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Lonnie raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Cross has spies in every city. Soon he’ll know what’s happened here, and I think he’ll decide to take his group into hiding.”
“When?” Scion asked.
“I’m not sure. It might be tomorrow, it might be in a few days. There are a lot of moving parts and I can’t see all of them at once.”
“Well that’s fucking unhelpful,” Scion snapped.
I glared at him. “I’ve just spent hours learning at least this much, you could be grateful to have at least some direction.”
Lonnie pleaded with her eyes for us not to argue. “Thank you for trying.”
I sucked in a calming breath. “I learned one thing for sure. Did you all know that Aine is still living with the thieves guild?”
They glanced at each other, exchanging looks of surprise.
“She is?” Bael sounded incredulous. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but since she’s there that opens up many other paths for the thieves as a whole.”
“You can ask her tomorrow,” Lonnie told Bael. Her expression had lightened, like the mere idea of having a plan had lifted some of the weight from her shoulders.
I found myself leaning toward her, then having to stop myself. Fuck, this was growing harder and harder to ignore. I’d thought it was bad enough on the boat, but somehow my feelings for her had gotten even stronger over the last months.
She couldn’t know it, of course, but this conversation was the beginning of the end of my keeping the truth of our mating from her. She’d need her bonded circle closed to access her full power, and sooner or later I’d have to tell her.
17
LONNIE
CHEAPSIDE, EVERLAST CITY
Iawoke the following morning to the feeling of cold fingers pressing into my cheek.
As if my body already knew what was happening before my mind had a chance to catch up, my eyes flew open. I sat bolt upright, already fully awake. “What?—”
The same cold fingers clamped hard over my mouth, and my eyes widened to find Ciara peering back at me in the darkness. She pressed a long bony finger to her own lips, and jerked her head toward the door, indicating she wanted me to follow her.
If I could have, I would have let out a resigned sigh. Instead, I nodded, and waited for her to slowly pull her hand away from my mouth. She tiptoed toward the door to the hall, and stopped waiting for me to follow.
Once again, I’d slept plastered between Bael and Scion, and both were still sleeping soundly—clearly exhausted from the night before. Ambrose hadn’t stayed in our makeshift bed with us last night, instead opting to sleep on the floor near the door. I lookeddown at him as I passed, and caught him looking up at me with one dark eye. Apparently Ciera hadn’t fully succeeded in her attempts not to wake everyone.
I had the strangest urge to assure him that I’d be safe with Ciara. But then, that seemed overly familiar. He might be a friend of sorts—at least an ally—but I needed to stop treating him like one of my mates simply because he was always present. It wasn’t fair to anyone—myself included.
Instead I gave Ambrose a brief nod of acknowledgement as I followed Ciara out the door into the hallway. The tiny woman scowled at me as I closed the door behind me. “Not so loud.”
I rolled my eyes. “What’s so important that you had to yank me out of bed?”
“I wanted to talk to you without all of them hovering around.”
“Why, because they’re Fae?” I said a bit defensively.
She looked at me oddly. “No, because they’re men. By the Source girl, one would think you were dropped on your head as a child.”
I pressed my lips together into a thin line. In fact, I had been dropped as a child—into a fucking volcano—but that probably wasn’t what Ciara meant.
Ciara led me down the thin rickety staircase, and into her kitchen. I noticed that while it was still dark out, she already had a roaring fire going and a pot of yet more tea boiling away on the stove.
