doing the same. In his mind’s eye he pictured Inis’s dishware exploding through a wall, the Queensguard swords flashing through the air, and he hoped—
“Maybe we’d better stand back,” he murmured nervously. Held his breath.
The light faded. The egg-sized fragment had taken no animal shape but was now opened and flat instead of closed and round. Rags touched its surface with shaking fingers. Etchings in the metal. Like a drawing, or a diagram, carved with only straight lines. Rags nonetheless saw what looked like trees, and little ships, and a concentric, geometric symbol in the upper-right-hand corner. Like one of those impossible fae knots.
Not a diagram. A map. Rags craned his head for Tal’s input, only to remember Tal wasn’t there. He was helping the group. Rags was the one dawdling behind.
It figured. He’d finally solved step one of the puzzle, but he’d lost the guy he wanted to solve it for. The guy who could explain what to do with it next.
“Would you hang on to it for now?” Rags thrust the silver map back at the fae kiddies. It was light and supple, despite being made of solid metal.
Happy and Smartass shared another glance, then nodded.
“Don’t think I missed that look,” Rags grumbled, but he didn’t object when the fae children clung to him again, taking up their positions on either side of him like watchful sentinel hounds.
Rags’s hands might be clever, but when it came to this kind of heavy lifting, the job was easier in a group.
89
Inis
Inis was still alive, which was more than she’d hoped for. It hurt to live, but this pain was different and new. It was hers and no one else’s, the molten core of her anger. She’d carry it as surely as she carried Two.
During their escape from the Hill, she’d torn the Queen’s sunburst flag from a parapet, formed the silken fabric into a sling, and put Two inside it, tucked him close to her chest. He’d shrunk to the size of a scrawny barn tom, which made Inis think of Ivy holding the big silver cat in her arms. He didn’t speak but remained there silent, save for his purring, the rumble a healing warmth that vibrated through Inis’s ribs and let her know he’d be all right.
In time, they both would. Inis knew too well how to be patient, biding the months until an ache became a living part of her.
She was glad Morien hadn’t killed her. It meant she hadn’t left Ivy alone to fend for herself with Mother and Bute.
She thought about Ivy whenever the pain in her skin became too great, whenever her weary muscles shuddered and threatened to snap and seize. She had to survive, because there was a chance Morien had survived, too. Her family’s cottage in the Far Glades might not be his first stop on a tour of revenge—but if he lived, he would use her family to hurt her.
She was still sodden from their swim in the moat the day before, no sunlight underground to dry her. Would these fae tunnels never end?
It was hours of stumbling, sweaty travel before she could look at Laisrean. Before she could gather enough willpower to glance outside herself and see the ruin of the boy who’d been her friend, the brave, battered young man he’d become.
She approached Somhairle first, brushing his shoulder with hers to let him know she was there for support. She knew he was tired when he let her take his arm under the elbow, supporting him like he supported his brother on the other side.
“I’m sorry.” Somhairle’s chin tipped down, his gaze on his boots. “I couldn’t do anything. If I’d been able to fight—”
“Keep talking like that and I’ll knock you down and leave you in the tunnels.” Inis kept her voice steady, her eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. “You helped free the little ones. That’s why we came.”
“Still.” Somhairle let the word stretch on into silence. Then he brightened, lifting his head, his mouth a crooked glint in the otherworldly light from the fae glyphs wrought in the stone. “You were magnificent. Like a legend out of the Lost-Lands.”
The soft thunder of Two’s purr grew louder at the praise.
“You as well,” Somhairle added in his direction. Two grinned.
When they stopped to let those of them with shorter legs rest and give the injured a chance to do the same, Shining Talon, Cabhan, and Einan left to gather mushrooms for sustenance while the others licked their bloody