together, nostrils flaring with the effort it took her to contain another outburst. But she did it, which meant she had a shred of respect for Rags.
All eyes on him, the last place a thief ever wanted to be. In the light, center of attention.
He was making a habit of this.
“Continue,” Inis said.
“There’s more than catacombs underneath the palace.” The words spilled from his mouth in a jumble. Rags hadn’t thought about what he wanted to say, because then he’d have to think about what they’d seen. “I noticed this pattern on the floor. Bones. Hands, forefingers all pointing the same way. We followed them to a hidden passage.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Inis told him.
“Oh, you’ll want to save that comment for what comes next,” Rags said.
He told the story as best he could, feeling uncomfortably aware of Shining Talon’s attention on him, his lack of contribution. When Rags got to the part about the fae being held captive by mirrorcraft, Inis sat down hard, and Somhairle’s knuckles grew white where he was holding on to a chair.
Rags felt another stab of guilt.
Maybe the voice behind the door back in the fae ruins had been right. He was caught up in something so much grander than his means, and yet no one seemed willing to acknowledge that and turn him loose.
When he’d finished talking, his throat felt dry.
“Forgive me.” That was Somhairle, his voice so thin it might snap at any moment. His gaze rested on Shining Talon. “I didn’t know. That my mother could— I truly believed you to be the last of your kind. To realize you aren’t . . .”
He trailed off, casting about for somewhere to sit, then chose the edge of the bed, looking like an old man. Three left Shining Talon to land on Somhairle’s shoulder and comb his hair with her beak. Preening him for comfort.
Rags shrugged. “Guess we all thought wrong.” Shining Talon was practically back to his sleep-for-a-thousand-years state, Somhairle’s pale skin looked ashen, and Inis was fussing with the hem of her sleeve, pulling so hard on the threads that she’d soon tear the fabric.
Rags couldn’t join them in their shock. His brain was working overtime. Seemed likely that the only reason Shining Talon hadn’t joined his kind in the chamber of miserable mirrors was because he was leading Morien toward this other, greater power. Otherwise he’d be down there with the rest, color being sucked out of him to feed some no-good sorcerer plot.
Because of course Morien had to know about this, had to be behind it. Maybe it was how he’d learned about the fae ruins, why he’d sent Rags and the other thieves before him after this mysterious treasure he couldn’t explain.
Another stroke of insight: The collection of fae beneath the castle had to be why Morien was so damn powerful. Why he could pop in and out of rooms without warning, practice sorcery that shouldn’t have been humanly possible.
He had a whole room full of paralyzed fae at his disposal, to replenish his power by draining theirs.
“He’s doing it. Morien,” Rags said. Wished he hadn’t, but there it was, plain as day. Let the others look at him like he was paranoid until they realized he was deadly right. “It’s why he can do the shit he does to us, and maybe why he doesn’t feel like he needs to bother putting the same insurance on you, Somhairle. Prince. Your Lordship. Oh, what-the-fuck-ever. He’s got so much he can draw on. He’s collecting these fae wherever he can find them—not like I know where, but he seems to have plenty of intel about fae ruins, so he’s searching them out one by one—to suck them dry. He takes what they’ve got, uses it for himself. And the mirrors are a part of that . . . uh . . . somehow.”
Another thought dawned on him. More like smacked him in the head with how bad it’d be if he were right.
“He’s using us, too,” Rags continued. “But not like we think. We’re going to help him find all the pieces of the Great Paragon, right? Or else he’ll tear us to shreds, murder the rest of Inis’s family while she watches, blah blah. But what if, once we get the piece that’s supposed to be Shiny’s, Morien’s figured out how to put a shard in a fae? What if he transfers our connections so he’s the one in charge of them? With enough fae power,