“So, let me get this straight,” Autumn says, scribbling furiously on papers spread around our suite’s dining table. “At the end, it was one mortal girl who made the emperor of Mors and king of Slait scamper like cockroaches, leaving their entire conquered town behind?”

“There wasn’t much of a town left at that point.” Tye spreads himself out on the sunniest part of the couch, his right arm draping over the headrest behind me. “So it wasn’t that much of a prized possession.”

Shade gives me a satisfied grin, the tip of his tongue absently grazing one of his canines. “I feel we should name you something, cub,” he says. “Something—”

“That includes the words ‘apocalypse’ and ‘harbinger,’” Coal says darkly. Arms crossed over his chest, the black-clad warrior leans against the wall, taking in everything with his gaze—especially the door.

Having risen first, River went to brief the elders on the situation in Karnish, leaving the rest of us trapped in the suite with Autumn. Denied access to Kora in the infirmary, the petite female has efficiently turned our common room into a cross between a library and interrogation chamber.

Tye’s arm drops from the headrest to my waist, and I squeak as he pulls me absently onto his lap. The arm around my waist tightens, keeping me still as tiny prickles of fire magic suddenly dance along my skin—right below the delicate cropped top that Autumn tussled me into.

“If you set Lera’s hand-embroidered shirt on fire, I will disembowel you,” Autumn says, not looking up from her notes.

Tye’s fingers flick.

“Bastard!” Autumn jumps up, rubbing a spot behind her ear as she glares at Tye. “You’ve made me leave a stain.”

I bite my lip. Now that I know the amount of skill, training, and control it takes to flick a spark like that, Tye’s juvenile pranks have taken on a whole new light. A great many things about Tye have taken on a new light lately. I fidget, yelping as I feel a tiny nip on the top of my ear.

“Stay put, Lilac Girl,” Tye says, pressing me firmly back against his soft white tunic. Propping his legs up on the low coffee table, the male rubs his free hand over my neck and arms. “I think you’ve done quite enough for several lifetimes by now. Plus, you feel good just here and I’d like to enjoy having you in my lap in peace.”

“You’re insufferable,” Autumn mutters.

“Speaking of titles, what do you think we’re called now that we’ve passed the second and third trials but not the first?” Tye says cheerily. “Sparkle, you must have an answer for this, come on.”

“Hmm. Maybe ‘a pain in my ass’?” Autumn squints at the ceiling. “No, that’s your usual state of existence.”

I tune them out and glance out the window, the daylight still disorienting after last night’s nightmare. My body aches, though Shade healed my collection of bruises while I was drifting off to sleep last night. I barely recall making our way back through the Gloom, stumbling along until the males insisted on carrying me. “Where do you think Griorgi and Jawrar are now?” I ask, trying not to shiver at the memories.

Autumn bends her head over her notes again and I realize that research is the battlefield she feels most comfortable in. “Slait.” She makes a mark, dips her pen into the inkwell, and continues writing. “He is not going to admit that anything is out of the ordinary until he decides to.”

I jerk forward. “But he’s working with Jawrar—”

“Says who?” The lack of emotion in Autumn’s voice makes my chest tighten. The female chews on the tip of her pen, the temperature in the room dropping with each moment of silence. “You? Me? River? You don’t go through Slait Court spreading rumors about King Griorgi. And you don’t attack him unless you are prepared to win.”

“So we’ll have to prepare for it, won’t we?” River says from the doorway.

My whole body tenses, my gaze first surveying the quint commander for marks of last night’s injuries—River moves stiffly, but his color seems decent enough—then cutting away from him. Hard. Just looking at the male makes my chest sting with the knowledge of all that he kept from me about his father, his past. Betrayal eats at my lungs like acid.

Autumn’s pen drops, her gray eyes tired. “So you are going to do it? Dethrone the bastard?”

River closes a hand around the back of a chair, his face dark. “I don’t see that we have much choice. Not now that . . .” He shakes his head. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, when we can all think straight again. Speaking of thinking straight, the infirmary is allowing us to visit Kora’s quint after dinner.”

My eyes narrow. Dinner first. Then friends. Then, maybe sometime tomorrow, we can get around to discussing how to kill his father. Over lunch. Maybe supper. Horseshit.

“It’s considered bad form to disembowel a male who’s just been whipped,” Tye whispers into my ear. “Don’t get me wrong, lass, better River than me, but—”

I get to my feet, and this time Tye lets me go without resistance. Coal steps back as I advance on River, Shade flashing prudently into his wolf form and trotting over to curl up on the couch.

River’s chin rises. “Leralynn, is something—”

“Your room. Now.” I stride past him, catching Tye’s murmur of “good luck there, mate” to River before I push open the bedchamber door.