The faint scratching of Cade’s quill halted when the door to his room opened. Nora didn’t knock before she entered, and Cade bit back a curse as the sound jolted him out of his concentration. His hand flew to the ink pot next to the parchment he was working on, tilting it back from the precarious angle his surprise had knocked it to.

  “Nora!” Cade shouted with a smile, brushing the excess ink blotches off of his fingers and onto the much more suitable location of his trousers. “Do come in. I’ve always said that doors should be more like suggestions rather than true barriers of privacy. Who needs protection when you have confidence!”

  The raven-haired woman raised an eyebrow, and Cade couldn’t help but find the contemplative gesture obnoxiously cute on the deadly warrior.

  “Virgins,” the paladin said after a while.

  Cade stared up at her from across his desk.

  “I’m sorry?” Cade clarified.

  “Who still needs protection if they have confidence,” Nora replied matter-of-factly.

  The thief gazed at the resolute paladin for several long seconds. Then he burst out laughing, the uproarious sound echoing past his cramped living quarters and into the long hallway beyond. It felt good. He had a soulcurse and a kidnapped sister he had to contend with, and yet this intimidating swordswoman had made an inappropriate joke.

  The hilt of Nora’s sheathed greatsword glimmered slightly in the dim lighting of the room as she grinned just a little devilishly at him.

  The only other source of light to cast long shadows on Cade’s cramped desk came from the lone glowflake lantern Greta had been kind enough to loan him.

  Cade lifted the sheets off his desk and neatly tapped them on its chipped surface to realign them as he caught his breath from the laughter. The thin tabloid volumes he’d bookmarked in over a dozen locations rested on one edge of his tiny workspace.

  The itemized list he’d been working on wasn’t his best, but rush jobs were rarely known for their quality.

  “Please, sit. Though would you mind grabbing the door before you do?” Cade asked, still smiling.

  “I thought you said they were unnecessary,” Nora answered with another twitch of her eyebrow, though she still strode over and closed the door she’d barged through. Calmly, she sat down on the edge of Cade’s meager bed. It creaked ominously under the weight of her armor, and Nora expertly twisted her massive sheathe so that she didn’t bisect his straw mattress.

  She peered at him, her gray eyes appearing tired to his quiet assessment. His experienced gaze picked up on the frayed edges of her tunic and a few unattended dents in her armor that hadn’t been there before.

  “You asked if you could see me?” Nora prompted.

  “Where were you last night?” His tone was gentle but firm.

  Nora was briefly taken aback by the blunt question, but she recovered quickly. “Evie and I were attacked last night.”

  “By thugs?” Cade asked innocently. He wouldn’t push, but he was not blind to her weariness. If she was not fit for the job they were gonna pull tomorrow, he needed to know now while there was still time.

  He watched her intently, noting every micro-adjustment to her posture, but there were few to observe. She was used to scrutiny, he realized. His smile faded and he straightened in his chair.

  The pause drew out into a full minute. Cade waited. He could feel it. He could feel the strings of fate grow taut between them. This was the division in their paths. If he wasn’t careful now, he could lose her and likely Evie forever.

  When she spoke, it was in barely more than a whisper. “Cade, I know you suspect there’s something odd about Evie and me. You’re right to do so. But while I honor the trust you and your team have shown us, the secret of who we are is not one I can just give out. It’s not just my neck on the line here. I have to protect Birdie.”

  “Nora,” Cade started, but she held up a hand, halting his placations.

  “Swear to me,” Nora said suddenly.

  All joviality was gone. There was nothing left in her gaze save an unyielding fire. In that inferno of determination, Cade saw the world burning before this woman gave up.

  “I need this,” she continued. “Swear to me that what I am about to tell you dies with you, lest I choose to share this with the others,” she demanded.

  “I swear,” Cade answered easily. And he meant it too. He’d gotten the same feeling about Nora and Evie that he’d gotten from Orro, then Jer and Elena. His intuition said he could trust her. And if this was a way he could earn her trust, he would be more than up from the challenge.

  “Swear on your crew, Cade.”

  That struck him hard enough to send a shiver through his entire body. But he didn’t look away.

  “I swear it,” Cade answered softly.

  The paladin appeared to consider his words, weighing them against whatever restraint on this secret she’d been keeping for the god’s only knew how long.

  “I—We—are Fateweavers. I was once the silver-ranked sect leader of the 1st order, and Evie is my ward.” Nora took in a shuddering breath, though Cade could see the relief sharing this secret was having on her. “We weren’t attacked by thugs, Cade. The order is here to collect what they think is theirs, but I will make this world burn before I let them turn her into another pawn for the gods.”

  “Holy fires of the hells.” The thief sighed and slumped back down in his chair.

  His eyes scanned the very damning paperwork in front of him, and he resisted the impulse to shove it into his pack and make for the window then and there.

  The paladin—no, the former Fateweaver—sat on the edge and studied her hands.

  He absently scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “So when I asked if you were the first paladin in history to betray her god—”

  “—you were right,” she finished for him.

  “By Honor’s hairy ass,” he muttered under his breath. “I was just trying to get a rise out of you.”

  She frowned at him, but the anger didn’t last. She looked down at the floor and rubbed her eyes.

  “Birdie and I…” She coughed and corrected herself. “Evelyn and I are heretics, technically. We abandoned the order when Destiny commanded she be sent off to Prosperity’s courts like some common whore. You don’t know what they do to people like her there. They… they just…”

  Nora drifted off again.

  “People like her?” Cade pressed gently.

  He could feel the thin ice that they stood upon. One wrong move and this moment would shatter irreparably.

  Nora glanced up at him briefly and nodded once, her raven-black hair a veil over her cheeks. “She’s a siren. The stars of fate sing to her—whisper secrets only she can hear. Those truths are more precious than dragon scale and more dangerous than most gods. She’s only at copper rank right now, but it’s difficult to cultivate such a path, as you might imagine. You can’t just ask the stars to hurry up and speak to you more, now can you?”

  She laughed bitterly then, flexing and unflexing her hands.

  “No, I imagine not,” Cade answered honestly. “So you took her away before they could ruin her?

  “Yeah,” Nora admitted with a slow dip of her chin. “But Destiny and the Fateweavers saw it as a direct rebellion against his proclamation of her fate. Lyla, a member of the same sect as me, has been hounding us ever since.”

  “And last night?” Cade pressed gently. “What really happened, Nora?”

  A shadow that had nothing to do with the lantern or the late hour swept over her eyes.

  She swallowed hard, and Cade watched as she wrestled with something inside of her. “Lyla found us. She tortured me, Cade. I almost died.”

  He froze with shock. It only lasted a minute, though, and then he felt raw rage.

  “Where is she?” he demanded, his voice low and deadly.

  She was part of his team, after all, and revenge for things like this came with the territory.

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  Nora shrugged. “I lost track of her when I had to use my…”

  Yet again, she trailed off, and he let the silence settle between them until she was ready to speak again.

  “I’m not…” Nora groaned and gently tapped one fist on the table as she struggled with what she wanted to say. “I wasn’t awakened by Destiny like most of the other paladins. He isn’t picky with his soldiers the way he is with his sirens. Already awakened people can join him anytime, so long as they swear their allegiance and follow orders. Nobody batted an eye when I told them I was awakened but said my core was too weak to be of much use. It was a lie, and they bought it. Then I just drowned out their memory with excellence in every other field.”

  Cade barely dared to breathe. He leaned forward on his elbows and asked the question he’d been pondering since the swamp.

  “You’re the one Astrid told me about, aren’t you?” His inquiry shook Nora out of her stupor, and she finally looked up at him.

  Fire burned in those eyes.

  Fire like his.

  “A Dreadcaller,” Nora hissed the word like it was a curse.

  Cade rose to his feet, scooting his chair back against the wall as he did. He strode over to her, every step loud and purposeful. Nora watched him approach, her warm brown eyes glistening even as rage warred beneath her skin.

  He stuck out his hand.

  After a painfully awkward moment, she hesitantly reached up and shook it.

  “Hi, Nora the Dreadcaller. My name is Cade Stormhollow. I’m a Son of Ruin, apparently, and I have no idea what in the hells that means.”

  Cade waited as she blinked at him, a slow comprehension forming over her face a moment before confusion overwrote it.

  Her hand was warm inside of his.

  “That’s it?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Yeah.”

  “But I’m a monster.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a fighter, Nora. Just like the rest of us.”

  A small smile tugged on the edge of her mouth, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. “This went better than I expected.”

  “No kidding,” he muttered. “I figured you would’ve speared me through with that sword of yours by now.”

  She laughed. “Don’t tempt me.”

  As their soft chuckles slowly faded, their gazes met. He smiled reassuringly, and to his surprise, she blushed.

  That was unexpected.

  Before he could say anything, however, she scrunched up her face in confusion. “Wait, what is a Son of Ruin? I’ve never heard of that classification of magic user before.”

  Cade laughed. “Yeah, me neither, but it doesn’t really scream, ‘invite me over to dinner’ like Dreadcaller, now does it?”

  She laughed louder this time, and he could tell this was her real laugh. It was a bright, delightful sound that burst to life like a sunrise. Cade quite liked it. They shared a glance, and after a long silence between them, Nora gestured at his left arm.

  “How’d you get that? A secret for a secret, and all that.” Her voice was light, but Cade didn’t miss the caution that lurked just beneath the surface.

  He could tell she was not used to sharing, nor having things shared with her if he had to guess.

  Cade weighed his answer, rolling it around on his tongue like a cherry pit until he finally answered. “We’re not in the apricot industry.”

  She gave him a flat look.

  “I know, I know!” He raised his hands defensively, the sleeves of his tunic sliding down his arms and exposing the two very distinct tattoos emblazoned there.

  One throbbed with a menacing purple glow while the other teemed with the green energy of Life. He couldn’t decide which sickened him more.

  With a sigh, he sprawled out his fingers atop the desk, wary to keep them off the drying parchment. “This is a soul curse, Nora. If I don’t acquire a certain item for Scorn, I will die. Based on my best guesses, my time is almost up. I must do it before the tournament has concluded.”

  Nora gasped, revulsion not at his predicament, but at the audacity of Scorn to use such underhanded methods. He could see it plainly across her face. That rage. That righteous indignation.

  Her hand caressed the edge of her sword as if she was ready to slay them all for this injustice.

  “That’s why Rayka was kidnapped isn’t it?” Her brow furrowed when she came to realize the true extent of his predicament. “That person your whole team hates—Hugh—he wants that item too.”

  Cade absently rubbed the back of his neck, bracing himself for her next words.

  “But if you give it to him, you die,” Nora concluded.

  He nodded. It was all he could manage.

  If he let himself linger under the weight of his situation, if he stopped moving long enough to think about it all, he knew it would crush him. So he kept sprinting onward, as it was the only way out between this gods-damned rock and a hard place.

  “I had no idea.” Nora’s lips sealed shut and she shook her head, her black hair shifting brilliantly in the dim light. “Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know all of the details. You said you’re acquiring an item, and it’s obviously something big. You tell me when you’re ready, alright? Just tell me what you need, and I’ll do it.”

  Nora set her shoulders and faced him in full. There, in that small room above the Twisted Oak, he saw her truest self.

  She was powerful.

  While influenced by whatever magic flowed in her veins, it was more than that. She was a pillar of strength. And right then, she looked ready to kick down the gates of the abyss and bellow her challenge.

  “Tell me where Rayka is being held, and I will help how I can, Cade Stormhollow,” she said with such conviction that Cade was left briefly speechless.

  There was a formality to her words that he hadn’t expected. It was like she was making an oath of some kind.

  Stranger still, he believed her. A smile more genuine than any he’d felt in a long time crept over his face.

  “Alright then,” Cade answered hoarsely. “You’re in. Evie, too. Let’s get the others. We have a lot to do, and a very small window to get it all done.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “That’s also what the virgins said.”

  Nora paused at the door, slowly glancing over her shoulder at him with one eye. “You’d know all about that, now wouldn’t you, Stormhollow?”

  Cade was left speechless. Again.

  With a laugh that was far too infectious to be fair to mortals like himself, the heretic Fateweaver waved at him to follow her. “C’mon, Son of Ruin. We have a sister to save.”

  “Right…” Cade murmured before he gathered his parchments and rushed after her, taking the inkpot with him. They’d need it soon.

  They walked in companionable silence before the two soon found the rest of the team waiting in the most secluded corner of the tavern. Most of the lingering regulars had taken position near the front counter and away from their menacing looks.

  Cade breathed in the scents of sour ale and pipeweed as they clung to the thick wood rafters and dark panels of the walls. His entire team, save one painful absence, stared up at him. Nora sat next to Evie, who nudged the paladin in the shoulder affectionately.

  “What’s the plan, boss?” Elena asked, her bandages fresh from their time in the arena’s infirmary.

  “Nora has decided to aid us in getting Rayka back,” he answered with a smile.

  Orro’s shoulders sagged just a fraction at this new development.

  “Me too!” Evie added quickly.

  She laced an arm through Nora’s and smiled knowingly up at Cade. He took her in, the truth of her identity made her interruption of Life’s latest gift all the more fascinating.

  “I would hope so, Evelyn,” he said gratefully. “And I must thank you for your foresight today. A second round of items is most certainly what we needed.”

  Nora stiffened at his choice of words, but she didn’t call him out. No doubt it was to avoid drawing more attention to their backgrounds, so Cade let it go too. Evie giggled and smiled up at him, emerald eyes ablaze with mischief and wisdom.

  A siren.

  He never would’ve suspected it from the curly-haired woman, but who was he to judge? He was a magic user of a dominion thought to be extinct, so having a fledgling oracle in his team was par for the course.

  Gods above and below, their team was already strange enough. Having a siren was just another tick on the box of ‘avoid these people at all costs if you want a normal life.’

  “I personally would’ve preferred a house in the Royal District. It would’ve been great to invite Emily out to it for dinner,” Jer mused.

  “Seriously, who is he talking about?” Cade asked with a smirk.

  He got the reaction he wanted when Jer jumped out of his chair and began to ramble animatedly about the hotel clerk.

  “Shut up,” Orro cut off the tirade from Jer, whose mouth practically frothed with frenetic excitement.

  The assassin gestured for Cade to begin his explanation.

  “Thank you, Or. Yes, I have a plan.”

  Cade began to pace, his steps slow and elegant.

  “I don’t know if you all heard, but there’s a deal going on in Elysia. A limited time only.” He steepled his fingers together beneath his chin and glanced at his team. “If you buy one heist, you can get another for free.”

  “Wait, we’re still going after the… apricot?” Elena asked hesitantly.

  “And Rayka?” Orro added cautiously.

  “Oh, yes.” Cade smiled at his team, though it had more in common with the dragon present than the humans. “We’re going to do two heists at the same time.”

  “How?!” Jer demanded in unison with Gavin and Elena.

  “Here’s how,” Cade replied and set down the sheets of paper he’d been working on since he returned a few hours back.

  They all leaned in at once, the torchlight hardly sufficient for all to read it from their various angles. Elena shoved past the rest of them and scooped up the sheets. Cade waited as an evil grin spread across her face.

  “You sly bastard,” the red-headed lockpick whispered.

  “Let me see!” Jer snapped and yanked the sheets out of his sister’s grasp.

  Elena yelped, but he was too quick. He began to laugh, a wild and wicked sound that drew the attention of the few remaining patrons of the Twisted Oak.

  “Will this work?” Gavin asked as he read over Jer’s shoulder, ale forgotten on the table.

  “It’s the best chance we’ve got,” Cade decided to answer, choosing his words carefully.

  He wouldn’t admit how much of this wild plan relied on luck and fate. But he felt he was at least on the right track given that their resident siren set up the first and most important part.

  “You all have your items listed on page three,” Cade instructed. “Memorize them and the justifications I’ve included should that weasel Bazz or any other Lifekeeper ask why you’re requesting those items specifically. We’ll need all these items, so none of you can take no for an answer. And I’m sorry that you can’t get anything that might be more useful, but this is the best shot we have to get Rayka back.”

  “Don’t apologize. We all would’ve given up our slots for more gear anyway,” Elena spoke for all of them.

  Sure enough, the rest of the team nodded along without hesitation or regret. A lump formed in his throat as he took in their trust. Their faith in his plan.

  He wouldn’t let them down.

  Around him, his friends’ smiles began to grow with anticipation. They were used to this part of a heist, the eagerness in those moments before he spelled everything out. He couldn’t wait to see what they thought when they heard the true scope of what he had in mind.

  “As for how it will all play out, here’s what we’re going to do,” Cade began, leaning in over the stained table.

  It was going to be a long night.

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