33. Kat #2
That explained why he’d never mentioned her, only the fathers who’d raised him. If he’d come from that kind of assault, I couldn’t blame him for wanting to separate himself from that. I squeezed my glass, overwhelmed by the urge to find him and hold him.
Still, I was meant to be charming Caelus, not reminding him of another man, so I didn’t ask anything more and busied my fingers pushing my hair back over my shoulder.
He sipped his drink and watched the motion, gaze catching on my throat. He frowned. “Your necklace—it’s gone.”
Perfect.
I opened my mouth to say the clasp had broken, but… I couldn’t speak.
Arianmêl . No lies.
“I’m not wearing it tonight.” Obvious, but true, and a kind of explanation. “It’s a shame, since I know you like it so much.” I tilted my head, exposing my throat as Ella had shown me, and his attention skimmed down it, continuing to my chest.
Arianmêl plus a distraction—hopefully that would be enough.
“The other day,” I murmured, “you seemed like you were about to say something about that necklace, but we were interrupted. I’d love to know what it was.”
“Would you, now?” He touched his lower lip, attention dripping down my body.
“ Caelus ,” I said, drawing out his name in a way that had his gaze locking on my lips. “How did you see that necklace before it was given to me?”
“I collected it,” he murmured so softly I wasn’t sure he realised he was speaking out loud. I had to crane closer to catch each word. “I owed her a favour, so I picked it up when it was ready.”
My pulse leapt in my throat. “ Her ?” I softened my tone to match Caelus’s.
“Not anyone important.” He shook his head and edged closer, making me realise we’d stopped.
“ Who , though?”
“Adra… His Majesty’s assistant. I lost a card game and owed her. That’s all. She isn’t…”
He went on as though reassuring me I had no reason to be jealous, but my thoughts were louder.
The Day King’s assistant. That meant King Lucius was the one who’d sent unCavendish.
The attempt to ruin the alliance between Dusk and Albion had come from the very highest level of Dawn Court. Was that why he’d come and spoken to me in the street? The way he’d said my name felt even more like a warning.
Gods. I needed to tell Bastian. Did he already know? I glanced around, but there was no sign of him.
Eyes glazed with drink, Caelus reached towards me, perhaps for the lock of hair tickling my bare neck, and that was when I remembered.
Poison.
I jerked away, a horrible shock of heat running through me chased by ice. If he’d managed to touch me…
He cocked his head, this small frown on his face. “I don’t und—”
“This isn’t a good idea.”
Flirting with him as Bastian had searched his rooms had felt like it might be dangerous to me. But this, now—it could be dangerous to him.
I wanted his information, but I didn’t want him dead.
“I—I’m sorry.” Shaking my head, I turned and hurried through the patio doors I’d spotted earlier.
Cool, fresh air. Just what I needed. I sucked it in, greedy—desperate. The world stopped spinning quite so hard, and I clutched the potion bottle pendant. At least I would’ve been able to stop him dying.
Still, my stomach churned at how close he’d come.
I made it ten paces into the dimly lit garden before I leant over a wall and vomited.
I used the last of my drink to wash away the taste of bile, and ventured further along the path. The party had grown so loud, my ears still rang with it, but the quiet soothed me.
Silhouetted against the night sky stood the Dawn Court’s Great Oak and, beside it, the split trunk of Dusk’s Great Yew.
They blotted out the stars in deeper darkness.
Rose had brought me here and told me how they represented the Great Bargain—a contract between the land and the fae, granting the latter long lives and powerful gifts.
What the land gained, she wasn’t clear on—the fae were tightlipped about that. But the trees’ magic rumbled through the air as if they were the source of it all. The yew’s felt more powerful—darker, somehow, like a cello compared to a violin.
The intensity of their magic made my stomach turn again, and I chose a path leading away from it.
Ahead, pale in the starlight, white roses rambled over an arbour.
And I was still a fool for their beauty, because I found myself drawn to them, tugging off my gloves. Just one touch. Just a texture other than my own clothing. Just the momentary connection with another living thing that wasn’t Bastian Marwood.
I reached out, heart already full as I inhaled the rich scent.
For a second—one glorious second—I had that velvety softness against my skin.
Then the white petals shrivelled and blackened. The shrub’s leaves curled and withered. The branches dried and snapped under their own weight, and where moments earlier had stood a beautiful plant, now lay a mouldering mound scented sickly sweet with decay.
I reached out like I could somehow pull the pieces back together. But there was nothing. And my touch couldn’t fix, only kill.
Death. That was my gift.
I fumbled with my gloves, panting as I fought tears of horror at what I had done—what I could do to anything and anyone with the merest brush of skin. Then I turned and—
And before me stood the man whose entrance into my life had started it all.