Page 79 of Fae Reckoning

He didn’t. “Aye.”

“Can you unbind them?”

“Aye, but I’ll need to be down there with them, and Talisa has an illusion in place to prevent anyone but her and the pygmy ogres accessing the lower dungeon.”

“We found it,” Rush said. “I presume it allowsBraque through as well, since he’s the one who created it.”

“Mm, him too.”

I couldn’t decide if Ivar’s omission of the royal alchemist had been intentional or not. He’d sworn a blood oath, but was that enough to trust him?

“Speaking of the wall that’s bespelled to appear solid,” Rush said. “Millicent is dead.”

Stunned by the unexpected news, I blinked repeatedly. “She is? How?” It wasn’t as if I liked her—there wasn’t much to like. But she was a survivor willing to do whatever it took to curry Talisa’s favor.

“The wall sliced her head off,” Rush said bluntly.

My gaze zeroed in on Reed’s. When Talisa exiled Millicent from court, he’d shared the stables with her. I didn’t guess Reed had liked the haughty, condescending, prickly female much either, but it was still shocking to think she’d been alive and well when we last saw her, and now … she wasn’t.

“My brothers,” Rush told Hiroshi, Ryder, West, and Roan. “We also lost Gadiel.”

Sorrow swept across the warriors like a stiff, arctic wind, leaving their faces drawn.

“How?” West asked.

Rush patted his sheathed dagger where it hung along his thigh in a silent response all the males appeared to immediately comprehend. Their smiles were sad, regretful.

Ryder sang out, “May the memory of Gadiel, visdrake of Magiarantos and, much more importantly, agood, honorable male, who loosed an arrow at the false queen and would have hit his target if not forsomeoneintervening.” He, West, and Roan glared at Ivar fiercely enough that they conjured the imagery of said true-flying arrow. “May Gadiel’s memory live forever! May his essence voyage to the Etherlands to find peace with his ancestors!”

“May his memory live forever,” many chorused, and I found myself saying the words along with them. “May his essence voyage to the Etherlands.”

Another shared look with Reed told me he was also noting how no one offered Millicent the same honor. Aware through Rush that she’d spied on me for Talisa and intentionally directed danger my way, I wasn’t in the mood to afford her an extolment she hadn’t earned.

“We’ll also need to amass weapons,” Rush said. “Ivar, how many does your expanding trunk hold?”

Ivar was back to sitting beside his sister, whose face had a healthier color than before. “Enough for each of us to have just one. Maybe.”

“We’ll need a lot more than that.”

“The goblins can help with that,” Pru said.

I smiled at my friend. “Your magically kickass sewing kit?”

“Something like that.” Then she winked.

Pru—timid, meek, frightened-for-her-life-of-the-false queen, it-will-be-off-with-our-heads Pru—freakingwinked.

I beamed at her—and whatever goblin magic secrets she insisted on holding on to. Pru’s unfoldingmysteries were a wonder to behold. “Yeah, Pru,” I said with a laugh. “That’s the way.”

All goblin eyes, especially those of her granddoody, who bustled among the recovering fae, pinned on her. She blushed a deep green, the color of the blood that ran beneath her normally ashen skin.

Rush chortled, then released my waist to face me. “I recommend we travel some tonight, make a little progress before we stop to rest, in case the false queen thinks to look for us here.”

“Oh, y-y-eess,” Azariah said with a hitch that resembled a whinny. “Away from where she’ll look.”

Rush looked at me intently. “Do you agree?”

“Why are you asking me?”

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