Blinking, I glanced down at my nearly empty plate and nodded.
“And are you done deep-thinking while you stare at a door?”
My lips pursed. “Yes.”
Nektas rose with a half-grin. “I need to go check on my daughter.” He stopped, glancing over his shoulder at me. “You coming?”
I held myself still, even though I wanted to leap from the chair because I was…well, I didn’t want to be an interloper. Feeling entirely unsure of what I was doing, I lifted a shoulder. “I guess?”
“Then let’s go.” Nektas opened the doors. “She’s likely no longer napping and seconds away from crawling out of a window, like her new friend.”
I sighed.
Nektas hadn’t been entirely incorrect. Jadis had been awake, and she was trying to reach the handle on the door that led to the balcony. She rushed her father, chirping and yipping and then greeted me with the same enthusiasm. From there, she took her father’s hand and led us out of the chamber. Once in the hall, she let out a series of excited chirps as she jumped higher, fluttering her wings until she was able to hover for a few seconds.
“That means she’s happy that you’re joining us on her adventure,” Nektas exclaimed.
I smiled, relieved. “As am I.”
Her adventure took us to the main floor and the hall opposite Nyktos’s offices, into some kind of receiving chamber outfitted with formal, stiff-backed chairs and a narrow table. I wondered if meetings or card games were held at that table as Jadis inspected each piece of furniture with an admirable sense of curiosity.
When Nektas left to retrieve a pitcher of water and glasses, I was petrified that something terrible would befall Jadis while he was gone. She kept trying to scale the legs of the desk for some unknown reason, and I’d never been more grateful to see him return.
He wasn’t alone.
A purplish-black-scaled draken only a few feet tall was with Nektas.
Reaver chirped a greeting as he started toward me. He didn’t make it very far. Jadis all but tackled him, wrapping her slender arms around his stomach, trapping one of his wings between them.
I watched them, awed. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to seeing the draken in this form. And to think they could grow to the size of Jadis’s father?
Nektas joined me at the table while his daughter becamesolely focused on playing with Reaver.
Which meant chasing him around the room like a little dirt devil.
“In case you’re wondering,” Nektas said, pouring water into one of the wide cups, “they are always like this.”
I grinned, thinking that Reaver probably wasn’t running as fast as he could.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask what you thought of Ash’s plan,” Nektas said as the two made another wide, wild run around the table. “The whole removing the embers part.”
“I’m…tentatively hopeful.” Tucking a strand of hair back behind my ear, I glanced over at him. “Do you think it will work?”
“I cannot know that.”
I frowned. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“It’s not meant to be.” Nektas caught his daughter’s arm as they made yet another run around the table. He held her still until she took several hasty gulps of water, and then he let her go.
She immediately went back to chasing Reaver.
“Delfai will have answers for us.” Nektas placed the glass back on the table. “But Ash seeks to do what has only been done once before. There’s no telling what is or isn’t possible.”
I hated not knowing and having to wait to find out. “I wish we could go now. I mean, how dangerous can the Vale be?”
“It’s not the Vale that’s dangerous. It’s the road to the Vale,” he explained. “We will need to travel to the Pillars of Asphodel to enter the Vale. Anything can happen between here and the Pillars, and as you should know by now, gods can enter the Shadowlands at will. So can Primals. There are no rules preventing me from burning a god to a crispy stick if I see fit.”
I wrinkled my nose at his choice of words.