So she peeled back the collar of her tunic to reveal a thin necklace of scars. “Baba Yellowlegs, Matron of the Yellowlegs Witch-Clan, gave me these when she tried to kill me. I cut off her head, then cut her corpse into little bits, then shoved it all into the oven of her wagon.”

“I wondered who killed Yellowlegs.” She could have embraced him for that sentence alone—for the lack of fear or disgust in those eyes.

She walked to the buffet table and pulled out a bottle of wine from inside the cabinet. “I’m surprised you beasts didn’t drink all my good alcohol these past months.” She frowned at the cabinet. “Looks like one of you got into the brandy.”

“Ren’s grandfather,” Aedion said, tracking her movements from his spot by the window. She opened the bottle of wine and didn’t bother with a glass as she slumped onto the couch and swigged.

“This one,” she said, pointing to a jagged scar by her elbow. Aedion came around the couch to sit beside her. He took up nearly half of the damn thing. “The Pirate Lord of Skull’s Bay gave that to me after I trashed his entire city, freed his slaves, and looked damn good while doing it.”

Aedion took the bottle of wine and drank from it. “Has anyone ever taught you humility?”

“You didn’t learn it, so why should I?”

Aedion laughed, and then showed her his left hand. Several of the fingers were crooked. “In the training camps, one of those Adarlanian bastards broke every finger when I mouthed off. Then he broke them in a second place because I wouldn’t stop swearing at him after.”

She whistled through her teeth, even as she marveled at the bravery, the defiance. Even as pride for her cousin mingled with the slightest tinge of shame for herself. Aedion yanked up his shirt to reveal a muscled abdomen where a thick, jagged slash plunged from his ribs to his belly button. “Battle near Rosamel. Six-inch serrated hunting knife, curved on the tip. Rutting prick got me here”—he pointed to the top, then dragged his finger down—“and sliced south.”

“Shit,” she said. “How the hell are you still breathing?”

“Luck—and I was able to move as he dragged it down, keeping him from gutting me. At least I learned the value of shielding after that.”

So they went on through the evening and the night, passing the wine between them.

One by one, they told the stories of the wounds accumulated in the years spent apart. And after a while, she peeled off her suit and turned to show him her back—to show him the scars, and the tattoos she’d had etched over them.

When she again reclined on the couch, Aedion showed her the scar across his left pectoral, from the first battle he’d fought, when he’d finally been able to win back the Sword of Orynth—her father’s sword.

He padded to what she now considered his room, and when he returned, he held the sword in his hands as he knelt. “This belongs to you,” he said hoarsely. Her swallow was loud in her ears.

She folded Aedion’s hands around the scabbard, even as her heart fractured at the sight of her father’s blade, at what he had done to attain it, to save it. “It belongs to you, Aedion.”

He didn’t lower the blade. “It was just for safekeeping.”

“It belongs to you,” she said again. “There is no one else who deserves it.” Not even her, she realized.

Aedion took a shuddering breath and bowed his head.

“You’re a sad drunk,” she told him, and he laughed.

Aedion set the sword on the table behind him and slumped back onto the couch. He was large enough that she was nearly popped off her own cushion, and she glared at him as she straightened. “Don’t break my couch, you hulking brute.”

Aedion ruffled her hair and stretched his long legs out before him. “Ten years, and that’s the treatment I get from my beloved cousin.”

She elbowed him in the ribs.

Two more days passed, and Aedion was going out of his mind, especially as Aelin kept sneaking out only to return covered in filth and reeking to Hellas’s fiery realm. Going to the rooftop for fresh air wasn’t the same as going out, and the apartment was small enough that he was starting to contemplate sleeping in the warehouse downstairs to have some sense of space.

He always felt that way, though—whether in Rifthold or Orynth or at the finest of palaces—if he went too long without walking through forests or fields, without the kiss of the wind on his face. Gods above, he’d even take the Bane’s war camp over this. It had been too long since he’d seen his men, laughed with them, listened to and secretly envied their stories about their families, their homes. But no longer—not now that his own family had been returned to him; not now that Aelin was his home.

Even if the walls of her home now pushed on him.

He must have looked as caged as he felt, because Aelin rolled her eyes when she came back into the apartment that afternoon.

“All right, all right,” she said, throwing up her hands. “I’d rather have you wreck yourself than destroy my furniture from boredom. You’re worse than a dog.”

Aedion bared his teeth in a smile. “I aim to impress.”

So they armed and cloaked themselves and made it two steps outside before he detected a female scent—like mint and some spice he couldn’t identify—approaching them. Fast. He’d caught that scent before, but couldn’t place it.

Pain whipped his ribs as he reached for his dagger, but Aelin said, “It’s Nesryn. Relax.”

Indeed, the approaching woman lifted a hand in greeting, though she was cloaked so thoroughly that Aedion could see nothing of the pretty face beneath.

Aelin met her halfway down the block, moving with ease in that wicked black suit of hers, and didn’t bother waiting for Aedion as she said, “Is something wrong?”

The woman’s attention flicked from Aedion to his queen. He hadn’t forgotten that day at the castle—the arrow she’d fired and the one she’d pointed at him. “No. I came to deliver the report on the new nests we’ve found. But I can return later, if you two are busy.”

“We were just going out,” Aelin said, “to get the general a drink.”

Nesryn’s shoulder-length night-dark hair shifted beneath her hood as she cocked her head. “You want an extra set of eyes watching your back?”

Aedion opened his mouth to say no, but Aelin looked contemplative. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he knew she was assessing his condition to decide whether she might indeed want another sword among them. If Aelin were in the Bane, he might have tackled her right there.

Aedion drawled to the young rebel, “What I want is a pretty face that doesn’t belong to my cousin. Looks like you’ll do the trick.”

“You’re insufferable,” Aelin said. “And I hate to tell you, Cousin, but the captain wouldn’t be very pleased if you made a move on Faliq.”

“It’s not like that,” Nesryn said tightly.

Aelin lifted a shoulder. “It would make no difference to me if it was.” The bare, honest truth.

Nesryn shook her head. “I wasn’t considering you, but—it’s not like that. I think he’s content to be miserable.” The rebel waved a hand in dismissal. “We could die any day, any hour. I don’t see a point in brooding.”

“Well, you’re in luck, Nesryn Faliq,” Aelin said. “Turns out I’m as sick of my cousin as he is of me. We could use some new company.”

Aedion sketched a bow to the rebel, the motion making his ribs positively ache, and gestured to the street ahead. “After you.”

Nesryn stared him down, as though she could see exactly where his injury was groaning in agony, and then followed after the queen.

Aelin took them to a truly disreputable tavern a few blocks away. With impressive swagger and menace, she kicked out a couple of thieves sitting at a table in the back. They took one look at her weapons, at that utterly wicked suit of hers, and decided they liked having their organs inside their bodies.

The three of them stayed at the taproom until last call, hooded so heavily they could hardly recognize one another, playing cards and refusing the many offers to join other players. They didn’t have money to waste on real games, so for currency they used some dried beans that Aedion sweet-talked the harried serving girl into bringing them.