“You know where she is?” Hiko’s fingers twitched, conflict clearly visible in his eyes. He couldn’t disobey the king.
“I will know soon enough. Just need to go through his whole life story first.”
“We need to go,” Regar repeated, growing twitchy himself. “Hiko, are you with us? If not, I’ll have to—”
“You’re not going to knock me out. I’m coming with you,” Hiko protested. He then stared at my chest with a grin. “You’re really rocking the shirtless look, but you’ll likely want to get dressed before we leave.”
Regar nudged Hiko’s shoulder, reprimanding him.
“What?” Hiko’s voice raised an octave. “Don’t tell me you weren’t looking. I know you better than that.”
“A shirt would be great.” I avoided looking at them as I pushed past Hiko to the staircase while tucking his dagger into my belt.
Hiko and Regar followed me, bickering and I had to shush them twice before we got up to the door.
The dungeon was the farthest away from the palace it could get without being too close to the fence. The landscape around the underground prison was barren to give the guard towers a clear view if anyone was to escape, leaving us nowhere to hide.
“If anyone asks, I could tell them I was sent to bring you instead,” Hiko mused as I peered out the door. A lot of good that did, since I couldn’t see the guard towers from here.
“You could say we were released,” Regar suggested with a shrug. “No one would think twice about it.”
“Is that why the queen was sneaking around instead of coming up with the same excuse?” Hiko wondered.
“How is your excuse any better than mine? You’d need to tie us up to make it believable.”
“I do enjoy that.” Hiko grinned.
“I wish I’d never found out about you,” I muttered. “Everything out of your mouths is an innuendo, isn’t it? I was better off not knowing. And the queen didn’t come up with any excuses because she was already pushing her limits by stepping up. She was an emotional wreck when she came in.”
“Sure, you’re both released from the dungeon.” Hiko shrugged. “If this comes back to bite my ass, I’ll blame it on you. This is some first-level insurrection shit we’re doing. And my father says I was uncontrollable then, so imagine what he’ll think after he finds out about this.”
“We better have a good story to tell when it gets to that point,” Regar agreed.
“We’ll have Isay back,” I grunted. “That’ll be enough.”
“For you,” Regar answered. “But not for me. I want to live after she’s back safely.”
“You’ll be fine.” With that, I ushered us all out into the daylight.
By the location of the sun, it couldn’t be more than six in the evening. If we were fast and didn’t run into too much trouble, we'd be back in time for a late dinner, and I could show Isay how terrified I’d been of losing her. I’d never let her out of my sight after this.
We headed toward the north gate, avoiding the more popular routes. When we got closer to my lodging, I decided it was worth the risk to stray off the safe route and grab a few extra weapons, as well as shirt.
Simply put, I couldn’t get it out of my head now that both Hiko and Regar were leering at me. That extra coverage was vital.
We reached the collection of housings without running into anyone. The square was left unperturbed from when I’d gone all out on the attackers. A thick layer of ash covered the ground with only two pairs of footsteps disturbing the stillness. Mine and the woman’s I’d dragged to the palace.
“Holy Death, what happened here?” Regar gasped. “That’s a lot of fae dead.”
“All Felrothian,” I declared with a grimace. “They deserved it.”
“You did this?” Regar gaped at me.
“You saw me draw Ferro’s life out of his body without contact, after he clearly was immune to my touch, and this surprises you?” What happened here was similar, and I didn’t think I could explain it any more than I knew how to repeat the deed.
“Remind me to never get on your bad side, will you?” Regar joked. “Also, I’ll never be guarding Isay again, just so you know. No chance in hell I’ll make that mistake again. You won’t be electrocuting me next time. I’ll be instantaneously toasted.”
I gave him a dark look, and he knew to shut up.
He swallowed and nodded. “Too soon. Got it.”
In my apartment, I pulled on the shirt I’d discarded in the morning. From the back of my closet, I drew two smaller blades, since my dadao had been confiscated by the king. I handed one to Regar and fastened the other on my own belt. Hiko already had a sword. I gave him back his dagger now that I had my own. Then we were ready to go.
“Did you get to know why Ferro was immune to your touch?” Regar wondered as we continued toward the north gate.
The puzzle was still piecing together. I was getting anxious the longer I didn’t know where Isay was being kept. Ferro’s mind was a terrible place to be, and I wanted to discard his ecos from my body. The thought of him living on in me made my skin crawl.
“Lord Terwyl has been working on a potion to render fae abilities useless,” I said, trying to make sense of how Ferro learned of this information, but couldn’t. It didn’t matter to us, however. “Somehow, Ferro found out and wanted a part in it. In his mind, he was helping us strengthen the bond with Felroth when he offered the princess in exchange for immunity. It clearly did not work against all fae abilities, though.”
Hiko shook his head, his mouth going slack. He stared at me for a beat too long before he asked, “They have an immunity potion?”
“Something of the sort. Ferro believed it made him invincible. He was crazy before he died.” I shrugged.
“We’ll be going with stab first, ask questions later kind of approach then,” the prince decided. “No need to get too close if the chances are we can’t kill them with a single touch.”
“If it was common, more fae in the invasion would have been immune,” I replied.
I wanted to look each and every one of Isay’s captors in the eyes and see their life slip away. I was going to watch all of them die.
