“She’s the shadow-witch?” he asks in Fae.

“She is,” Aren answers.

The boy makes a face. “She doesn’t look like she could slice a leaf.”

Slice a leaf? I glance at Aren and see the corner of his mouth lift into a smile.

“Careful,” he says. “She’s stronger than she looks, and she has the willpower of a kasnek.”

I have no idea what a kasnek is, but Aren’s words are clearly complimentary, and his tone is warm and affectionate. It makes me warm. And it makes me want to slide inside his embrace. As soon as we have a moment alone together, he’s going to tell me what’s really making him put distance between us.

“Really?” the boy says. He shakes his head, flicking his wet, curly brown hair out of his eyes. “Can I touch her?”

“If you want to damage your magic, sure,” Aren says with an it’s-your-funeral kind of shrug.

I glare at Aren. It’s human tech that damages fae magic, not humans, but most fae are so paranoid about their magic that they’ll believe almost anything about us. It doesn’t help that Aren’s spread more rumors about the “shadow-witch” than I can count, turning me into some kind of mythological creature.

Aren just grins back at me. “This is Dicer.”

It takes an effort to ignore the way that smile makes my stomach flip.

“You’re letting the false-blood recruit him?” I ask, forcing my gaze back to the boy and remembering that Aren said recruitment was the reason Nimael was here.

“We’re here to capture Nimael,” Aren says, “so no one’s going to be recruited. But, yes, that’s the purpose of the meeting. I’ve been talking to Dicer and a few other imithi for the past few weeks, waiting for this to happen.”

He says that as if he was all but certain the false-blood would eventually reach out to the imithi. But maybe he was sure of it. That’s how Thrain found him. He was imithi until the false-blood decided to use him.

“How much farther?” Aren asks Dicer.

“It’s just up here,” the imithi says, walking a few more paces through the sludge, then stopping when he reaches the corner of the stone building that makes up part of the right wall of the canal. “Straight ahead.”

Aren’s gaze follows Dicer’s pointing finger. He’s just tall enough to see over the edge of the canal. I’m not. I move to the wall where a stone juts out from it, and use it as a foothold.

Aren steadies me with a hand—a subconscious touch, I think—then points to a detached home about thirty feet away. Two tall, short-needled plants sit in pots to either side of a dark door. Drapes cover the two windows I can see, making the interior look as black as the sky.

“Is it just us three?” I ask.

“No,” he answers. “Jacia and Taber are paralleling us. They’ll circle around to the back.”

Automatically, I look to the left but only see the other wall of the canal. If the two fae are paralleling us, they’re on street level. Which means they’re not in this sludge. Lucky for them. Still, it’s comforting to know they’re here, even Jacia. Atroth wanted Kyol to form a life-bond with her. The king thought they were a good match, but Kyol refused the bond. I’m sure Jacia knows I was the reason for that rejection—anyone who wasn’t blind realized it—but she’s given no indication that she resents me for it. She’s fully capable of annihilating a whole contingent of fae, and so is Taber, who’s one of Kyol’s top swordsmen. Aren doesn’t have an army set to encircle Nimael, but he’s brought powerful backup.

“Nimael is an older fae,” Aren says, making me turn my attention back to the target house. “He’s close to two centuries old and has streaks of gray in his hair. We need to capture him. The other elari in there won’t be able to lead us to the false-blood. Tholm’s silver wall will keep him from fissuring, so you shouldn’t need to read his shadows, but you’re all of our eyes. Make sure we know where he is.”

I nod, then ask, “Are we going in or making them come out?”

“We’ll see what happens when I knock on the door,” he says.

My foot slips off the stone protruding from the canal’s wall. “Knock on the door? That’s your big plan to capture the false-blood’s second-in-command?”

He gives me a devil-may-care grin. “You have no idea what I’ve accomplished by the simple act of knocking on a door. King Atroth was overthrown because I tapped on the right ones.”

This is the Aren I fell in love with—confident, carefree, and sexy as hell. If he’s still trying to push me away, he’s doing a crappy job of it.

He reaches inside a draw-stringed purse that’s attached to his weapons belt and takes out a coin. Tinril, the currency is called here. I have no idea what the different colors and sizes are worth, but Dicer catches the coin in the air.

“Now, run off,” Aren says. “Far off.”

“Of course.” The boy grins in a way that makes me think he’s not going to listen to Aren’s instructions at all, and the way Aren watches him climb out the opposite side of the canal gives me the impression that his thoughts match mine. I’m betting imithi aren’t so great at following orders.

There’s nothing Aren can do about it, though.

“Are you two ready?” he asks, turning back to me and Trev. I nod, pull up my hood, then climb out of the canal behind the two fae. That’s when I feel a flicker of anxiety from Kyol. He feels my focus, my slightly elevated heart rate, and he knows that I’m moving now.

Relax, I tell both him and myself. This should be simple. I don’t even have to read the shadows; I just have to point out what I see.

We’re halfway across the street. My focus is riveted to the narrow house’s single window. Fae don’t often use bows and arrows—their enemies rarely stay in one place and, many times, they’re invisible—but we’re in a part of the city that’s protected by silver. If I were Nimael and thought there might be a chance someone was hunting me, I’d have at least one bow stashed somewhere inside.

But he has no reason to use it on us, I remind myself. He doesn’t know we’ve found him. He’s here to recruit elari, and we’re just a few innocent, sludge-covered people crossing a street.

Suddenly, the front door opens. Three fae step out, and everything—the air, the rain, my heart—goes still.

• • •

“DON’T let them back in!” Aren yells. Before the last word leaves his lips, Trev’s already acted, launching a ball of flames from his hand into the door behind the fae.

“Bring Taltrayn!” Aren grates out. The order is unnecessary. There’s no stopping Kyol from coming. He felt the cold terror slide over me the second that door opened.

Aren grasps his sword in both hands and takes a step forward. “Where are they, McKenzie?”

“Shoulder to shoulder just outside the door.”

“I can hide you,” a voice pipes up just behind us. Dicer. No surprise there.

Aren doesn’t hesitate. “Do it,” he says. To me, he adds, “Tell us when and where to swing.”

I nod, then both he and Trev are rushing forward. Dicer must be a decently strong illusionist. I see the moment the elari lose sight of Aren and Trev. Two of the three fae take a half step backward as they bring their swords in front of them. They don’t have humans to see through Dicer’s illusion, and they can’t fissure out of here. They’re screwed.