TWENTY-ONE
B oneyard City was as bustling and cramped as every story depicted.
Faeries filled shop stoops and the cobbled streets hours after the sun had set. I caught a glimpse of wings and even claws and hooves. Muggy air carried the scent of charred beef from a cart at the end of the tight street. Smoke crawled from the chimneys of most buildings. Something luminescent and foul trickled past the cracked stone of the stoop we stood on.
Due to the wards guarding our destination, we couldn’t vanish inside. So we’d avoided notice by vanishing straight to the doorstep.
Lord Stone’s hideout was a bookstore so slim, it was a good thing it no longer functioned as a business. Few would see the building between the giant clothing and shoe stores on either side of it, let alone the faded replica of an open book on the mildew-spotted window.
Vane removed the hood of his cloak as he entered. He waited until I’d followed, then closed and locked the door.
To my surprise, shelves of books still drowned the first floor. Yet I couldn’t find a shred of interest for the dusty tomes piled haphazardly on broken shelving and beside a ripped armchair.
The king led the way through the candlelit dim to a skinny staircase.
As the cream lace of my long sleeves threatened to brush against the marked walls, I looked up to find he’d turned partially to his side, wings standing high. My lips wriggled, but I sighed as the smile failed to bloom. A step near the top had a hole filled with cobwebs, Vane murmuring to be mindful as he skipped it entirely.
I did the same, then released my floaty lavender skirts.
The room above the forgotten shop was just as narrow but far less cluttered. A small kitchen hugged the back corner, and beside it, a bed dressed in plain brown linens. To my right, a tiny washroom lay beyond a half-open door.
To the left stood a long table with peeling red paint; plates and goblets and cutlery awaiting.
Cerwin sat in one of the wooden chairs upholstered in dark floral patterns. He thumped a tankard onto the table, but his grin waned as he noticed me behind the king.
I understood why when he nodded to me. “I’m sorry for what befell your parents.”
My gut churned as I took the seat offered by Vane. “Are you truly, though?”
Vane removed his cloak. He draped it over a chair, then sat in the one beside me, directly opposite Cerwin. The wood groaned as he leaned back, his wings trapped behind him and their tips resting against the floor.
Cerwin looked at his king—his friend—then back at me. He tapped his knuckles upon the table, smiling slightly. “They were indeed our enemies, but that does not mean I don’t sympathize with your grief.”
I had no harsh rebuttal. He spoke as if keenly aware of what that grief felt like.
He confirmed as much. “During the final battles to stop the wards, I lost many people I cared about. Worst of all, I lost my eldest sister.”
Vane pounded his fist on his chest. “A fierce warrior.”
I asked, “What was her name?”
The king’s royal right hand gave him a brief tilt of his lips, then he said to me, “Methina.”
I nodded once. As a somber quiet descended, I frowned at the empty seats at the table. “Where’s Daylia?”
“She couldn’t make it,” was all Cerwin supplied.
Lord Stone’s booming laughter accompanied the slamming of the door downstairs.
Cerwin muttered, “Thank Goddess,” and reached for something on the chair beside him. “I’m starved.”
A fiddle.
He plucked a fast melody, then set it against his chair as Stone reached the top of the stairs. The Seelie lord wasn’t alone.
Morona joined him in bowing to the king.
The pretty faerie wore a slinky, shimmering, and thin-strapped gown. Those butterfly-like wings flicked when her eyes met Vane’s.
Lord Stone slid a paper-lined basket of slow-roasted beef and vegetables onto the table, then untucked the chair beside Cerwin. Morona gave him a thankful, rouge-red smile. Unlike Vane, she took care with her wings, and I couldn’t help but assume the light and dusty texture made them extra sensitive.
She smiled at me. As Stone fetched decanters of wine and a jug of mead from the kitchen, I could only nod.
The lord took a seat at the head of the table. I sat back and watched as everyone helped themselves to beverages and the steaming food. I assumed it had come from the end of the street, but I didn’t care to ask.
Vane stabbed a hunk of beef. It dripped over the table as he delivered it to my plate. He knocked it from his knife with his thumb, then licked it.
The sound drew my eyes to his mouth.
Morona’s as well, I noted as he reached for some carrot and a sweet potato. She looked away, carving carefully at her meal. For a moment, I studied her and wondered if she was in pain, too.
A different kind, but pain all the same.
As conversation about the pytherions dwindled into a discussion about the attacks in the mountains surrounding Cloud Castle, interest finally awakened.
I picked and poked at my food, keeping my eyes on my plate as they had been for some minutes. I wasn’t sure what hiding them would achieve. My mere presence at this seemingly casual meeting meant they were not afraid to speak in front of me.
It also suggested that they did not expect me to ever leave this realm.
“The eggs you dispatched are safe,” Lord Stone informed smoothly. “No one suspected a single thing, courtesy of the new fires in the east.”
“Getting Surella to forgive me might prove more difficult than taking them,” Vane said. “She fucking snapped at me when I returned empty-handed.” He rolled his black sleeve to reveal the healing punctures in his forearm.
I blinked and couldn’t resist remarking, “I’m surprised you still have an arm.”
As if stunned I’d spoken, I felt all eyes find me. But I stared only at Vane’s scabbing skin. That explained why he’d been bleeding at dawn.
Cerwin sounded perplexed. “But they’re Crosia’s and Myrtle’s eggs.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Vane. “Goes against their instincts to endanger the young.” He huffed, saying with a glance at me. “Hatchlings are just about the only creatures they’ll protect.”
I frowned.
As we’d walked those mountainside bridges, he’d told me they’d bred nearly thirty pytherions, and that a female laying one egg per season was a rare feat. “What exactly are you doing with the eggs?”
Silence settled, as if they were all suddenly pondering how much to say.
Ridiculous. They’d already said too much.
It was Morona who finally spoke, a glint in her orange eyes. “They’re part of the plan.”
Vane reached for a decanter of wine. “I’ve been vanishing to Sky Mountains to personally see to the safe placement of eggs.” He filled the goblet before me, then his own. “We want to use them, yes, but not risk them.”
“Placement?” I questioned. I shook my head, my eyes widening as it dawned. “You’re putting pytherion eggs near the castle?”
“And one in the middle of Cloudfall City.” Morona squashed her carrot beneath her fork. “Pytherions breathe fire when enraged, Princess.”
“You’re using them as bait,” I said.
“She’s so clever,” Cerwin said dryly.
I didn’t care about their teasing. A wave of horrified awe stole my barely-there appetite at the thought of those mighty beasts descending upon the city of Cloudfall and Cloud Castle.
A castle made mostly from trees.
“They’ll burn it down,” I stated the obvious, blinking at each one of the faeries at the table.
“And we’ll take what’s left,” Stone said, easing back in his chair and swiping his fingers over his mouth.
“Now, Duhn.” Morona gave him a feline grin. “We’ve spoken about this.”
“I know.” Stone raised his hands and feigned a sigh. “The jewel troves only.” His wolfish grin cracked the tension.
Vane’s laughter was a warming and deep rumble. “You’ve got enough jewels to bathe in, asshole.”
Indeed. They glimmered upon his hand as he grabbed his goblet of wine. Retribution, I remembered. That was this sneaky lord’s motive.
The motive of everyone in this cramped dwelling, and likely the desire of many throughout this entire realm.
It was understandable. Still, I couldn’t lose the feeling of discomfort. No matter how right their anguish and anger made all of this seem. “Is Garran aware of your pytherion army?”
Cerwin arched a brow. “The king who gave the order to have your father and stepmother killed?”
I held his gaze, even as those words burrowed into the bleeding core of me.
He relented. “He’s probably heard rumblings about it by now. It’s impossible to keep the growing numbers of such beasts secret forever.” A cruel smile curved his mouth. “But due to those wards, there’s nothing he can do about it.”
Vane gathered an impressive amount of beef and sweet potato onto his fork, seemingly done with this conversation.
Cerwin sipped his mead, then snatched the fiddle.
He struck the strings with mischievous delight that failed to dull even as he handed the king a wide-eyed look. A look so swift, I would have missed it had I not been staring beyond the right hand in a daze.
A warning, perhaps. That despite what my fate would be, they’d all said quite enough in my presence.
Vane pushed his chair back, confirming as much when he offered me his hand.
I’d yet to regain any interest in eating, so I let him lead me downstairs into the bookstore.
I hadn’t known what he’d intended, but I certainly hadn’t expected he’d stop in the center of the crowded room and pull me into his arms. Maybe he simply wished to talk without being overheard.
But he began to rock side to side, so at odds with Cerwin’s lively melody that I couldn’t help but laugh. “What are you doing?”
“There it is,” he said softly. Leaning away just enough to better see me, he splayed his fingers over my lower back. “That beautiful smile.”
I pursed my lips, and he chuckled. Then he gathered me against him once more. A heavy shadow bobbed by his ear as his fingers wove between mine.
I didn’t hear anything, and as he stiffened slightly, I assumed only Vane could hear what his shadows said.
The murky patch of darkness slimmed into a tiny tendril, melding into his wings. Where the black edges typically morphed into a gradual gray had become more slate.
“Your feathers are darker when your shadows are with you,” I said. “They’re not out hunting?”
“Except for one keeping watch from the roof of this hovel, they’re now all with me.”
Being so close to him caused his smoky musk scent to overpower the mustiness of the room. His embrace, the tickling fingers at my back, soothed in a way I hadn’t known I needed.
After a minute, Cerwin’s fiddle-playing slowed, matching our steps.
Vane kept his voice whisper-quiet. “Are you concerned about the Ethermore’s royal tree house?”
Although he wasn’t jesting, I smiled again. It was faint, falling as I whispered, “It’s magical, I cannot lie, but they killed my father.” Just saying the words out loud aroused a sickness I feared might evict the small amount of food I’d eaten.
Vane hummed. “Vengeance will be had.”
“Good,” I said, glad he couldn’t see the quivering of my mouth.
It meant nothing if Atakan truly cared for me in the way these Unseelie faeries were relying on. The Seelie prince was as ruthless as his father. Worse, really.
Maybe Atakan didn’t lack a heart. He simply lacked a soul.
The sobering thought made room for another, and the realization sank into my bones.
If King Garran could so easily kill my father, then killing me—the bride he didn’t want for his precious prince—would be even easier.
As if sensing my dismay, the fear I’d long lived with unraveling within me, Vane murmured to my temple, “You will never have to see them again, Mildred.”
Relief tried to heat my chilled blood, but it only traveled so far. “I hope not.”
“I don’t make vows lightly.”
I believed him, and nestled even closer to show my gratitude. But as the fiddle’s pace increased, Vane said, “Enough worrying. I want to see that smile again.”
Before I understood his intent, I was swung away from him.
I gasped, my hand tugged, and my body hauled back to his. My free hand slapped against his hard chest, fingers gripping his tunic in vain. He spun me across the rotting wood floor again and again.
And each time we collided, some of the heaviness I’d carried into this old shop dissipated.
The Unseelie king grinned, bright and more dizzying than the twirling circles he spun me into around him.
My laughter came rasped at first, set free against my will, but it melted quickly into its typical melody. Too quickly, I feared, the ice blue of his eyes ensnaring.
Only when I’d circled him entirely did he keep me gathered against his chest.
This time, his hand roamed up my back into my hair, scrunching gently as he whispered into my ear, “When you laugh, I remember what joy feels like.”
I couldn’t speak but let my hand move from his chest to his shoulder. I toyed with his soft hair, my heart and eyes aflame. Closing them, I laid my head against his chest, his strong heartbeat another melody in my ears.
Maybe it was the exhilaration still burning through me, but the question escaped unexpectedly. “Wards aside, do you want to be loved, Vane?”
He didn’t answer right away.
He pondered it, which should have been a bad sign. But I needed truth. A rarity in this world of careful lies. “I want you,” he said, all rough breath, barely heard beneath the strain of the fiddle. “I didn’t think I would, but I do. That’s all I know for certain.”
I peered up at him—searched his stern features. He let me, but only for a moment.
He kissed the corner of my mouth, a gentle press that closed my eyes. Then he met my seeking lips as I rose onto my toes. He groaned, fingers curling tighter into my hair. He was warmth and safety, his embrace a fortress I knew I could happily live within.
My mouth parted when his did, and he captured my lower lip so softly, heat gathered in my stomach.
The fiddle slowed again, and Lord Stone called, “Dessert is served, lovebirds.”
Cerwin chuckled, silencing the fiddle abruptly.
Vane’s mouth left mine, and he sighed. He kissed my forehead and led me back upstairs.
But gone was the tension that had been present during dinner.
As strawberries slid down the melting frosting of the leftover cake, the wine and mead began to run dry. Military strategy was discussed, most of it too vague for me to understand.
But I ceased playing with the frosting on my plate at the graphic description of a fallen unit within the Sky Mountains surrounding Cloud Castle.
Morona noticed, giving me a smirk when I glanced up.
I went back to drawing a poor depiction of Meadow’s face on the porcelain.
“If that doesn’t further prove them responsible for the deaths of the human royals, then I don’t know what can.” Cerwin came close to slurring his emphatic words, his tankard hitting the table a touch too hard. “Limbs every-fucking-where.”
“It is his signature, I’ve heard,” Stone said. “Carving at things until the only way to identify them is by piecing them back together via their scent.”
“It is indeed,” Morona confirmed. She ran a lithe finger around the base of her goblet. “I’m surprised you escaped him in one piece, Princess Mildred.”
I straightened and reached for my wine. It was empty, so I poured more while they all waited for a response. I didn’t feel like saying anything. But after taking a long sip, I humored them. “I’m surprised, too.”
Mostly, I was surprised to discover that the creature in their gruesome tale was Atakan. Though I shouldn’t have been.
It prompted me to free a stunted laugh and say more. “Perhaps I was saved by the many times he went out hunting your ilk.”
“Our ilk?” Cerwin drawled.
My brows furrowed.
Vane said, “He enjoys catching bigger prey, then.”
Morona tucked strands of silky hair behind her ruby-studded ear. She smiled faintly across the table at the king before looking at me. “Did Atakan force you to fuck him?”
As Lord Stone released an almost shrieked burst of laughter, I drank more wine.
Vane shifted, as did his wings, feathers rustling against the wood floor. “Morona,” he gently warned.
“What?” Her eyes widened playfully. Behind her hand, she whispered loudly to me, “I hear he’s a positively beastly lover.” Eyeing me closely as her fingers wrapped around her goblet, she laughed. “And you certainly look spooked.”
Spooked wasn’t quite the right word to describe the roiling sensation in my gut.
“Merely perturbed,” I lied, making it seem as if Atakan hadn’t touched me in that way at all, let alone fucked me.
And just as she’d described.
I dug deep within for my decade-old practice at playing games and drank some more wine as they all laughed at my expense.
“If he didn’t try to fuck you, then what did he do to you?” Morona asked.
Vane cursed.
I placed my hand over his on the table, letting him know it was fine. I was fine.
I was so far from fine that I could hardly remember what it felt like, but I caught the quick dip of Morona’s gaze to our hands and smiled as genuinely as I could. “He taunted me, mostly.”
Stone hummed. “I do believe you poisoned him at one point.” He clicked his fingers. “Yes, it was some years before you were whisked away to Cloud Castle.”
“No,” Morona gasped, delight ashine in her eyes.
I nodded. “He locked me in a carriage with a two-headed serpent at Sparrow Hall, so I retaliated.”
“The heartless isn’t so heartless after all.” Stone belched very un-noble-like and pointed at me. “He would have killed anyone else the moment he discovered such treachery.”
Vane’s gaze pressed into my profile.
I refused to look at him as heat climbed my neck, and I confessed, “I think the reason I survived him is purely because I kept entertaining him.”
“Makes strange sense, actually.” Cerwin nodded and rubbed at his clean-shaven chin. “Such evil expects submission, and it sounds like you gave him nothing but defiance.”
“Which should have seen her killed,” Vane said gruffly, as if struggling to comprehend.
“Ah, but the reason she wasn’t is due to her audacity to seek revenge while he couldn’t kill her.” Stone thumped the table. “Her lack of fear.”
“Oh, there was plenty of that,” I admitted.
“But you didn’t let it control you. You controlled it by prodding at him until you earned more than his infamous ire.” Stone grinned fiendishly. “You earned his fascination.”
I looked from the Seelie lord to the others, and found them all smiling similarly at me.
Morona broke the silence. “You’re no halfling.” She raised her goblet to me, then said before she sipped, “You are far more faerie than mortal, darling.”
Everyone drank to that, including myself. Though it was for a lack of knowing what to do with such naked approval.
Never had I experienced it before now. Never from anyone other than the prince it seemed I’d bested.
You feel so fucking good.
And with the exception of Bernie, never had I felt even a morsel of such acceptance.
Don’t let this make you forget you are loved.
The sudden invasion of memories propelled me to my feet. I swayed slightly.
Vane’s fingers curled around my wrist. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I just…” I shook my head, then forced a yawn. “I think I just need a minute.”
Understanding softened Morona’s shrewd gaze.
I waded downstairs on heavy feet. A lone candle still burned, the flame faint and scarcely touching the dark. But my shambled mind found relief in the dim bookstore.
“What did he do to you, Princess?”
So rattled by thoughts of Bernie, of the life I’d lived for so long that it was hard to accept it was now just memories, I hadn’t sensed his approach behind me. I hadn’t even heard his boots on the stairs.
I turned to Vane, who stood with his arms crossed and his feet braced. The defensive stance confused until I saw his clenched jaw. The way he studied me as if hunting for answers before he could be shocked by them.
The storm within me calmed.
I closed the space between us and placed my hand on his forearm. “I’m more worried about Bernadette.”
His thick brows gathered. “Your sister.”
I nodded. “I worry about how she might be coping. Not just with her grief but with her pregnancy and the responsibility of being crowned queen.”
His arms unfolded, and he took my hand. For a moment, he just stared down at it. “One day, I hope that you can see her again.”
Hope wasn’t good enough, but I would push for something else if it were all the promise he could give me right now. “Let me at least write to her, King.”
His eyes met mine, the blue bright in the darkness. He didn’t answer. He released me and strode to the back of the store.
I watched the shadows welcome him and fought for breath as anger and hurt swam through my chest and stung my eyes.
Then I stalked after him.
Perhaps it was the wine. Perhaps it was the way each inhale sliced my throat. But he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t force me into wanting him and then refuse to give me something so small—
He turned from an overflowing desk, a pot of ink in hand. “I can’t seem to find parchment that hasn’t mildewed—”
The ink fell from his thick fingers and clacked against the floor when I threw myself at him.
He caught me with a grunt and chuckled.
I stole the vibrating sound with my mouth. He cursed. Hands smoothing around my ass, he delivered me to the desk.
Books toppled to the floor. Parchment and quills were trapped beneath me. I failed to care, taking his face and allowing him to take control of the kiss.
He parted my lips and inhaled a ragged breath, as if tasting me. Lifting my chin, he stroked it while his other hand clenched my thigh. Our tongues dueled. He won, rendering me pliant as he lapped and bit at my lips. Heady—so domineering yet sweet.
And it wasn’t enough.
My legs climbed his hips. His wings rustled, lifting as my feet dug into his lower back. I tugged myself forward with a hand at his shoulder and moaned against his mouth as my core met his erection through our clothing. I wanted that clothing gone. I wanted to grind against him until I forgot everything but this. Everything but the heat he elicited and stoked until all I felt was hollow with desperate need.
He groaned, hips jerking. His cock pressed into me, and I gasped.
His fingers tangled in my hair at my neck and shoulder. He lavished my jaw and throat in kisses that had my head tilting back and our bodies pressing harder.
Something thudded upstairs. Stone’s laughter followed.
We remembered how much company we had, no matter how tucked away we were. If we went too far, they would hear. I wasn’t sure I cared. The desire to chase these feelings, to let this king devour me whole, seemed as crucial as breathing.
Mercifully, Vane had enough sense for us both.
He straightened and clasped my face.
The fingers beneath my jaw tipped my head back. His thumb rubbed the crest of my cheek, and the way he gazed down at me with those hooded blue eyes made me wonder what he saw. Made me wonder if that was indeed adoration in that stare, in his touch, or if I was so lost that I merely imagined it.
That I needed to imagine it.
He kissed my forehead. “Write to your sister,” he whispered against my skin. “And we will finish this later.”
He was striding from the small room before I could ask how much later that might be.
I looked down at the scrunched parchment beneath me, bleary-eyed and unsure whether to follow him.
Instead, I did as he said.
I snatched a quill, the half-spilled ink, and took a pile of the aged parchment into the store—where I stared at the spots of dripping ink and wrote nothing at all.
Cordenya stepped into the wood-paneled hall. “Atakan, talk to me.” Concern stilled her lovely features.
I continued past her down the hall, fighting the urge to rush to the windows and slam through the glass into the open air as rage pounded viciously at my skull. My fucking chest. “I knew you weren’t taking that sleeping tonic.”
She trailed me. “How can I sleep with so much chaos?” I had no answer. But I stopped when she said, “The human king, what happened?”
I unclenched my teeth but didn’t turn to face her. I glared at the moon through the windows ahead and whispered, “Just as the reports say.”
I didn’t need to look at her to know her fingers fluttered over her mouth. “He was in pieces, Atakan.” She touched my back, and muscle tightened. “They were all mutilated in the same way you like to — ”
I scoffed, but then laughter echoed. Mostly male. A tinkle of female.
Faraway yet so close.
I turned, my heartbeat quieting as every sense awoke. I stared at the ceiling, then down at Cordenya’s stricken face. To confirm what I suspected, I asked, “Can you hear that?”
I woke with a hitched breath, chilled to the bone and curled across an armchair.
Parchment lay crumpled against my chest. Ink had dripped from the quill in my loose fingers, staining the tattered chair. I blinked at the books around me as confusion cleared, too stiff to move.
And it was best I didn’t—as it might have interrupted the conversation drifting down the stairs.
“No suspicions,” Vane murmured.
Cerwin asked, “No one is tracing it back?”
“They’re trying, but I doubt they’ll succeed. Your assassins were too clean,” Lord Stone said. “They wanted their military strengthened, not the marriage, and Garran’s stalling made everyone aware of that. Which makes it even more impossible to prove that Julis’s death wasn’t their doing.”
Each breath I remembered to take seared.
Stone then huffed a quick laugh and added, “They’re so busy looking for proof to salvage their alliance with Nephryn that they’ve yet to realize the wards have fractured.”
“It won’t be long now,” Cerwin said grimly.
Fractured.
In the silence that reigned, I glared at the cobwebs in the cornice through tear-flooded eyes. I tried to keep my breathing steady, praying to both goddesses that the faeries upstairs wouldn’t hear my untamable heart.
They’d killed my father and stepmother. Murdered their associates.
Vane had slain my father.
And he’d made it look like Ethermore’s doing to ruin the alliance I’d been sold to obtain. Now, the Seelie no longer had my father’s kingdom to aid them against the Unseelie.
When Vane unleashed his monsters and warriors upon the continent, it would be an easy victory at best.
A war of three kingdoms at worst.
Why Vane had chosen to recently deliver the pytherion eggs beyond the wards made more sense. They weren’t wasting the young by keeping them from incubation. Their plan was about to be executed.
The time for vengeance had come.
“How long do you think it will take for the wards to fall completely?” Morona asked.
Vane answered instantly. “Any day now, I’d say.”
Such fucking confidence.
“Thank the darkness.” Morona seemed to exhale the words. “I like her tenacity and unfitting innocence, but this has taken too long.”
Rage heated the tears pooling in my eyes.
Cerwin and Stone laughed, the former saying, “You’ve done far better than most would have.”
“Regardless,” Vane said cold and quickly. “It’s in our best interest to find more gaps to use.”
A moment later, the fiddle came alive. I might have thought it sweet that Cerwin played softly, so as not to disturb my slumber, had it not been for all I’d overheard.
I stayed so perilously still that I feared I would never unfreeze.
Tears persistently tried to push free of my eyes. I closed them and breathed shallowly through my nose. I needed a plan. A way to escape this.
But there was no escape.
Footsteps, light and booted, more than startled me.
Instinct forced me to my feet, though I should have continued to feign sleep. Too rattled for proper thought, I gripped the quill in my fist as if it might be a useful weapon against a creature who needed none.
But it wasn’t King Vane.
Lord Stone halted at the bottom of the stairs. His violet-blue eyes gleamed as they widened upon me.
My hand shook around the quill.
He glanced up the stairs, then slipped in front of the bookshelves next to them and pressed a finger to his mouth.
I frowned, not breathing, not moving…
He looked back toward the stairs, appearing to listen to any talk beneath the fiddle, and then he walked straight to me.
I stepped back, the floor creaking like a crack of thunder.
He winced like he thought so too. He gestured to the armchair. “Sit,” he said so faintly that when he spoke again, I had to read his lips. “Sit back down.”
But I couldn’t trust him.
He’d betrayed his own king for Vane. For vengeance.
As if knowing everything I was thinking, his shoulders slumped. He waited, his hard gaze gentling.
I couldn’t understand why, but I trusted the feeling. A nudge in my gut that sent my feet quietly padding back to the chair.
Even so, I refused to lie down. Refused to relinquish my tight hold on the quill I wouldn’t hesitate to stab into his jugular if he continued to lean too far over me—
“If you wish to survive, you need to never so much as think about what you’ve evidently heard.”
My voice didn’t work. A blessing as the fiddle’s melody slowed. Each rasped word lacked sound. “They killed my—”
“And they could very well do the same to you once the wards finish falling.” He leaned back and eyed my distressed state. “Or when they realize those fractures are likely all they’ll get from you.”
That sank beneath my flesh with talons and teeth.
My fingers relaxed around the quill, but I squeezed the ripped arm of the chair and whispered, “You’re not a spy.” His raised brow made me realize aloud, “Not for Vane.”
Lord Duhn Stone was a spy for the Ethermore family.
Again, he pressed a jeweled finger to his lips. Then he returned to the enemy he’d been duping upstairs. “Still sleeping,” he told them. “But it looks like she was writing something. I tried to read it, but it’s too crumpled.”
“A letter to her sister,” Vane said.
“Cruel.” Morona clucked her tongue. “Letting her think you’ll allow such a thing to be sent.”
“Just like you told me,” he grumbled. “Whatever it takes.”