Frances shrugged. “I’m a grunt. It’s not like they tell me anything important.”

I smiled. “You’re rat shifter. Secrets are like sweets to your people—you just can’t resist them.”

She laughed, though it fell away to an odd sort of groan. She gripped the wound in her side and said, “It’s not like I owe them any allegiance. Not now. Maran and Seryn are the visible leaders. There’s someone else behind them—someone no one has seen—pulling the strings.”

“You never got a name? Never heard his or her voice?”

“No.” She hesitated. “It’s a male, I know that much. And his actions come from a place of deep revenge.”

“That’s hardly news, given the Looisearch was formed as a means of avenging the dead.”

“Yes, but I’m talking a vengeance forty years in the making that has only found a voice in the last eight months.”

Which was how long Lugh and Nialle had been researching the Claws. Coincidence? Probably not.

The wind stirred, sharing her secrets, and I smiled. The cavalry were in the larger cave. I sent the wind to keep a watch on them and shoved my knives into my belt. They weren’t sheathed, and in any other situation, one wrong move might mean them ending up in my flesh but... I didn’t think that would happen. Not with these knives. Not now.

Frances cocked her head, her expression intent. “I think your cavalry has arrived.”

“Yeah.” I glanced toward the doorway. Cynwrig slipped around the corner, at one with the shadows and almost invisible.

“There’s no one here except us two and the dead,” I said. “But I need you to call out the coast guard. I had to fling Vincentia out to the sea.”

“She can stay there as far as I’m concerned,” Lugh growled as he strode through the door. “She’s no longer family in my books.”

Mathi followed him through the door and, like Cynwrig, began a check of the multiple bodies scattered around the cave.

Lugh glanced at Frances and pointed a finger at her. “Move and there will be unpleasant consequences.”

Frances snorted. “If I’d been able to move very far, I would have been out of here long ago.”

Lugh grunted and squatted down in front of me. “How are you? I mean, you look like shit, but I can’t see anything broken and there’s not much in the way of blood, so I’m calling that a win.”

I smiled tiredly. “A big win, considering everything.”

His gaze went past me and settled on Maran. “What happened here?”

I told him and then added, “I’m not sure what we’re going to do now. We can’t leave the sword here, and we dare not touch it.”

He studied the stone chest for a few seconds, then glanced around. “Cynwrig, would you be able to bury it?”

“Yes, but Seryn will be aware of its location by now and can unearth anything I bury.” Cynwrig bent to check a final body, then strode toward us. His gaze swept me, his expression a mix of relief and concern. “Lugh’s right. You look like shit.”