.”
I groan. “She put that in writing?”
“With flame-thorn flourishes.”
“Of course she did.”
The summons in my own jacket presses against my ribs. Mother’s private seal on cream vellum with summer fire trapped in wax. I told Cassie about it this morning over coffee. I did not hide it. I did not wait until the silence grew teeth. This apparently counts as emotional maturity.
It was terrible. I recommend crime instead.
Cassie had read the summons twice, set it between us, and reached for my hand.
Together
, she had said. Like that was a thing we could just choose and keep choosing.
Kael’s voice cuts softly through the market noise. “My father summoned me.”
Rori’s smile fades. “Because of Zyrella?”
Kael nods once. “She made sure he did.”
There it is. My stomach tightens. Mother’s private seal for me, Cassie required by title, Rori baited by Zyrella, and Kael pulled through her father because Zyrella knew exactly where to press. The Closing of Summer ball before Mother’s address. More dancing, more threats with music and polished floors.
“Mother is arranging the room,” I say.
Cassie’s fingers fit more firmly between mine. “And Zyrella is helping decide who stands in it.”
“Great. Love teamwork.”
Rori exhales. “Reginald first?”
“Yes,” I say. “One disaster at a time.”
Reginald is where Reginald always is when he wants to be found: somewhere pretending not to be an office. Tonight, it is the back end of the Blue Saint stall, half-hidden behind hanging strings of blue glass beads and shelves crowded with wax icons. He sits at a narrow counter with ledgers stacked around him, spectacles low on his nose and tea going cold beside his ink-stained hand.
He looks up before I reach him. His eyes pass over my glamour as if it is bad etiquette.
“Princess Firebrand,” he says. “Grief has made you quieter.”
My fire goes very still. Cassie’s hand stays in mine.
I smile. “Reginald. Time has made you uglier.”
“Survival has costs.”
“So does irritating me.”
His gaze flicks to Cassie. Not for long; he is too smart for that. “Princess Cassandra.”
“Vale,” she says. One word, no warmth. His hand pauses beside the teacup.
I love her. I really, violently do.
Rori drifts to my right, pretending to inspect a wax saint with three eyes. Kael settles somewhere behind my shoulder, close enough that I can feel the room become less confident. Reginald notices. Good.
“I assume this is not about Elliot Fairborn,” he says.
The name touches a soft place. Cassie’s thumb moves over my hand.
“No,” I say. “The last time I came to you, I needed Elliot alive.”
“And he is.”
“That does not make you noble.”
“I never claimed nobility. I claimed usefulness.”
“I am testing the limits of that claim.”
His mouth twitches. I do not have patience for him tonight.
“Vaelis Aunrae.”
That removes the twitch. The market noise keeps going around us, but my attention narrows to Reginald’s fingers, his breath, and the faint sour fear beneath tea and ink.
“You do choose expensive names,” he says.
“Where is he?”
“Not a greeting. Not a warm-up threat.”
“Do you need one?”
“No.” His eyes move once past my shoulder, toward the open market behind us. “Not loudly.”
I do not turn. There are people behind us. I can feel that much. Attention has a texture, and this attention is too still, too hungry. Reginald is in front of me, though, and Vaelis is closer than he has been since the rave.
“Kess,” I say.
The word hurts. It always hurts.
Reginald’s face shifts, a movement almost too small to see. “Vaelis’s route brushed her final mission.”
My fire goes blue. Tiny, precise. Cassie steps closer, her shoulder against mine. Not blocking me, but with me. That is the difference. That is why I breathe instead of burn.
“Where?” Kael asks.
Reginald glances at her and answers without being clever. “Ashforge. Old smelter level. A sealed workshop under a dead foundry. He uses it for meetings he does not want attached to a house name.”
“Tonight?” Cassie asks.
“Yes.”
My pulse changes. Tonight. Not a rumor, not another voice saying he was just here. Reginald reaches under the counter.
Cassie’s jacket shifts. He freezes. Beautiful.
“Slowly,” she says.
Reginald very slowly places a brass token on the counter. A cracked sunburst is stamped into it, old Summer work bent wrong around the edges. My stomach turns cold before I even touch it.
“What opens?” Rori asks.
“The first threshold,” Reginald says. “Drainage cut entrance. Do not use the lift.”
“Watched?” Kael asks.
“Yes.”
“By Vaelis?”
“By someone better funded.”
“Comforting,” Rori mutters.
I reach for the token. Cassie catches my wrist before my fingers close around it. Not stopping me, just asking. I look at her. Her eyes are steady and sharp and mine.
“This is bait,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And we are taking it.”
“Yes.”
Reginald clears his throat. “I dislike how easily that was accepted.”
“Everyone does,” Rori says.
Kael steps closer. “Price.”
Reginald’s gaze returns to me. “Two hundred gold sovereigns.”
I blink. “That’s it?”
His brows lift. “You are offended?”
“I expected something more annoying.”
“I am capable of being more annoying for a higher fee.”
“Don’t tempt her,” Cassie says. Reginald looks at her, then apparently decides not to. Smart.
I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket and pull out a slim moneyfold. Cassie’s mouth twitches, because of course she knows I brought enough coin to ransom someone or ruin an entire evening. Preparation is not only attractive when she does it. I count out the notes and slide them across the counter.
Reginald does not touch them immediately. “You trust the route for coin?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I’m paying you so if it’s bad, you have no excuse.”
Rori smiles. “That was almost businesslike.”
“I am very professional.”
Cassie makes a small sound, almost a laugh. That sound does more to steady me than any lecture ever could. Reginald finally takes the payment and slides a folded map beside the token. Kael takes the map before I can, because apparently everyone has agreed my hands are not trustworthy around paper and fire.
Rude. Accurate.
I pick up the token. It bites cold into my palm. Summer metal should not be cold.
“If this delivers me to Vaelis,” I say, “I come back for you.”
Reginald lowers his head. “I believe you.”
“Good.”
Behind us, one of the watchers shifts. A boot against wet stone, a breath caught too quickly. Rori’s eyes flick that way. Kael already knows. Cassie notices because she notices everything. I do not turn. If they matter, they will still matter after Vaelis.
We leave Reginald with his cold tea and his little blue saints. The market swallows us again in a haze of rust, wax, and smoke. Cassie’s hand finds mine before I can start tapping the token against my palm.
“One thing at a time,” she says.
“That sounds healthy.”
“I know. I’m trying something horrifying.”
I lean into her shoulder for half a step. Only half. She tilts her head, and her lips brush my hair. My whole body goes quiet.
Rori makes a gagging sound. “I take back missing this.”
“No, you don’t,” I say.
“No, I don’t.”
Kael studies the map while we walk. “Drainage cut is narrow. Mira and Cassie center until the lock.”
“I hate center.”
“You hate most sound tactics.”
“I like tactics that put me where the fire happens.”
Cassie lifts one brow. I close my mouth.
Rori laughs. “Oh, this is healing me.”
“I can still set things on fire,” I say.
Cassie’s mouth curves. “After we know what they are hiding.”
The token stays cold in my hand. The summons stays hot against my ribs. Vaelis is under Ashforge tonight, and somewhere behind us, strangers are still watching. But Cassie’s hand is in mine. Rori is smiling again, and Kael is already planning how to keep us alive.
For one breath, the four of us move like we remember how. Then we head for Ashforge.