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He nodded solemnly. She turned to Ware next, setting a gentle hand on his skeletal foot.
“Ware… you look a lot thinner than I remember. Good on you for staying fit.”
Nevelyn laughed. It hurt to allow the sound out into a world that felt so joyless, but she could not keep it in. Dahvid was grinning, looking more like his old self. Ava stepped around Ware to the last of the three bodies.
“Garth,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. Then she turned back. “Who the hell is Garth?”
All three of them were laughing then. Loud enough to wake the dead. It was only later, after they’d finished the burials, that she found herself wishing it worked that way. That a smile or a joke might bring them back. The three siblings gathered together in the empty kitchen that looked out past the back gardens and offered a glimpse of the distant harbor. Nevelyn procured some wine from a shop on the corner of their street, as well as a few cups. She poured a healthy measure for each of them as Ava recounted what had happened.
When she finished, the quiet held.
Dahvid was pacing back and forth. Nevelyn could see that little crease between his eyebrows that meant he was quietly raging. Angry about how close they’d come to losing her. Ava poured herself a second glass. All three of them stared through the windows at the distant harbor. The last time they’d seen it was from a very different angle. Down in the tunnels beneath the house. Watching their parents’ ship burn like a lantern in the endless black of night.
Between then and now, they’d lived a hundred different lives. Pretended to be messengers and war orphans and farmer’s daughters. Anything they could do to keep themselves clothed and fed and alive. Each of them had sacrificed. Each of them had given everything to make sure, one day, they would return to this place. And each one of them had lost so much to come back.
Nevelyn knew that now was the time to begin again. A season of restoration. Maybe that would mean restoring the castle or selling the place to start new lives elsewhere. Thugar Brood was dead. He could haunt them no longer. They’d just defeated one of the greatest houses in the world. Unbidden, the old dream of living in the mountains returned to her. Reading books on a porch at dusk. It would be a quiet life—one that she’d more than earned.
That was the right decision to make, but Nevelyn’s thoughts kept drifting to Ava. The thought of her baby sister alone in that mountain pass, leaving tracks of blood in the snow as she crawled down to Nostra for help. She could not stop the words she spoke next. Even if some small part of her hated to say them.
“I think I might have a plan.”
Both of her siblings smirked. Nevelyn always had a plan.
This one was simple: House Tin’Vori would rise again.
46 REN MONROE
On the third day, Ren went hunting.
She thought it would be hard to wait that long, but truly, they’d needed every grain of sand in the hourglass. There was so much to arrange. She’d underestimated just how vast an empire the Broods controlled. The amount of payments that moved between them and their vassals, even on a daily basis, was staggering. Theo had barely slept. When she asked him if he wanted to come with her to see the conclusion of their plan, he’d quietly shaken his head.
“I said goodbye to him a long time ago.”
And so Ren traveled alone. First, an arranged waxway candle to her mother’s apartment. From there, she was guided by some of her mother’s closest confidants. Through the nighttime alleys and shadow-spun streets to a very small apartment building. The address on the outside of the building read: 47 FARTHING ROAD. There were twelve total living spaces.
All of the aboveground units were occupied. There were families who’d lived there for years. Bachelors who thought highly of a location so close to so many taverns. Many of the occupants, if they had lived there long enough, had noticed that the building should have had a very large basement. The front of the building sat at the top of a hill, overlooking the rest of the street, but the hill sloped down on the backside. It seemed as if the architect had wasted a great deal of space. They all had different reasons and explanations for it. Special plumbing or foundational concerns or utility installations. Reasonable guesses, even if each one was incorrect.
When Ren first visited the building on 47 Farthing Road, it had taken her almost an hour to find the secret door that led down into an empty basement space. But magic always leaves a trail. She found the place to be in flawless condition, sustained by powerful magical charms. There was a sealed pantry full of dried goods that might allow a person to survive for a year. Longer perhaps. A closet full of clothes and other necessities. There was even a stack of books to read, in case the occupant grew bored.
Now Ren entered for the second time. Down the basement steps. She found her mother waiting there. Harlow was with her. He looked as tall and thin as she remembered, but down in the semi-dark, he looked like a far more serious person. All the levity stolen by the slightest shadow crossing his face. There was also a pair of bruises along his neck that made him look more dangerous. He shook Ren’s hand and went back upstairs. The two of them were alone.
With their captive.
Landwin Brood was in a cage of Ren’s own design. It was a null spell wrapped inside a disarming charm wrapped inside three layers of oppositional coating. The very moment he’d ported from the estate, he would have appeared right here. Her trap would have sprung. All his magic would have been stripped away before he even opened his eyes. Someone had removed and destroyed his vessels. He’d been fed scraps of food, but three days in prison had slowly drained him. She thought this version far more accurately represented the man she’d come to know. It was a glimpse at the cruel, pitiful creature that lived within.
Ren went to her mother first. She leaned in close and asked a quiet question. Her mother looked her in the eye for a long moment and nodded. A permission granted. Agnes Monroe stepped back as Ren Monroe stepped forward.
“I thought I might find you here.”
Landwin looked up at the sound of her voice.
“47 Farthing Road. It was not easy to find this location.”
He stared at her, trying to comprehend. His right hand itched for a vessel that was no longer there. He said simply, “You knew about the dragon’s tooth.”
“Theo knew. You told him about it when he was a boy. But I was the one who figured out where you would go. Anywhere in the world. Dozens of properties to your name. Some of them with hundreds of potential rooms. And yet… a poor girl from the Lower Quarter—the one who you believed was unworthy of your son—figured out exactly where you’d travel. You must be shocked.”
He did not smile. “I’ve always admitted you were good at magic.”
