svartalf assassination

“An assassin entered the stronghold this evening,” she said.
“What?” I asked. “How did that happen? Your security measures are insane.”
“The way such things generally happen,” she said. “Through treachery. The assassin reached my brother’s business chambers. There were explosions, which started the fire. Several guards were wounded. One threw himself between Etri and harm and paid with his life for his loyalty.”
I leaned my head back and felt the anger evaporating, rapidly transmuting to pure anxiety. Someone had tried to knock off what amounted to a head of state and had gotten close. Etri was no insignificant figure in the supernatural world—he was the heaviest hitter I knew of among his people, and they in turn were the most skilled and serious smiths and crafters and designers on the planet. Hell, I’d bought materials I had needed for magical components from them myself, on a regular basis. They were expensive and worth every penny, even back when I hadn’t had an athletic sock filled with diamonds tucked under my mattress for a rainy day.
“I didn’t know,” I said in a much quieter voice. “Who did you lose?”
“Austri,” Evanna said, “who has served our family faithfully for seven hundred years.”
That hit me like a punch in the gut. Austri had been weird, but he’d been a decent guy, and a man who loved his children very much.

Peace Talks Chapter 7, Page 66


“The assassin,” Evanna said without emotion. “A creature well-known to be your frequent ally.”
My heart suddenly fell out of my chest.
The shirtless man curled on the floor of the cage had been beaten savagely. He was shuddering with pain, and maybe shock. There was hardly an inch of skin showing that wasn’t covered in bruises and cuts and drying blood. One of his feet had been … I don’t know what. It looked as if he’d gotten it caught in some kind of industrial machine. It was twisted at an impossible angle and seemed to be given shape only by the shoe containing it.
I recognized the shoe.
I’d seen it on the beach that morning.
The assassin lifted his head toward us. He was missing teeth from a mouth caked with blood. His face was grotesquely swollen, one eye completely shut.
It was my brother.
It was Thomas.

Peace Talks Chapter 7, Page 68