Page 43 of Fae Farewells

If we were in the dungeon, Sloane would tear the palace down and drag us from the rumble.

“I’m worried about her,” I admitted as we walked down the hall, looking for anything odd.

The room across from us was empty, though the one beside it held a rioting dragon, a sleeping angel, and a near naked mer. They were locked in too, though we’d wait for Sloane before letting Sarge loose.

“We all are, but what can we do?” Briggs asked, an undertone of defeat slinking into his voice.

“We need to figure out who’s in her head before we can even make a half-assed plan. But after that, I don’t know.”

“We will, or she will,” he assured me and himself. “But that doesn’t mean we’ll be able to help.”

“That I do know. Sometimes the best way to help is to get out of her way. Been there and made that mistake, wolf.”

He snorted. “I still can’t believe she threatened to throw you off the roof.”

“I can.” I laughed quietly. “She would have shoved me into the pool. We both knew it was behind me, just a couple dozen feet down.”

We popped our heads into every door we passed, but every room was empty except the two our groups were in. Each one beyond that hallway varied in purpose, from parlors and drawing rooms to offices and a lounge stocked with unopened bottles.

Nothing was out of place.

Nothing was being used, either. All the furniture had a fine layer of dust on it or was covered with sheets.

It was strange to see a palace with so few people in it. The druids’ palace was brimming with life. It took a village to keep it clean and running, and those people were around every corner. There wasn’t much privacy to be found in our halls, and there certainly weren’t any empty rooms.

“Who do you think it is?” I asked Briggs to pass the time.

“I couldn’t even venture a guess, other than Alric, but they’ve already said it can’t be him. That makes me wonder who he has on his side that could do something like this, though... Her mental wards have to be as close to impenetrable as possible to block out everyone’s thoughts, so how could anyone get in?”

“You don’t think it’s a recent development?”

He shook his head. “I think someone has been weakening her wards, or they were lying in wait for her to weaken them.”

“But when did she—”

Briggs glanced at me when I stopped talking. “What?”

“What about last week?”

“Okay,” he drawled. “What about it?”

I shook my head, hardly believing where my mind was going. “It devastated her when she thought she killed Palmer. Enough so that she overheard his thoughts. That never really happens with Lo. She’s always stable enough to block thoughts. But she was more emotional than I’ve ever seen her. That compromised her mental security—”

“And someone could have broken through easily,” the wolf agreed.

“Yeah. But they would have had to be waiting.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. I’m not very knowledgeable about telepathy, only Sloane’s version of it. And even that differs vastly from vampires and angels.”

He scratched at his scruff. “Because it’s a mix of both?”

I shrugged. “No one knows. She’s an anomaly.”

In the wing across the palace, we found the Winters’ suites. Vaughn’s room was freezing cold, the temperature change making the void feel like the arctic tundra. And it was also trashed, as if someone had ransacked it while searching for something. His bedding was shredded, all his clothing tossed into a pile on the floor, pictures with broken frames. But amongst the wreck, I could see our fae in the ripped art and shattered instruments.

Freya and Tilly had tidy rooms, but you could tell they used them. No dust, no clutter, but also no life. Very few pictures adorned their walls, and there was no sign of hobbies or reading material. I could only tell their rooms apart by the small dragon etched in the headboard of Freya’s bed.