Since they returned the place has been more lively than it had been in a good long while.

  Being summoned to the field had raised the collective adrenaline of the camp enough to make the place feel far more crowded.

  The halls echoed with voices gossiping about the meeting Elissa had called.

  Some seemed hopeful, while a good deal others still suspected espionage.

  Everyn was past the point of expecting an elaborate trap from this one pitiful Demon, but she didn’t share the same stupid optimism as the others.

  While unlikely, she supposed it wasn’t impossible that one or two Demons could be above working for the Fae, but that didn’t make them any less guilty of the atrocities they committed, whatever their justification.

  But equally unlikely was the insinuation that she planned on helping in any meaningful way. They could easily feed Elissa just enough information to keep themselves useful enough to earn their keep.

  Pretending Cora’s motivations were anything but self-serving was a level of naivete Everyn almost wished she could share. Having that sort of hope and trust must be far more comfortable.

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  “You’re going to make yourself bleed,” Valan commented calmly while he gently unknotted her hair as she rested against his chest.

  She was biting her lip again, a habit Valan readily pointed out to her wherever she was deep in thought. Though his warning came just barely too late as she tasted iron on the tip of her tongue.

  Though his Runebind gave him better sight, she couldn’t actually see through the back of her head. How he always knew she was doing it with uncanny accuracy, she’d never know.

  “Do you believe anything Cora says?” Everyn asked him suddenly.

  His fingers slow their idle movement, “I believe she and the one she brought back want nothing to do with the Fae. And I want to believe others do too.” he replied pensively.

  “You want to, but you don’t.”

  He let out a sigh, “No.”

  “Why?” She found herself questioning, though she certainly didn’t disagree.

  “They’ve been nothing but monsters haunting our nightmares for as long as history has been recorded. It just seems unlikely that only now someone would have fought back.”

  Everyn nodded.

  She’d had the same thought many times. Though something about it irked her in a way she couldn’t quite figure out.

  Maybe part of her also wished the Demon could be believed.