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Carrson saluted him with one proud middle finger, sending me snickering as I hauled the entire comforter up with me, wrapping it tight around my shoulders. I dragged the damn thing across the floor with me on my way to the bathroom. “Any analysis come back on our spy?”

“It’s too fucking early for spy talk,” Cyrus complained.

“Got something better to do, princess?” I tossed over my shoulder.

I vaguely heard him mutter, “Breakfast,” before closing the bathroom door behind me.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

VULPES FLET

AUGUST

Five months, two weeks, four days, twenty-three hours since they took my wife…

“Mr. Porter?”

My eyes snapped open to the shimmering light of the Hazelharbor hospital wing. I blinked into the warm room, like that could erase the afterimage of Ally’s phantom from my mind. Based on the gentle light, it was just before dawn. Heart heavy, my gaze traced over a still-sleeping Blaz, whose skin the healers had soothed for the last few days. He looked almost back to himself. So did his companions. Nat truly was a miracle worker.

“What are you doing here?”

Groggily, I looked to Reyna, standing at the foot of his bed, her fingers settled over the smooth blankets draped over his legs.

“Checking on him,” I said hoarsely. “Keeping watch, I guess. I don’t know.”

“I heard about New York.”

“Yes, I’m sure you did.”

“What was the point? The city is long lost.”

“Nothing is ever actually lost,” I said hollowly.

Except for me. I might be well and truly gone. That depended entirely on Alvara’s fate.

But I thought of those chimes—that soft clink and peal as the wind picked up speed—singing in subtle defiance across the city. That simple symbol that the mortals within had not given up hope in being rescued. Not yet. Which meant we still needed to keep fighting.

That Fae needed to rally the geomancers and slow the blight.

“Though it certainly feels that way,” I added, meeting those daggers for eyes. Thorn in my side or not, the woman clinging to her son was a mother. A widow. A leader of her people.

“I suppose you’re here to convince me not to execute her, despite her actions?”

“It wasn’t her,” I breathed.

“She laid waste to half the island.”

“It wasn’t her,” I repeated, holding her stare as those honey brows dipped. “Adrastos is a master illusionist. It seems he can mask most traits—almost scent included. And I’m here because Blaz is a damn good man, and I wanted to make sure Nat has what she needs for him.”

“You’re telling me our enemy—the man that ordered your murder in your last life⁠—”

“And several before it.”

“—is burning cities to the ground cloaked as your mate?”

I nodded, wetting my lips as I grappled with the hellfire of our evening. “I am.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that.”