Page 42 of The Last Heir of Elsewhere

She was halfway across the enormous ship already, but skidded to a halt, slipping slightly on the wet deck. “Yes sir?”

“Have someone bring a vial of Gancanagh to my room. “

Lin raised a shocked eyebrow, and glanced at Lonnie as if she couldn’t stop herself. “An entire vial, sir?”

I rolled my eyes at her concern. I wouldn’t be using the drug for what she obviously thought, but I didn’t want to bother explaining myself. The less people knew why we’d been shipping Gancanagh’s dust all over Elsewhere, the better.

My cabinon the ship was a cozy yet cramped space, resembling a hybrid between a bedroom and an office. The walls were lined with maps and charts, their corners curling from years of use. A neatly made bed took up one end of the room, while a sturdy desk sat at the other, cluttered with papers and navigational tools.

“I could get the dust for you,” Riven said, the moment the door snapped behind us. “I’m not sure we should be letting the entire crew know what we’re using it for. Not everyone here is one of ours, some are just merchant sailors.”

The corner of my lip tipped up as I strode across the small room to lay Lonnie down on my bed, before turning back to Riven. “I thought much the same thing, but they won’t guess why I need it. They’ll think it’s for her.”

Riven pressed his lips together in a disapproving line. “I don’t know why you feel the need to let everyone think you’re a monster.”

I smiled ruefully. “I am a monster. Just not the type the world thinks I am.”

18

BAEL

THE INN, VILLAGE OF FORLORN

Ibarely noticed or cared as the sound of breaking glass rattled through the room.

Scion tore through the tavern of the dilapidated old inn, smashing tables and chairs, flipping over shelves and breaking windows. Destruction chased him, leaving a mess of splintered wood and shattered glass in his wake. I’d seen Scion break dozens of things over the years, and today was no different.

Well, it was no different except for the fact that I almost felt like joining him.

“Stop,” I heard myself say. “This isn’t helping anything.”

My cousin fixed me with furious silver eyes. “Maybe I’m not trying to fix anything.”

That much was obvious, and it was hard to demand he stop when I had little idea what to do myself.

Only yesterday, I’d been the closest to happy I could ever remember being. Lonnie had stopped fighting me at every turn, and even Scion seemed to be calming down, his legendary rage quelled by her presence. We were alive, and all together, and then…nothing.

I’d awoken this morning to Scion’s angry yell, and rolled over to find the space beside me in bed entirely empty. Lonnie’s honey and magic scent was long gone, and for once in my life I had no fucking idea what to do.

Part of me wanted to be angry, to lash out at her for causing such chaos, but I could have turned this entire building to dust, and it wouldn’t have fixed anything. It wouldn’t explain what happened. It wouldn’t tell me how she could leave without a single word.

Another splintering crash rattled the very floor we stood on, and I looked up. The dining room of the inn was in splinters, and Scion stood in the very center of all the wreckage. His shoulders shook as he breathed hard, spinning around and scanning the floor, no doubt looking for something else to destroy.

I ran a hand through my hair, annoyed. “Perhaps you could put all that energy into searching.”

He ignored me, and instead took a jerking aggressive step forward, shadows rising around him to tear the very rafters from over our heads. Instinctively, I leaned back, wincing as a heavy wooden beam smashed on the floor some two feet from where I was sitting.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of my cousin—far from it. He’d been the only real friend I’d had growing up, and I knew it was only because of him that I wasn’t shipped back to my father at birth.

A bastard, half-Unseelie prince would never have been allowed in the high court of Elsewhere, except that Ambrose had just left a mere few years before, and there was concern that Scion, the new heir, wouldn’t have any peers to socialize with. Like an overgrown house cat, I’d been practically gifted to my cousin as a companion—it was a role I never resented, but it did set the parameters for our relationship practically in stone. I never commented on his tantrums in a way that he could take seriously, and I never challenged him—that was, until recently.

“I’m telling you, she left on her own,” I said for perhaps the third time this hour. “Destroying everything will not help.”

“Don’t say that as if it’s a fact,” he barked back, smashing another chair against the already condemned bar.

“Isn’t it?” I laughed bitterly. “Have you met Lonnie? Whatever the simplest thing to do is, she will inevitably do the opposite.”

Scion glared at me. “She could just as easily have been taken.”

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