The enemy wasn’t at the gates; he was in the war room. That was the chilling conclusion we’d reached after discovering the poison that nearly killed Alistair was an inside job.
I found Lysander in his study, a cavern of dark wood and colder light, staring at a bank of monitors as if he could physically wrest the truth from the streams of data. The tension rolled off him in waves, a live wire of contained fury.
“Any progress?” I asked, my voice soft in the oppressive silence.
He didn’t turn, his gaze fixed on the screen. “Progress implies movement. This feels like wading through tar.” He finally swiveled his chair to face me, and the sight of the shadows under his eyes, the stark line of his mouth, sent a pang through my chest. This was the man who dove into dark water for me, now being
