The library of Avalon Castle had once been beautiful.
When the Avicen first sought refuge on the island, the shelves of the library had been bare. In place of books, cobwebs had taken root, crowding into the empty spaces. Loose pages of tomes long disappeared littered the floor like carpeting, waterlogged from the rain let in through the holes in the ceiling. The chandelier that had once hung proudly above the room’s center had fallen, its chains rusted from decades of neglect. Echo had commandeered the aid of Rowan and a few of his Warhawk friends to move it – the half-destroyed brass monstrosity was heavier than it looked – and it still sat, neglected, in a corner of the library, a mournful reminder of the glory days of Avalon. The Ala had taken to using it as a place to dry her laundry. An ignominious end for such a grand furnishing.
The paper mulch had been swept away, revealing hardwood floors that had seen better days. Beneath the rotting floorboards was solid stone, impervious to decay. Each day, the shelves rediscovered their purpose as the Ala filled them with books salvaged from her chamber at the Nest by the mages who had gone to clear it out before human authorities could discover signs of the Avicen’s habitation beneath Grand Central. Echo had added to the collection with books found in her travels. She wanted to help the Avicen rebuild – she was not Avicen by blood, but they were the family who had taken her in when her own had proven too hostile to ever be a home. Echo carried one of the volumes of what she assumed to be Avicen mythology she’d found in Perrin’s shop, along with the triptych she’d taken from the hidden alcove in his office. The book she would contribute to the Avicen’s modest but evolving library – it wasn’t right for so much of their written history to be lost. Echo knew what it was to be untethered. She’d felt that way when she’d first run away from home, before she’d settled into the library on Fifth Avenue. Nothing anchored the soul like a story, and the Avicen had left behind so much at the Nest.
In its current state, the library was less than halfway to what could be labeled good repair, but it was comfortable enough. Echo sat down on one of the wooden benches that the Ala had unabashedly relocated from the castle’s garden to what was now, inarguably, her library. She used the room to meet with the remaining Warhawks, to convene informal councils on how food and necessary supplies would be distributed to the refugees housed within the castle, to plan their steps into an uncertain future. It wasn’t as homey as her chamber at the Nest had been. Echo let herself indulge in a moment of longing for the place that had been her second home; she missed the soft couches and the mountains of pillows and the welcoming glow of candlelight. It had been a place of solace and safety for her. After a turbulent childhood, it had been one of the first places where Echo had found peace. And now it was gone, like so much else.
Dorian and Jasper had claimed the only other viable seating in the library – a cozy nook in front of a picturesque bay window – while Helios, the Drakharin Ivy had brought home, sat on the floor nearby. They were a motley crew, but they were her motley crew. Their presence soothed the parts of Echo that ached when she let herself dwell too long on the sadness nibbling at the edges of her heart.
Echo reached for the box of Gushers she’d swiped from a grocery store on her way home. At least there were still snacks. There would always be snacks, so long as she was alive and able to steal them. She offered one of the pouches to Ivy, who politely declined, and another to Rowan, who took not only the proffered one but also the one Echo had claimed for herself. Greedy bastard. Echo replaced her stolen Gushers and tried to open the foil package as quietly as she could while the Ala spoke. Jasper chomped unabashedly on a handful of sugary cereal, also stolen, straight out of the box.
“Thank you for coming,” the Ala said, as if any of them would decline an invitation from her. As the only surviving member of the Council of Elders, she was the de facto leader of the Avicen.
“Thank you for having us,” Jasper said. He shook the box of cereal in his hands, peering into it dolefully. “Though I must say the refreshments leave something to be desired.”
“Then steal your own food, Jasper,” Echo said around a mouthful of Gushers. Ingrate.
Before Jasper could fire off a retort, the Ala cleared her throat. “We have much to discuss, and little time to waste on the merits of junk food.” She picked up a notebook from the writing desk that had been one of the few bits of furniture in the library worth salvaging. For as long as Echo had known the Ala, her mind had appeared to be fathomless, full of a seemingly infinite store of knowledge gleaned from a millennium of existence. But now Echo noticed moments when the Ala would trail off mid-sentence. Her onyx eyes would glaze over and, for a few seconds, it would be as if she weren’t there. She always shook it off and claimed it was nothing, but Echo had seen the same lapse in the other Avicen who had fallen under the kuçedra’s enchanted slumber and been awakened by the elixir Ivy concocted. They had returned, but it was as though parts of them were still missing, still trapped in the darkness in which the beast had shrouded them. They were back, but they weren’t quite whole. The Ala had never needed to write things down to remember them before; now she used notes like a crutch, lest she forget during those awful, lost moments.
The Ala ticked off items on the list she’d written, mumbling to herself before looking back up. “Rowan,” she said, “you’ve had quite the journey today.”
Rowan nodded. “That’s one way of putting it,” he replied. “The reports of instability in the in-between we’ve received – people exiting from gateways they never intended to travel to and others getting lost – weren’t just rumors like we’d hoped. I found that out firsthand, and really wish I hadn’t.”
The Ala rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This is the last thing we need right now.”
“But that happens, doesn’t it?” asked Helios, the newest Drakharin stray. “People don’t focus strongly enough on their destination, or they get distracted and get lost.”
Rowan frowned as his gaze moved from the Ala to the Drakharin seated on the ground. He’d grown used to Dorian, to a degree, but Helios seemed to be having little luck thawing Rowan’s icy demeanor. Echo was willing to bet it had to do with Ivy. Although Rowan would never admit it aloud, she knew he felt protective of Ivy, and she had no doubt that the amount of time their white-feathered friend had been spending with a new Drakharin was failing to sit well with Rowan. Nevertheless, Rowan answered Helios’s query. “Rarely. Not as frequently as it’s happening now, and almost never with people experienced with traveling through the in-between, especially if they’re going from one familiar place to another using gateways they know well. And I didn’t mess up.”
A deeply unsettling thought occurred to Echo. “Do you think the in-between acting all wonky is my fault?”
“How in the world could that possibly be your fault?” Rowan asked. “I know you’re the firebird and all” – he said it so casually, as if it were a perfectly normal thing for a human girl to be – “but don’t you think that’s giving yourself a little too much credit?” He said the last bit with a small grin to soften it.
“Echo might be right,” said the Ala.
Echo grimaced. Usually she adored being right. Now was not one of those times. “I was sort of hoping you’d tell me I was insane to even consider it.”
“Everything in this world requires balance,” said the Ala in her most professorial tone. “You disrupted it when you welcomed the firebird into the world. Into yourself.”
“Yeah, but the kuçedra was supposed to be the counterbalance,” Echo said. “I mean, that was the whole point of it, right? The light and the dark, the action and the reaction. It’s physics. Fancy physics. With magic.”
The Ala huffed a soft, joyless laugh. “You and the new Dragon Prince tore holes in the world —”
“Sorry about that.”
“— and it would stand to reason that there would be consequences,” the Ala finished, ignoring Echo’s interruption. “But it’s all theoretical at this point until we’ve had our mages study the phenomena further. I’ll look into it myself when I have a chance.” An unlikely scenario, considering the Ala was the only one holding the huddled masses of Avicen together. Her attention wandered briefly, but she snapped out of it before anyone besides Echo noticed. The Ala glanced down at her notebook and then redirected her gaze to Dorian. “Any word from your contacts within Wyvern’s Keep about the Dragon Prince’s whereabouts?”
“Which one?” Jasper muttered, earning a glare from Dorian.
“Either will do,” the Ala said, as if it had been a serious question. Jasper had the grace to look properly chastened. “Find one, you find the other.”
Wherever Tanith was, Caius was likely to be. Echo leaned forward in her seat, hoping that Dorian had gotten further in his search than the last time he had checked in. Her heart sank when he shook his head. “No. Tanith hasn’t been to the keep in at least a fortnight. She’s sent messengers there, but so far I haven’t been able to track them and learn where she is or what she’s up to.”
“And Caius?” Echo asked. A presence at the back of her mind pressed against her thoughts, like a ghost leaning in to better hear the answer. Not now, Rose.
Dorian clenched his jaw so tightly, Echo could see the tendons working beneath his skin. “No sign of him either.”
“I would not give up hope just yet,” said the Ala. “I find it highly unlikely that Tanith would go through the trouble of kidnapping her brother just to kill him once she had him alone.”
“You’re assuming she’s being governed by reason,” said Dorian. “The Tanith I knew would never stage an assault on an island in the middle of the Hudson River. She isn’t herself. Not anymore. Not with that … thing inside her.”
“Be that as it may,” the Ala said, “finding the Dragon Prince – both of them,” she added in a mollifying tone when Dorian bristled, “is our first priority.”
“I may have something to help with that,” Echo said. She was hoping they wouldn’t need it, but if there had been no sign of Caius, then it was their best – and only – plan.
She retrieved the silver bowl from her backpack and held it on her lap. “It’s Perrin’s scrying bowl. He used to it to track the bracelet he gave me. He’d woven one of his own feathers into the braided strap. The tracking spell he worked into it must require something to latch onto, like a feather or hair or a personal belonging. I don’t really know the details, but I was hoping you might.”
She handed the bowl to the Ala, who gave the intricate carvings on the side only a cursory glance. Her eyes drooped closed and she went very still. Everyone waited, silent. After a few moments, the Ala opened her eyes and smiled. There was sadness in that smile.
“It’s a clever bit of spell work,” said the Ala. “Your instincts were right, Echo. This bowl can be used to track down certain items, but it needs to be linked to some physical part of the person you seek. As you said, a feather or a lock of hair would suffice. However, unless Caius had the forethought to gift you with a few strands of his hair, then I do not think —”
“What about blood?” Dorian asked, none too politely.
The Ala blinked at him, no doubt silently delivering the litany Echo had heard a thousand times before about the impudence of younger generations, which, considering the Ala’s advanced age – she was a thousand years old, give or take a few decades – consisted of pretty much everyone. Aloud, she said, “Blood would do. It would be even better than hair or feathers, as it is commonly more potent when deployed in magic such as this. Even a few drops would be inordinately useful, but unless you’re carrying a bottle of it around —”
“Which would be intensely weird,” Echo said.
“— then I’m afraid we’re back at – what’s that saying? – square one.”
“Rest assured, I do not make it a habit of carting blood around with me, but I do know where we can acquire a sample of Caius’s,” said Dorian.
“Where?” asked the Ala.
“Wyvern’s Keep.”
“Oh, hell no,” Ivy said.
Echo patted Ivy’s knee. Of everyone in the room who wasn’t Drakharin, Ivy had accumulated the most visits – two – to the keep. Neither one had been overly pleasant. “We’re not sending you back there. No matter what.”
Not to mention the fact that a ruse similar to the one that had tricked Tanith the first time wouldn’t work a second time.
“We don’t need to send anyone in,” Dorian said. “Helios passed along the pendant Ivy smuggled into the fortress. It’s connected to the blade of my sword. We can use them to communicate with my agents inside the keep. There are some still loyal to Caius, and they’ve been laying the groundwork for an uprising from within. They can acquire the blood, and if the gods smile upon us —”
“When do they ever?” Jasper muttered.
“— they will be able to smuggle the blood out of the keep and into my waiting hands.”
“Question,” Echo said. “Why is Caius’s blood lying around the keep? That seems unsanitary.”
Dorian rolled his eye. “It’s not ‘lying around the keep.’ It’s in a vault, along with the blood of every other Dragon Prince elected since the title came into being. Part of the coronation rituals requires a ceremonial bloodletting. It’s meant to symbolize that the elected prince will willingly shed his or her blood for the good of the Drakharin people. The office of Dragon Prince is about more than just having power over our people. The prince belongs to them, body and soul. The blood is collected in a vial and stored in a secure location for posterity. And to remind both prince and pauper of the nature of the Dragon Prince’s sacrifice.”
“How difficult will it be for your agents to access the vault?” the Ala asked.
Dorian shrugged. “It’s hard to say. At least one guard is stationed at the vault at all times, but it’s more of a formality than anything else. If Tanith suspects we might attempt to steal the blood, for whatever reason, then she may have assigned more guards to it. As far as I know, there have not been any changes in the guard rotations for that section of the fortress. According to the last report my agents sent me, only the exits and entrances have had additional forces assigned to them. Tanith has also doubled up the scouting parties in the surrounding area. Getting the blood out of the keep might be harder than getting into the vault itself.”
The Ala nodded. “See what you can do. As challenging as it seems, it might be our only way to find Caius and, through him, Tanith. Our scouts have spotted her or her operatives all over the globe, but there doesn’t appear to be a pattern to her travels. There must be one, but we have not yet seen it.”
Echo fidgeted in her seat. She knew she should be more concerned with whatever plan Tanith was concocting, but all she could think of was that they were closer to figuring out where Caius was – and whether he was even still alive – than they had been in weeks. Ivy bumped her shoulder against Echo, as if sensing her agitation. The Ala began to hammer out details for how to proceed, with Dorian and Helios chipping in with knowledge of the Drakharin when needed, but Echo was only half listening. She said a silent prayer to the gods she wasn’t sure she believed in, that Caius would hang on just a little bit longer.
We’re coming for you, Echo thought. All you have to do is stay alive.