Page 71 of A House of Fangs & Deceit

“All of those books”—Alaric waved his hand at the table piled high with boxes behind Roth—“are about the Unseelie Fae?”

“Yes,” Roth said with confidence. “And I know that I’ve seen that symbol in one of them.” They scrunched up their nose at what had to be over a hundred books. “I just don’t know which one.”

The three of us peered at the table stacked to the brim.

“Looks like we have a lot of reading in our future,” I said. My stomach rumbled, and I patted it. “But first, let’s get some lunch.” When Roth started to protest, I cut them off. “We need to fill you in on everything anyway. I had to keep that letter vague, but that blood symbol I sent you is just one of the many mysteries we’re currently attempting to unravel.”

They scoffed, “Obviously. I’m guessing it’s connected to all the outposts that have been attacked over the past year.” Roth looked around the library again. “It’s really disappointing that House Harker doesn’t have a grander library than this. You should work on that when you eventually take over the House.”

I gaped at Roth, and I was pretty sure that Alaric had a similar expression on his face. My mouth struggled to form words, but finally, I managed to string something coherent together.

“You know?” I said in a high-pitched voice as my gaze darted to where the blood symbol on the wall beside the doors was still giving off a faint glow. The tightness between myshoulders eased a fraction when I noticed our silencing spell was still in place, so nobody heard Roth just casually mention the secret that the Sovereigns were determined to keep quiet.

Alaric snapped his mouth shut and regained his composure before giving Roth a hard stare. “How? How do you know this, Roth?”

“Because I’m not an idiot?” They glanced back and forth between us, clearly confused as to why we were surprised by this.

Alaric had that look on his face that said he was one step away from strangling somebody. It was weird to see it directed at someone besides me. I gave myself five seconds to enjoy that before turning my attention back to Roth.

“The Sovereigns are determined to keep the attacks quiet so that the outposts don’t panic. We need to know how you learned about the attacks, Roth,” I said carefully.

“Well, Drudonia monitors certain shipments between all the outposts and outside of the Moroi realm. Anything that contains the rarer resources is tracked. Partly to make sure nobody steals supplies, but also to study how quickly we go through certain gems and minerals so we can create comparisons.” Roth paused and looked at us like we were children. “With me so far?”

“We’re not idiots,” Alaric growled. “We understand how supply chains work and why it would behoove us to study how our resources are being used so we can anticipate shortages in the future and have potential backup plans in place.”

Roth blinked. “Sorry. I sometimes forget that other people aren’t entirely useless.”

Alaric turned his glare to me as if to say,“You brought them here, therefore, this is your problem.”

I withheld an exasperated sigh. “Okay, and how did all that lead you to uncovering what was going on with the attacks?” I attempted to prod Roth along so that Alaric didn’t completelylose his mind. Apparently, someone existed who frustrated him more than me.

Although, seeing as I was responsible for bringing Roth here, I suspected he’d be directing all this new frustration at me. Yay.

“There is an outpost two days from Drudonia that has a vendor who makes these delicious treats. She used some type of flakey pastry and honey.” Roth’s eyes momentarily glazed over at the memory before they continued. “I know the rangers who usually deliver supplies to that outpost, so I checked in with them before their next expected trip, but they said they’d been reassigned to a different outpost. So then I tried to track down who had been assigned to the outpost, but nobody had. At that point, I thought maybe it was just a mistake, so I reviewed all the schedules and trade routes.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Roth was too curious and too smart for their own good. Fortunately for all of us, they hated talking to people, so they hadn’t immediately started gossiping about this.

“After some more discreet checking, I determined that the most logical explanation was that these outposts had been attacked, but since they weren’t on the main road like the others, it was fairly easy to keep that secret.” Roth tapped a long, slender finger on their bottom lip. “Given that at this point, about half of Moroi population lives in outposts like the ones that have been attacked, and we not only don’t have space to relocate everyone to the Houses, but we also depend on these outposts for resources and securing trading routes, it made sense to keep it all quiet so we don’t have a massive panic on our hands.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” I bit my bottom lip. “Everyone who lives in an outpost right now is in danger, and they don’t know it.”

Roth just looked at me, eyebrows bunched in confusion. “True, but they don’t know that. As I previously said, there isn’t space for everyone within the House fortresses. Plus, over forty percent of our crops are grown at outposts now. All the stability that we’ve gained over the last century would be at threat of collapsing if the outposts are abandoned.”

Apparently, I was the only one struggling with the ethicalness of this decision. “I understand all that,” I said with a sigh. “It still bothers me, though.”

To my surprise, Alaric nodded. “It doesn’t quite sit well with me either, but ultimately it’s the Sovereigns’ decision, so all we can do is try to figure out what’s going on and how to stop it.”

My stomach rumbled loudly again. “I’ll have some tea and lunch brought up. We’ll fill you in on all the details while we eat, and then we’ll dive in.”

The three of us stared at the daunting stack of books and scrolls. Maybe we’d get lucky and find the symbol right away with a detailed explanation of what it did and a map pointing to the bad guys.

I was overdue for a bit of good luck.

Chapter Seventeen

Samara

The moon did not blessme with good luck. It did, however, bless Rynn.

---