Page 71
I stare at him. His green eyes are clear, his jaw set, and the queens are waiting behind us with a patience that might run out if we debate this for too long.
“Fine.” I release his arm. “But if the war-blood starts winning in there, and I tell you to stop, you stop. That’s the deal.”
“That’s the deal.”
We give each other a long, meaningful look. Then, we turn back to the queens. Hippolyta is watching us with her arms crossed and an expression that might be amusement, assessment, or both.
“We’ll retrieve the girdle,” I tell her. “But I need to know everything about the Plain before we enter it. The terrain, the enemies, the layout, the rules. Everything.”
Otrera’s mouth curves. “You speak like a general planning a campaign.”
“I speak like an analyst who’s tired of walking into situations blind.” I hold her gaze. “The last twenty-four hours have included sacred bees, a divine boar, and my—” I catch myself before the word comes out, because Kieran and I have never defined what we are, and doing it for the first time in front of eight Amazon queens is not how that conversation should go. “And Kieran losing control of divine fire. I’d like the next threat to come with a briefing.”
Otrera and Hippolyta exchange a glance. Melanippe’s mouth curves into a small smirk.
“We’ll brief you,” Hippolyta says. “But first, you’ll rest in our city of Themiscyra. You’re both depleted, and the Plain will kill you in the state you’re in.”
She’s right. My reserves are scraped hollow from the shield detonation, and Kieran’s thermal output is running in an unstable pattern. Walking onto a battlefield right now would be tactical stupidity, and I’ve had enough of that for one day.
“Come with us,” Otrera says, and she and the others turn to exit the clearing without waiting for our answers.
“Wait.” I reach into my jacket, pull out the sealed letter, and all the queens look to me. “Lenore Aldridge asked me to deliver this to the Amazon queen.”
Otrera’s eyes drop to the letter. Then she makes her way toward me and takes it from my hand, tracing her thumb across the seal the way the Melissae did at the temple. The wax flares once, and she breaks the seal, unfolds the parchment, and reads.
I want to read the letter over her shoulder. Or at least angle myself for a better view, to extract any fragment of data from the parchment that Lenore Aldridge sealed shut and forbade me from opening.
But I stay where I am. A Thorne keeps her word. Or, at least, tries to.
Eventually, she folds the letter, tucks it into her belt, and meets my eyes.
“Thank you, Evelyn Thorne,” she says, measured and deliberate. “The Aldridge coven’s message has been received.”
I stand there for a moment in silence. Because really? That’s it? A fire-sealed letter from an information broker who told a son of Ares to “side with the oppressed” just got delivered to the queen of the Amazons, and she’s not going to comment on its contents? Not even a little?
Oliver would have found a way to find out what it said. His charisma made everyone want to tell him everything.
But I’m not Oliver. I am, however, a Thorne. And Thornes don’t forget unanswered questions.
We just file them until the answer shows up.
33
JADE
The boat is rocking at the edge of the vortex, and at the bottom of the descending column, the silver-white glow is pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
Gripping the edge of the boat, I stare at the spinning water. The whirlpool’s walls are churning with a force that’s throwing spray into my face, soaking my clothes, and filling my ears with a roar that vibrates through the wooden hull. The descent is steep—a brownstone stacked on a brownstone stacked on another brownstone from the surface to the lakebed—and the only way to reach the sword is to jump into a spinning column of water and trust that the bottom is solid.
No. Not happening. Absolutely not happening. Not after the second time loop, when my mouth opened against my will because my body overrode my brain and inhaled lake instead of air. I was tumbling through gray nothing, unable to find up, unable to find Logan…
Logan’s hand lands on my shoulder. “We need to go down there.”
“I’m aware.” My bracelet is going to snap if I keep twisting it. “I’m also aware that the last time I was submerged in this lake, I inhaled water and almost died, and you had to drag me through a time vortex with lake in my lungs. So, forgive me if my enthusiasm for jumping into a giant spinning water hole is limited.”
His hand slides from my shoulder down my arm, and he unwinds my fingers from the bracelet, threading them through his instead.
“I’ll use my air magic to take us down,” he says, and I really have no idea how he always manages to stay calm in moments like these. “It’ll be a controlled descent through the center of the column. The water won’t touch you.”
