Page 5 of Harnessed in Gold

Both guys smile. Topaz wrinkles her nose.

“He’s a deorai,” Rime answers. “An exile. An outlaw.”

“Hewas,” Leo clarifies. “Now he’s ‘Advisor to the Council,’ and his brilliant solution for the drought problem is to pool all the resources together so he can distribute them equally among the clans.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, right.” I know enough about history to know that never works. Not when the mastermind is a greedy, power-hungry despot.

Leo nods his agreement. “Right now he’s saying everything is under the control of the Council, but considering the fact that the Council is now ninety-five percent his followers, it’s pretty obvious that’s not his endgame.”

Rime mutters, “Even more obvious now that he’s got his army of lackeys going from clan to clan collecting taxes and seizing land.”

“Which is even worse than it sounds,” Leo adds, “because private land ownership has never been a thing in Nàdar.”

My coffee has gone tepid, the cream settling in a white ring around the inside of the mug. I rest it on my knee and gaze, unseeing, out the sliding glass door. An army of lackeys going around bullying people into giving up their livelihoods. It sounds so… feudal. Brier is obviously long past pretending he cares about the public good. What’s next? Forced labor, military conscription, political imprisonment? No wonder Brier wants this weapon—whatever it is. What better way to enforce his tyranny.

“Betts,” Leo’s gentle voice breaks into my thoughts. “Do you mind telling us again what you saw at the hotel, since we’re all more awake now?”

Cooperatively, I share everything I remember, every detail I glossed over last night in my energy-drained haze. What the faeries looked like, what they were doing, how they acted, where in the lobby they each stood in relation to one another, to me, and to the potted plants and the luggage carts.

As I speak, Leo, Rime, and Topaz nod, frown, and shoot one another meaningful glances. And when I finish, they speculate, using words and phrases that sound like they come from a fantasy series. A good number of them aren’t English either, or at least not the English I know. In my head, I try to picture them phonetically, but their trills and burrs make them incomprehensible. And then there are the names: Heron the Boar, Meadow the Rowan, River the Wolf, the Thistle and Moor Clans. The pattern is obvious: they don’t use last names in Nàdar, and they name everyone and everything after nature.

I ask Leo, “Were you named for the constellation?”

He nods. “I was born under a Leo moon.”

I learn Rime was indeed named after hoarfrost, and Topaz wasn’t named for the polished jewel, but for the mineral’s raw form, buried deep under layers of rock and soil. Their naming convention is quite beautiful, really. Humans should use it more.

“Do you think you know the people—I mean, fae—that Brier sent?” I ask.

Rime replies, “We might know the big one you described. A fellow Stag.”

Leo chews on his bottom lip, lost in thought. “Definitely sounds like River.”

“River the Wolf,” I say.

“Yeah.” His startled gaze meets mine, as though he finds it strange to hear me talking in the lingo of his world.

“And you’re not Leo Hawthorn, you’re LeotheHawthorn.” Before he can respond, I turn to Rime. “And you’re Rime the…?” I forgot what specific bird of prey he wove with.

“Goshawk. I’m Rime the Goshawk of the Stag Clan.”

Topaz doesn’t need to be asked. “I’m Topaz the Adder,” she says, mouth twitching. For a moment, I think she’s about to smile, but as her lips pull back, pointed fangs erupt from her top gums. They don’t snap like the vampire fangs inTrue Blood, they grow, but really freaking fast.

I shudder. “Are you venomous?”

She shrugs as she withdraws the fangs. “Of course.”

“Not enough to kill you,” Rime qualifies.

“It might.” Topaz crosses her legs and settles back in her chair like a pampered movie star. “I’ve never bitten a human before.”

Why do I get the feeling she’d very much like to bite me?

I lean back in my chair and rub my dry, undoubtedly bloodshot, eyes. There’s so much I still don’t understand, but I don’t think I can take in any more information right now. Not after such a shitty night’s sleep. And the fight with my ex. And with all this…proximityto Leo.

“So, what progress have you made?” I ask, trying not to sigh. “Are you any closer to finding the weapon?”

“Sadly, no,” Rime answers. “We’re still trying to find Brownshill.”