"Looking for me?" Cora gasped out, "Why?!"

Harry shot Thalia a glance, and she shook her head. "I don't know that yet. It's becoming nearly impossible to tell what the king is planning, even his outmost circles are now carrying iron." Cora thought she could sense defeat in her voice but rejected the sensation instantly. Up until now, it'd been nearly impossible to confound Thalia. She'd known her secrets even before being told, she'd known the answer to questions she was yet to pose. If she truly was overpowered now, there was little they could do.

"We can only hope we'll find out when we enter Evandra," Harry added, "though it might entail having to enter the duke's mansion."

Cora bristled. "You are not walking under the same roof as the king on your own." She didn't even dare to think of what Soren would do if he managed to get his hands on Harry. Not that it would be an easy feat; she still hadn't met anyone powerful enough to subdue him. But Soren had the royal guard and an entire kingdom on his side. Harry only had her, Thalia, and less than half of what had been the Fair. They couldn't go against the crown and survive.

"We have to."

"Then I want you to take me with you."

Thalia raised an eyebrow. "We've just told you the king is looking for you, and you're talking about stepping right before him?" She didn't seem to be angry at her, though. She seemed oddly intrigued, as if she was seeing something they couldn't. Maybe she was.

"I say we can enter the city tomorrow, not long before dusk," Harry interjected, ignoring what Cora had said. "It'll be easier to move around in the darkness."

Thalia nodded, but Cora's eyes widened. "So soon?"

Harry looked at her for a long moment, seeming to want to read into her mind, and then pushed off the table. "May you leave us alone for a moment?" he asked Thalia. "I'd like to talk to Cora for a moment."

"I'll be outside." She left the room, her braid swinging between her shoulder blades. Cora could only catch a glimpse of Raven standing in the corridor before the door was closed, and looked away fast to drown the betrayal she'd recently discovered.

As soon as they were alone, a deep silence fell in the room. The fireplace seemed to turn the air so hot that she could barely breathe. Harry still stood next to the table, looking down, moving away one of the paper sheets with his finger. The expensive clock in the library ticked away, a cold reminder that with every movement of its hands that stars-forsaken mission got closer and closer. Cora wanted to laugh. She was always the one complaining Harry didn't let her do anything dangerous, but now she was the one wishing she could keep him from leaving the house.

"So..." Harry started, seeming to be tasting the meaning of the words before letting them out of his mouth, "will you tell me what's going on in that mind of yours?" He sent her a look, one that was so intense she worried she'd forget how to speak. "Didn't you tell me how important it was to enter the city only a little while ago?"

"You know."

"No, I don't," he murmured in reply. "Why don't you tell me?"

Cora clenched her fists at her side. The tips of her fingers were wet, and she wasn't even surprised by it anymore. Her water always seemed to rush by her side when it sensed her distress, like a pet trying to soothe the cries of its owner. Her gaze drifted to the fireplace. She almost expected to see its fire flare up, or dwindle in a dying flame, following the route of Harry's emotions, but if he was feeling something in that moment, he kept it from his element.

"I don't want anything bad to happen to you." As soon as she let the words out, it was as if a dam had shattered, truths overflowing. "Letting you go terrifies me. You got hurt before, and even though Thalia is here now, I can't shake away the fear I felt that night. It frustrates me how you're always putting yourself in danger, and I hate that I can't shout at you for it because you're doing it to protect everyone else. I wish you'd—" Her voice fell when Harry closed the distance between them and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Nothing will happen to me, Cora," he said, slowly, as if he wanted to convince her with his words alone. "I will be fine."

"You don't know that!" she cried out. "What if the swords of the royal guards are made of iron? I mean, they surely are!" She shuddered at the thought. She still remembered that one night on the continent, when he'd been slashed by an iron sword. She would've never forgotten the fear she'd felt then. It was the first time she'd feared for someone's life.

"The royal guards aren't good enough to overpower me," Harry reassured her, "and neither is the king, or the duke, or anyone else in that city. If it comes to fighting, I will win." He paused for a moment. The fire on her right reflected in his eyes, a heated, piercing shade of golden-green. "But I won't have to fight, because I will be careful. I will gather the information we need and leave again."

"You can't get through the main gates," Cora whispered, gripping his forearms tightly. His hands dropped from her shoulders, and he intertwined his fingers with hers. "They will know you. You're the very symbol of the Fair, Harry." It frustrated her that he couldn't see the danger she did. Was he blind to it, or just reckless?

"I am the symbol of the Fair," he gave in, "but you're wrong on one thing." He gave her a little smile. "I hope you haven't spent enough time around me to forget the voices going around about me."

Cora paused.

A blue coat.

A raised balcony in the Pavilion.

The talk of magic lingering around a figure few people knew about.

And nothing else.

"When I enter Evandra tomorrow, Cora, I will not be donning my signature blue coat," he said. "I'll hide my ears with my hair as I always do, and I'll fade into the crowd."

Cora frowned. She suddenly remembered the night she'd dared to ask him whether he was afraid when he was surrounded by humans. Back then, he'd told her the only emotion he felt in those moments was anger. She wondered if it still burned bright now—had it faded away with time, or was it enough to set an entire city alight? She wished she could've asked, but she feared the answer.

"Soren saw you, in the Pavilion. He was right across you," she insisted. Maybe not well enough to have a profile on him drafted, but definitely enough to put him and a lot of people that somewhat looked at him in trouble.

Harry tilted his head, a tender smile curving his lips as if he knew a detail she ignored the existence of. "Did you truly think I'd let members of the Moonvall dynasty see my face?" he asked. "A glamour was in place, Cora. He saw nothing but an empty balcony the entire time."

Cora felt a pang in her chest. She did feel a little silly, now, for not having thought about it herself. Harry hadn't gone to such lengths to keep his identity secret just to have it revealed to none other than the royal family in the blink of an eye. Still... "There are people that have seen you in the Pavilion." She remembered the first time she'd stepped into the midnight blue tent; everyone had seen him when he'd come to his seat. "He could've asked them."

"Unless he asked them in the wake of a fire that killed their king, it won't be a problem," Harry said. "Remember how I once told you of the spells in the Pavilion? Within three days, none of our guests remembers anything that they saw inside, including me."

Cora's tension eased a little, and she would've fallen to her knees if Harry hadn't still been holding her hands.

"I will be fine, Cora," he repeated. "It won't be easy, but it isn't the first time I do something like this. You must trust I know how to make it out alive."

"Alive isn't enough."

"It's better than dead."

"That's a meagre improvement." The risk wasn't as high as she'd anticipated, but the thought of him going didn't feel quite right to her. Her emotions were tangled, ideas wild.

He gave her a slight tilt of his head. "We take what we can get." He studied her face for an instant, and Cora had the distinct sensation that there was a question on the tip of his tongue. Right when she'd started to accept that he wouldn't have voiced it, he spoke. "Are you all right, now?"

Her knees suddenly felt weak, and she had to swallow to keep tears from streaming down her face. She couldn't tell why she was so overwhelmed—if she was at all. Maybe her stress had ramped up the tension of her magic so high that she had to let go of it in some way. But she wasn't about to cry in front of Harry, and especially not because he'd asked her a simple question. "I'm fine."

He smiled. "I'm glad." He glanced to the door. "Can I continue planning with Thalia, now?"

Cora nodded, and he kissed the back of her hand, his eyes not leaving hers.

"I'll see you later."

When she walked out of the room, Thalia sent her a long look that seemed to say a thousand things. But in the end she didn't say any and walked inside, closing the door of the library again.

Raven was still there, next to the door. Cora wondered what they'd talked about—if they'd spoken at all. She hadn't heard voices outside, but she'd been quite distracted.

She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes, so she walked away. She wasn't sure she knew how to deal with his betrayal—she didn't even know what to do with the knowledge of what had happened. In a way, it was ridiculous to think anyone could turn into a bird, but she was the first to recognise that, when it came to magic, she didn't know that much at all. Did Harry know? If he did, why hadn't he told her?

Deep down, though, she knew he didn't. Raven had told her not to tell him, which made her wonder a thousand things and solve none.

Maybe she should put to use the key Harry had gifted her the day before, right before Thalia's arrival. If he didn't have her answers, maybe he at least owned a book that did.

"Miss Cora."

She ignored the call and kept walking.

A hand closed around her wrist. "Please, if you'd only let me explain..."

She spun around and freed her wrist. "I don't want to hear your explanation," she blurted, "not now. The least you can do is leave me alone."

Raven took a step back, eyes wide.

Cora turned around and stalked down the corridor.

The white light of Harry's stars greeted her as soon as she stepped into the entrance. She sent them a quick look, their silver shine enough to soothe her nerves, and then turned into the dining hall, furrowing her eyebrows when she discovered Oden was sitting at a corner of the table.

"Hello," she greeted him, stepping closer.

He looked up; he seemed to have grown up a bit since the last time she'd seen him weeks before. Some of the shine that had characterised his dark purple eyes was gone, now. "Hi."

"What are you doing?" Cora asked tentatively, occupying one of the free seats.

He lifted a small wooden ball for her to see. "Always the same thing," he replied. He brushed his finger over it and, to her surprise, it turned into a rose. A real rose, with dewy white petals so fragile she feared they would've crumbled to the ground at his simple touch.

She let out a gasp, and he smiled.

"I got better at glamours, see?"

She remembered the first time she'd seen him, when he'd shown her that half-carved wooden rose. It didn't stand the comparison to the flower in his hand, now. "I see."

Oden sighed, and the image wavered and flickered as he let the glamour drop. In the matter of a few instants, he was holding the sphere again. He threw it in the air and watched as it hovered above the table. "I got much better at magic, overall," he continued, furrowing his eyebrows. "Can I show you something?"

"Sure."

He didn't detach his gaze from the sphere. "Will you promise not to tell Iris, or Thalia, or anyone?"

Now it was Cora's turn to frown. "Is it something bad?"

"I'm not sure," he replied honestly. "Do you promise?"

She nodded. "I promise."

He smiled. "This isn't a glamour," he said as a warning.

Cora opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but all of a sudden the sphere between them caught fire. An intense golden flame of the same colour of the candles that were illuminating the room twisted and turned around the wooden ball, consuming it piece by piece, turning it to the shade of charcoal.

Cora's eyes widened. "I thought your ability was air?"

"It is."

Cora was left speechless. She didn't expect such a display of power from him—in truth, from anyone that wasn't Harry. Fire was a notoriously hard element to control, it wasn't possible for fays whose ability didn't revolve around it to do what Oden had just done. Or at least, it hadn't been possible, until now.

She watched the sphere burn. Until now, the magical fires she'd seen had been made by Harry. They were warm, terrifying at times, but familiar. Oden's fire was different. She felt no connection to it—it was nothing more than the light of a candle, flames in the fireplace.

For the first time, she understood what Harry meant. Until now, she'd always thought she was oddly attracted by magic in itself. Now, though, she could see that the only thing she'd ever been attracted to was Harry's magic. His power called to hers just as hers called to him. All the sensations she felt when he used his magic around her, that she'd associated to normal power, were missing now. And they were missing because the magical display didn't belong to Harry.

In the library, her fingertips had turned wet when Harry had made the fireplace flare—she'd associated it to tension then, but now she wondered if, maybe, that hadn't been her reaction to Harry using magic instead. After all, he'd once told her that her magic awakened something in him—what if his did the same to her?

"What is it?"

Cora turned to look at Oden. "Nothing. I was only thinking."

He frowned. "Do you think I'm in danger?" he asked faintly. "Iris told me there are bad fays that hunt the ones with powers that are not normal."

The Orders.

She could've made up some lie, but she decided against it. In some cases, it was better to tell the truth. "I don't know." She could ask Ives, she thought, but she didn't trust him enough for that. For all she knew, he would've come after them bringing his entire Order at the mention of unordinary magic.

The light thud of steps came from Cora's right, and she froze the flaming wooden sphere over a moment before Iris entered the room. The ball fell from the air, and she grabbed it before it could crash against the table and reveal its darkened core.

"Doing anything interesting?" Iris asked, nearing the table.

"Just some training," Cora said, lifting up the ice sphere. It made her feel a little guilty to lie to her like that, but she'd promised.

Iris nodded and sat with them. A huge spider ran across the table, and she screamed and jumped back. Her chair fell over.

Oden laughed, and Iris shot him a glare. "Very funny."

"Sorry," he apologised, snapping his fingers. The spider disappeared. It'd only been a glamour—an extremely believable one, but still not real.

"Why don't you go see if Emilia needs help with dinner? She's in the kitchen," Iris told him, and he stood, walking to the door at the end of the room. "Oh, and no glamours!" she shouted after him, earning some inaudible reply. She sent Cora a look. "Will you believe me if I say it's the third time he scares me with a spider, and I fall for it every single time? Those things are way too believable."

Cora chuckled. "It was a little funny, though."

Iris sighed. "Don't get me started."

Cora fidgeted with the decoration on the side of the table, debating whether to speak or not. "Did something happen between you and Thalia?" she asked in the end. "You seemed angry earlier."

Iris leaned back against the chair, hiding her face in her hands. "I am angry," she replied. "She promised she would stop putting herself in danger, but she's entering the city tomorrow. I can't risk anything happening to her, Cora. I lost my home, my family, my friends. I can't lose her too."

"She's going with Harry. I'm sure he won't let anything happen to her," Cora reassured her. There were very few things she could say she was certain of, but she had no doubt Harry would do everything in his power to make sure Thalia came back home safely, because that was what he did. He put himself in danger to protect everyone else.

"I'm not willing to risk it," Iris said hopelessly. "She means everything to me. Too much was taken from me in life, and she can't become one of them too. I need her to be safe. And I hate that I can't protect her, but I hate it even more when she walks into danger and leaves me behind. Why is it that she expects me to be always safe, but I can't do the same with her?"

Her words resonated a little too close to Cora. She knew all too well what it meant to be left behind, to wait around while the people she cared about faced danger without her. "I'm sure she wouldn't want you to feel this way. You could talk to her," she suggested, though her own experience proved talking hardly solved anything. But Thalia wasn't like Harry. Cora didn't know her that well, but she knew she was used to following Harry on his missions, no matter how dangerous they were, but wasn't used to having someone care about her. And sure, perhaps she should've known because it was her ability to know things, but maybe she deemed the possibility so absurd that she hadn't even thought of asking the question.

Iris sighed. "I don't want her to think I'm annoying."

"She wouldn't." She didn't need Thalia's ability to know she could've never found Iris annoying. She wished Iris could see it as well.

"I'll try." Iris raised her gaze to look at something behind Cora, and she turned around as well. Raven had come into the room.

"I'm here to inform you the meeting is over."

Cora tensed up, and so did Iris.

"I need to talk to her," she muttered, standing up. "I'll never forgive myself if I don't at least try and then something happens." She dashed out of the room, leaving Cora and Raven alone.

Cora cleared her throat and stood up. "I should go talk to Harry," she said, taking it as her excuse to flee from the dining hall as well.

"He's in his rooms," Raven said behind her.

She got up the stairs quickly, but as soon as she was on Harry's floor she realised she couldn't talk to him without at least trying to change his mind one last time, and she couldn't bring herself to take another step. If something happened, she would regret not talking to him right now—but she already knew what he would say. Sometimes, he was predictable in the worst possible way. She leaned against the wall, unable to do anything but stare at his blue door.

Some moments passed and time stretched in on itself, and when the sun drew close to the end of its arch, the door opened.

Harry stepped out and gave her a puzzled look. "Cora?" he murmured, taking a step towards her.

She looked at him for a long moment, and then she pulled him into a wordless hug. She let his scent of pinewood and snow soothe her, silence the deafening thoughts in her mind, and then, at last, she spoke. "Be careful tomorrow," she whispered. "Come back to me."

Harry held her tighter. "I will."