A House of Cloaks & Daggers (The Gift War #1)

38. What Happened to You?

Chapter thirty-eight

What Happened to You?

K nife-throwing was easy.

Wren astutely decided not to volunteer himself for target practice. Instead, he wheeled out a thickly padded dummy strung up against a pole a bit like a scarecrow, covered in fabric that might have once looked white. Red and black ink had been applied to outline critical areas of the human—or rather, the faerie—body.

I missed a few times, but in the first ten minutes, I hit the red sections thrice and the black sections five times, with minimal instruction. The weight of the knives had thrown me off a little, being so much heavier than the darts at The Water Dragon.

“Beginner’s luck,” Wren muttered.

“The Water Dragon’s Annual Dart Champion, five years and counting,” I corrected with a wink. “I also played netball for seven years. Made it all the way to nationals in goal attack.”

He frowned, casually looping his arm around the dummy’s shoulders like they were old friends. “You played with a what ball?”

“Netball.” I picked up the last throwing knife and weighed it in my hand. My balance was okay as long as I kept my focus away from the razor-sharp edges and pointed tip. It was a simple silver carving, polished to defy the ages, with a much flatter and longer handle than the darts I’d wielded before. “It’s a sport.”

Wren’s beautiful face screwed up into a look of utter confusion. “You—you hit people with balls made out of nets?”

“No.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s a non-contact sport.”

“I don’t like it,” he declared, shaking his head as he straightened up and removed his arm from the dummy. “I enjoy many things that involve a great deal of contact indeed.”

When he turned around, I made an exaggerated gagging face at the ground, and then I threw the last of the knives towards the red circle outlining the dummy’s heart.

My aim was perfect, and the blade plunged into the target all the way down to the slight outwards curve before the handle.

Apparently, faeries did have hearts—and they were in the same place as mine. Wren told me that if my aim was true and my arm was strong, I could kill one of them with a knife to the heart.

Not him, he added with a smirk, but perhaps another faerie.

Immortality was a concept I still didn’t fully understand. To live forever—but only if you were lucky enough not to be killed by any of the monsters lurking within this realm.

“Your ability to throw things at people is passable,” he commented reluctantly, striding to the thick wooden bench along the wall. Weapons and objects that didn’t look at all familiar to me were lined up on strips of old cloth and leather. “Your perception of things is severely lacking, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He picked up a small blade with a finely crafted golden hilt, twirled it in his hand, and put it back. “You didn’t notice the caenim until it had almost clawed out your spine.”

Instinctively, I opened my mouth to argue, but he was right.

“It’s unlikely that you’ll find yourself in a situation like that again,” he went on, sidestepping along the table with his back still turned to me, “unless you pull another half-brained stunt like that. But if magic is still so repulsive to you, then—”

A blade came slicing through the air as Wren whirled on me.

I barely had time to move out of the way before it whooshed past me, not even a hair’s breadth away from where I was standing.

Adrenaline seized my heart, stabbing through it like it was the knife Wren had thrown at me.

Swearing viciously, I checked to make sure he wasn’t about to pelt another sharp object in my direction before I started screaming at him.

“What is wrong with you?” My voice broke at its highest pitch. “What in the hell was that for?”

He shrugged, leaning back on his hands, and angled his face towards the light pouring in through the glass ceiling. Pure light returned to the sky, as if Lucais’s mood had improved for some unbeknownst reason at last, and illuminated Wren like a demon bathing in holy fire.

“Are you determined to have us both executed for trying to kill each other?” I demanded, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. My cheek was stinging with a phantom pain right where the blade almost cut me.

“Your reflexes suck,” he stated, meeting my furious stare with a look of cool contemplation. “Knife-throwing is no good if you can’t get out of the way when people inevitably start throwing them back at you.” He rubbed his chin, the stubble glimmering in the light. “Your magic is completely dormant, too. I just can’t figure out why.”

I glared at him, rage simmering beneath my skin. “You don’t need to know why.”

“Ah.” His golden eyes lit up like the core of the sun in a dawn sky. “There is a reason. You didn’t kill that Banshee on purpose.”

“I didn’t kill that Banshee at all,” I spat.

Wren had saved my life, ulterior motive or not, on more than one occasion. I still wasn’t convinced that I truly defended myself on the road into Sthiara—especially not with light magic when it was incompatible with the thing that escaped from me in the bathroom that day with Delia.

“We can stand here all day if you like.” He shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. “More than half of the weapons in this room are designed to be wielded by those with magic, and you’ll pose a greater risk to yourself than to anyone else if you touch the other half of them while you’re dancing around in the gaps in between.”

Staring through the window-crack in the wall, I dug my teeth into my lower lip to stop myself from pouting. If the room was designed to be accessed by people with magic, then I had absolutely no right to be in it.

“Those weapons,” Wren went on, pointing to the row of glass cabinets illuminated by blue faelight, “are magical relics. On their own, they’re useless—but partnered with the power of the High Fae, they can be used as well as any blade. Better, even.”

Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I took a few careful steps towards the cabinet. I was not supposed to be in the armoury. Not when I had no magic, when I refused the offer as it lingered at my side, curling around my wrists like a hand—but curiosity was humming in my blood. Wren remained against the table, crossing his arm back over his chest.

“I’m not High Fae,” I murmured, though he surely didn’t need to be reminded.

“Maybe you could be.”

The words were so simple. But no.

Ignoring his strange remark, I surveyed the cabinets. Fixed my attention on the contents.

The top shelf was filled with rocks. All different shapes and sizes and colours of plain old rocks.

“Witch-Lapis,” he told me. “It doesn’t reveal its true form to humans, but carried by High Fae in battle it can duplicate a killing blow up to five times without taking a drop of energy or power from its wielder. Below that is the Blood Lock,” he continued, and I dropped my gaze to the lower shelf. “Coat that in the blood of the willing, and the wearer will be able to channel their combined strength.”

The Blood Lock was a necklace crafted from solid gold, displayed in its open case. The chain was thin, the amulet small, a circle filled with what looked to be the remnants of dried, crusted blood. A shudder rippled down my spine as I examined it, forcing me to look away.

“You can throw things at people, or we can cut down a tree branch for you, but you will remain your greatest enemy so long as you refuse to accept what you truly carry with you in every breath.”

He meant magic. I knew he meant magic, and he was wrong.

I did carry something with me in every breath, but it wasn’t magic. It wasn’t a gift.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Wren whispered. “Right here in this room, filling the air, growing with each beat of your heart.” Hands sliding into his pockets, he took a step towards me. And then another. My blood thumped through my veins. “How did you feel when you killed that Banshee, Aura? Do you remember?”

Shaking my head, I watched his reflection in the glass cabinet as he approached, each step slow and predatory. “No.”

“You don’t remember the high?” he purred. “The way it felt to have that release ? The build up of magic as it refilled in your veins, pooling in your body ready to spill out all over again?”

I gritted my teeth together. “No.”

Shock . I remembered being shocked—and angry at him for having left me in the first place, only to come sauntering back on his magical horse at the very last possible moment. I remembered being tired, sore, and hungry after trekking through the Court of Light, and after the unleashing of power that had been thrumming beneath my skin…

“ No .”

“No?” Wren came to a stop behind me, lifting a hand to brush my hair over my shoulder, the same way he had when we were riding Elera together. His knuckles grazed my cheek, and I stiffened, reinforcing my walls as the smell of paper and ink swirled around me like perfume.

Home .

Why does Wren smell like home? Like Belgrave, like Dante’s Bookstore?

It had to be a trick.

“I remember,” he breathed. And—High Mother spare me—the caress of his breath against my skin sent a crack splintering through my foundations. “You were so riled up. It wasn’t merely my hands around your waist,” he murmured, sliding the palms of his hands against my hips. Lower . He nipped my ear, and his voice was a sinfully sensual purr. “It was the comedown from that release —”

“Stop it!” I slapped his hands away and stumbled forward, stopping only when I almost knocked into the cabinet of magical relics. A flood of dark and bitter magic leapt for me as if it was coming straight out of the Blood Lock. I sidestepped away from it.

“We can do this the hard way,” he threatened, blazing golden eyes tracking the movements of my hands as they curled into fists at my side. “I can send you out of here with a sheath of throwing knives and wish you luck, but we’ll end up in that field again. I’ll save your life, and you’ll forget to thank me.”

My upper lip curled. “I did thank you.”

Wren winked, one corner of his mouth pulling up into a dangerous half-smile. “Not properly.”

“You wish I was dead, anyway,” I hissed. “So, what’s the point of all this?” I gestured to the room, to the space between us.

Wren held my stare unflinchingly. “I’m bound to the High King.”

“So am I.”

“I know.” He sighed sharply and shook his head. “It would be easier for everyone if you weren’t human. He won’t admit it to you, but I will —”

“Then we’re going to do this the hard way,” I snapped.

And then I turned on my heels and marched towards the doorway.

Fuck Wren.

Fuck the whole thing, and fuck the whole place .

I didn’t go up there to be humiliated —

“You can shield yourself,” he called after me as one of my feet hovered over the threshold. “Others, too. I can teach you how.”

I hesitated but didn’t turn around.

“There are wards in place around the House. Around Sthiara now, too.” Wren’s voice was soft, a salesman trying to make his daily commission. “Some are large enough to protect entire cities, like Caeludor. They’re hard to break. Even harder when people don’t know they’re being used. You could put one around yourself. Around anyone you like.”

A shield. A shield .

I felt the words of damnation coming out of my mouth like a steam train with failing brakes instead of the questions that some dark and twisted part of me wanted to ask instead. “It’s too late for that. Besides, I’m only half a faerie, and until last week, I didn’t even know that I was a faerie at all. It’s too late .”

Wren fell silent as I left the room and began to descend the stone steps. I didn’t think he was going to say anything, but then he spoke, sounding closer than he should have. As though he followed me to the doorway.

“Bookworm,” he called down the passage, the rumble of his voice echoing off the stone walls. “What happened to you?”

I stopped.

Placed my palm flat against the wall to balance myself.

And then I ignored him and continued to walk down the stairs.

Nothing. Nothing happened to me.

It hadn’t happened to me .