The ECISI carriage enclosed Lyrani and Morloy in a ball of cool shadow, out of reach of the long, feeble fingers of the sun. Lyrani turned to her friend. He didn't notice, instead staring out of his window at the countryside whizzing past, at the flashes of trees crowned with golden leaves and little wooden homes that were one with the forest around them.

Lyrani had visited the other two elf states and the capital city of Vlitavia. Each of them possessed their own beauty, but there was something uniquely Irylenian about the gabled roofs and the trapezoid cut windows peeking out at her from between the russet leaves. These were the little details that reminded her, even in a very similar forest, that she wasn't home.

Lyrani rested her hand in the crook of her friend's arm, leaning against him. "I know you're busy, Morloy. You didn't have to escort me or let ECISI send a courtesy carriage for me. I could've walked to the station."

As Dessie had pointed out so many times, all Lyrani had to carry was a backpack. She could've reached the station on foot. The problem was getting there on time, but Lyrani would've made a plan. She always did. That was what it meant to be a secret agent—to think on her feet, to regain her balance faster than circumstances could topple her.

ECISI had a steady stream of injured agents coming into headquarters every day, some with little wounds, some merely inches from death. That was where Morloy should be, saving the lives that needed his healing hand, not here with Lyrani.

"Did you honestly have time to walk, Lyr?" asked Morloy as if he had read Lyrani's thoughts, his gaze still fixed somewhere beyond the window.

"Fair enough. You and Des call me Always-late Lyrani for a reason, right?" She nudged him, keeping her tone as light as his words despite the heaviness that seemed to weigh down his being. "I really appreciate the favour, you know."

A dimple punctured Morloy's cheek, but he didn't answer. Lyrani had seen this before, the curt replies, the evasive questions, the calloused umber fingers picking at the loose cotton threads hanging from his white healer tunic.

She always wondered whether the dark matter wedged under Morloy's nails was dirt or dried blood. She always wondered whether he ever noticed it or whether he had grown used to it the way Lyrani had become accustomed to diving into a new mission before she had even caught her breath after the previous one.

Morloy had come to do Lyrani a favour, but he was the one who needed her now, more than she needed him.

"What's worrying you?" she asked softly.

Morloy took a breath and released it. For a moment, Lyrani thought he was gathering his courage to make a surprising admission, but he only said, "Nothing. Just work."

"Don't insult me, Morloy. I've lived with you long enough to know when something is wrong." Lyrani studied his face.

The truth he wouldn't tell her was there, in his furrowed brow, in the gnawing of his teeth at his lip.

As if aware that Lyrani was gathering evidence against him, Morloy flattened his mouth into a stubborn line that gave nothing away. "We've been living apart long enough for my problems not to be your concern anymore, Lyr."

Lyrani sighed, settling her eyes on the path ahead of them. She loved Morloy, but she hated when he turned her words into a weapon he could hurl at her. It was something he was annoyingly good at doing.

"My friendship doesn't come with conditions, Morloy. You moving out of our cottage doesn't mean I don't care about you. It doesn't mean I don't want to know what's bothering you or that I don't sometimes wish we could be the way we were, even though our lives are always changing." Although Lyrani spoke to him, her gaze rested on the horizon, one of the few elements of her life that were as steady as she'd like the rest of it to be.

She had seen Morloy every day, once. They'd had dinner every evening, discussing their missions and gossiping about their colleagues. As one of ECISI's contracted healers, Morloy belonged to the select few Lyrani could let behind the curtain that divided her from her friends who didn't work in secret intelligence. Now, she was lucky to catch a glimpse of him at headquarters. They would have a quick lunch together if they were both free at the same time, but Morloy had put up a barrier of his own.

Lyrani tried not to resent Morloy getting married because she was happy that he was happy, but sometimes it felt like he was leaving her behind, even if he didn't mean to.

She was about to give up on convincing him to confide in her and release his arm, but he caught her hand and held it there. His palm was rough against her skin as it always was but warm with the magic it contained.

"Lyr, I'm sorry." Morloy's dark eyes finally met hers.

They reminded Lyrani that, to her, he would always be the little orphan who had stumbled into the orchard behind Esch House in the middle of her and Dessie's game of hide and seek.

"I wish things could be as they always were, but the realm around us is changing so quickly." He shook his head, his eyes distant and preoccupied once again. "There are more and more patients every day. I can barely keep up."

"But that's not what's bothering you." Lyrani made her observation gently so that she wouldn't spook her friend and send him flapping into the air like a bird startled by her light, elven footfalls.

"No, it isn't." Morloy sighed, pulling his gaze from beyond the window to Lyrani right beside him. "This morning, Gazana left to go ghost hunting."

"Which isn't anything out of the ordinary." Lyrani tilted her head.

Gazana was not only Morloy's wife but the head of ECISI's paranormal unit and the greatest fear of every stray spirit in the realm. Ghost hunting was her life the way dressmaking was Dessie's.

"But it's different this time." The fear flooding Morloy's eyes shook Lyrani to the core. "ECISI has sent her to hunt down the scene of a massacre."

Lyrani's mouth fell open. How had she not heard of this until now? ECISI had gotten better at preventing snippets of missions from floating around among agents who weren't involved in that assignment, which worked in her favour sometimes but not always.

A shiver passed through Lyrani as though one of the souls Gazana was tracking had lost their way and stopped to tap her on the shoulder to ask for directions. She knew how it felt to have a spirit brush against her. She would never forget Queen Rayn's ghostly touch.

"This shouldn't be happening," she said, her eyes wide. "We eliminated Queen Rayn so that there'd never be a killing of this scale ever again."

Morloy's jaw tightened, a flicker of fury that was rare for him. Whether it was for Rayn, Nash or the realm, Lyrani didn't know.

He glanced at the carriage driver, but the elf was in his own world, staring straight ahead at the path to the station in a silence that was as eerie as it was convenient.

"I'm swearing you to secrecy on this, Lyr." Morloy lowered his voice.

"No need to tell me twice," Lyrani murmured. Her agent's brain had kickstarted, wondering if Gazana's mission had anything to do with hers.

Perhaps it didn't. There was much unrest throughout the realm, driven by different clans with different objectives. Or perhaps it did because that unrest was all in one elf's name.

"Apparently Keehege detected some kind of spiritual activity north of their borders a week ago. They deduced that a disturbance of that magnitude must have been due to a mass murder. They handed their case over to their paranormal unit, but when they hit a dead end, ECISI assigned Gazana and her team to the mission."

Lyrani shook her head. It was sickening that these kinds of atrocious crimes were still happening in the realm, but she had been the fool for thinking that removing one vengeful spirit could heal the decades' worth of wounds she had inflicted on the realm during three reigns.

"You know that even hundreds of spirits would be no match for ECISI's paranormal team, right?" Lyrani squeezed Morloy's arm.

Gazana wasn't alone. She had Tolorn, who was much cleverer when it came to trapping spirits than he was with daisy-gathering. She also had Favian, Lyrani's irritating ex-boyfriend. What he lacked in sincerity he made up for with brute physical strength. It may be Gazana Ailk's name all spirits feared and revered, but she wouldn't have earned that reputation without her team.

"I know." Morloy gave a weak smile. "But I'm afraid of whatever or whoever was responsible for the massacre. I don't doubt that Gazana can take down a colony of ghosts. But what if she's ambushed by a belligerent clan or a newly-awakened mythical monster?"

"Then I would pity the clan and the monster." Lyrani took his hand, but the jostling of the carriage over a hump in the road pulled them apart.

As he braced himself against the carriage wall, Morloy gave Lyrani a reluctant smile, cautious with hope. "Really?"

"Really." For the first time when speaking her support of Gazana, Lyrani's words felt hollow.

The truth was, she believed in Gazana and admired her skill, but she didn't know what any of them would face. She couldn't say with certainty what any of them could handle in these strange, unsteady times.

But she knew what she would want someone to tell Nash if this was him worrying about her, and she knew that she had to make herself believe her words before she could convince Morloy of them.

The realm was ancient, pockmarked and scarred by aeons of wars and betrayal that an elf who had only lived in it for little over two decades couldn't begin to understand. It was entirely possible that the mass murder Gazana was investigating had nothing to do with Lyrani's mysterious new mission or Nash, but somehow she couldn't quite convince herself of that.

The carriage came to a bumpy stop outside a set of glass doors thrown open into the afternoon. Through them, all manner of folk poured outside, enchantresses with wands glowing with power, samodivas with flowing, golden hair, and gruff little trolls whose smiles looked like frowns.

The doors led into a sprawling building crafted from shimmering grey stone that was as familiar to her as ECISI headquarters. Behind it, smoke rose into the air in plumes as the trains huffed their impatience at the passengers who waited to board them.

Like the horizon, Irylen Station was one of the few places in the realm that never changed.

The carriage driver threw the door open for Lyrani with a hurried air she wasn't used to. The last time she had stepped out of a carriage, she had been on the arm of a king and addressed as "my lady".

Lyrani climbed out of the carriage as quickly as her bag-laden arms would allow her to, letting out a relieved breath when her feet touched the ground without her falling over along the way. Morloy stepped out after her, silent although she knew his mind was not so.

"Morloy..." Lyrani looked back at him.

She didn't know what to say, but there had to be something that could make him feel better. She couldn't leave him like this knowing that he'd be alone, worrying about Gazana and now her.

"Trust us, and trust in our abilities. We have been trained for a myriad of situations. We may not always be able to avoid a fight, but we will do our utmost to survive it." Lyrani fidgeted with the ends of her backpack straps. "Gazana is going to be fine. So am I, if you were worried."

"Of course I worry about you too, Lyr." Morloy put a hand on her shoulder. It was a subdued gesture compared to the grin she had expected him to flash, accompanied by a joke that never disguised his concern as much as he hoped it would.

That was how she knew she had never seen Morloy this worried, and that terrified her more than anything he had told her.

"Ah, before I forget..." He slid his hand into his bulging pocket and withdrew a parcel wrapped in paper. "For you." He held it out to Lyrani.

She took it. The package was warm against her hands. There was something soft but heavy inside, within the box contained by the paper.

"What's this?" Lyrani frowned up at Morloy.

There it was, that grin Lyrani missed so much. "You get one guess, and if you get it wrong, you lose out."

Lyrani looked back at the package, studying it for clues. Through the paper, she could make out the faint logo of a rose sprouting from a steaming loaf of bread.

A smile spread over her face. "You got me cornflower pancakes from Rosebud."

"What's a mission farewell without your favourite treat from the best bakery in Irylen?" Morloy grinned.

Lyrani looked up at him, holding back the silly tears scratching at her eyes. It reminded her of the days when Morloy would send her off on every assignment. It reminded her how things had been and that they would never be the same again.

The carriage driver cleared his throat with his familiar hastiness. Lyrani got the hint loud and clear. She stood on her tiptoes and pecked Morloy's cheek. "What would I do without you?"

"Last call for the 14:30 to Yidelhorn!" boomed a voice from a loudspeaker somewhere inside Irylen Station.

"You'd never be on time for your train, that's what!" Morloy shook his head.

Lyrani glanced down at her wristwatch. "I need to run!" She would've liked to slide her cornflower pancakes into her rucksack, but there was no time. Her train would be leaving in two minutes, with or without her.

She would've also liked to wave back at Morloy, but she didn't have time for that either.

As she entered the station and sank into the bustle of fairy families and human couples gathering their luggage and collecting their tickets, she didn't feel a sense of relief of finally arriving here, one step closer to the mission that awaited her. She only sank into a deep, nauseating sense of impending doom that even her excitement to see Nash couldn't shake off.

She had been counting down the days until she would arrive at his palace. It had been too long since she had enjoyed his embrace, but it wasn't the warmth of him that was on her mind.

It was the fear that she would be too late, that this latest threat to him would reach him before she could.