All the air rushes out of my lungs at once. Unless he manipulated it out of Aidia.

“Fix your face and laugh,” Henry says, startling me out of my panic.

My laugh is overloud, but it does the trick. My rigid muscles loosen. He clasps my hand and pulls me against his body to dance.

I lick my lips. “He knows you were here early. He knows my magic.”

“No one should know that I arrived early,” Henry says. “Well—no one but you.” He leads me through the first few steps of the dance, and I’m shocked that he actually knows how to dance.

“No one but you and my family know my magic,” I rasp. “Surely the guards at the gates would have noticed the arrival of a man from the woods. We get those so infrequently.”

Did Rafe set us up to go to war? I’ve long suspected that he’s Rochelli, and what better way to stir up conflict than to set me up to kill the man who would strengthen my family’s hold on power. This alliance with the Havenwoods gives my family support from all of the major magical houses, as well as an unknown outside resource—especially if there’s truth to the rumors that one of Henry’s parents has a rare blessing from Divine Asher.

As mayor, Rafe would benefit from chipping away at my father’s power—the same way he has been for months. But this would be taking that to another level. It would cause a very big conflict between us and the Havenwoods.

Henry frowns. “I was discreet when I arrived, but I’ll not share all my secrets so soon, lovely. Not when I know how fun it will be to watch you try to pry them out of me. I know how you like to see men suffer.”

His words are so alarmingly close to the truth of my mission, but I give him my most feral smile. “I suspect I’ll enjoy your suffering best.”

Henry guides me around the floor effortlessly, dipping me as the music swells. He lets out a hum of amusement. “Try not to look so stunned, Harlow. I may not be a city boy, but I am still our version of society.”

He lifts me back to my feet, and I scan the crowd. I need to tell Kellan. He was standing over by the dining room windows when the dance started, but now he’s gone.

“Who are you looking for?” Henry asks.

“Kellan.”

“The city watch brother?”

“Yes.”

Henry pulls me flush against his body as we spin. “You trust him?”

“I find it’s best to be selective with my trust, but I trust that Kellan needs to know this. It’s a matter of family security.”

Henry nods back to our table. “Wouldn’t Able be the choice for family security since he’s the oldest and has holy fire?”

I arch a brow. “Taking notes for an invasion?”

Henry barks out a startled laugh. “No, Harlow. It’s just, you have eight siblings, and I’m trying to get the political landscape down so I don’t offend anyone. As you love to point out, I’m a classless feral wolf. I’m just trying to get the lay of the land.”

Able and Kellan are the only two siblings whose powers are common knowledge. Kellan’s manipulation blessing from Polm is part of the reason he is in charge of the city watch. The men who work for him know they can either fall in line on their own or he can make them.

Able helps my father light the wall every night, so there’s no avoiding people knowing. Not to mention that holy fire kills the Drained, and since my father and brother are the only two who can wield it, it affords the Carrenwell family a measure of security in our position.

I find it almost impossible that Henry wouldn’t be aware of their blessings.

The music ends, and everyone claps for our performance. Henry steps back and gestures to me like I’m the star of the show. I wave them off and pull him away from the dance floor.

I lead him past the row of tables toward the windows. I’ve caught Gaven’s notice. He frowns, and I force a smile and pretend I’m showing Henry the view, gesturing to the windows while scanning the room for Kellan. He’s nowhere to be found, but neither is Libby, so maybe they stepped out or had an emergency with the kids.

Henry’s parents are also missing from the table, but I heard my mother tell them something about a rare painting of Mountain Haven that hangs in our library. They might have gone to see it. Maybe that’s where Libby and Kellan are. My brother Thomas is also notably absent, though his wife Veronica is chatting with my sisters Electra and Sophie. There’s one more empty seat at the table next to Able.

Henry follows my gaze. “Where did Rafe disappear to?”

“Hopefully the Divine hells,” I grumble.

Henry smirks, but it’s there and gone. He tilts his head in a strange, predatory way, like an animal straining to hear something. Then, he grabs me.

I try to pull away. “What are you⁠—”

He throws me to the ground and covers me with his body. A loud blast rattles the house. The windows shatter. My head smacks against the marble floor, and the world goes dark.

OceanofPDF.com

9HENRY

Glass rains down in an endless stream. I curl around Harlow, trying to shield her from the shrapnel.

For a moment, there’s an awful silence. My body is frozen—stuck in a panicked echo of the past. I’ve heard a terrible, violent silence like this before.

Then, shouts and cries ring out as the dust settles. The room smells like smoke and blood, but there’s a hint of something fruity and fermented. The wine. There was a wagon of it sitting out front when we arrived tonight. Someone could have easily snuck some sort of magical incendiary device in with the real wine.

Harlow groans beneath me. She mumbles something, but my ears are ringing from the blast.

I roll to the side, ignoring the bite of glass in my arm as I rise to stand and pull Harlow to her feet. I take her face in my hands.

“What did you say?”

She narrows her eyes. “You covered me before the explosion.”

That’s going to be hard to explain. I brush a thumb over the lump already forming on the back of her head. “I think you hit your head pretty hard.”

Her bodyguard is beside us in a second, taking hold of her arm. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Henry protected me from the glass,” she says.

“I noticed.” Gaven’s suspicious gaze is fixed on me. “He’s a fast thinker.”

I can hear the unspoken accusation in his words. He also noticed that I moved too soon. I knew he would be an issue eventually, but I’m going to have to deal with him sooner rather than later.

Shouts outside the shattered windows draw our attention. “Bleed no more!”

“Rebels,” Gaven grumbles.

The shouts are close. I need to get Harlow and my parents out of here.

“This kind of stuff wouldn’t happen if they didn’t insist on having everyone important and magical in one room,” Harlow grumbles.

The room is alive with shouting and groans of pain, but Harlow seems surprisingly calm as she reaches into a hidden pocket in her dress and withdraws a dagger.

“We need to get you to safety,” Gaven says. He eyes me skeptically. “It would be wise to leave him behind.”

“Play nice, Gaven,” she chides. “We need him. Trust me. I’d leave him if I could.”

“Thanks,” I grumble.

I place my hand on her back to guide her out of the mayhem and into the hallway. The Stellarium Blossoms scent of her skin and the iron smell of blood hit me.

I pull her to a stop. “You’re wounded.”

She lifts her arm. A piece of glass juts out of her forearm. “I figured it was best to leave it in.”

I take her wrist and make quick work of the mess, pulling the shard from the wound and clasping my hand over it. She flinches as my magic presses in, sewing the tissue and skin back together.

“Bleeding woods, that itches!” she says.

Finally, I pull my hand back and wipe away her blood with my sleeve, revealing pristine pale skin.

Gaven gives me a begrudging nod. “Fine. He can come.”