49. Isla
49
ISLA
I land on a carpet of glass that unspools like a ribbon toward the dais. A glance upward reveals that all the velour-cloaked chains which used to bear clusters of fire orbs dangle like vines, glassless.
Did a Crow sever them, or is this the work of an air-Fae? Why would Faeries unhook ceiling lamps, though?
I find the answer when I take a step and glass crunches beneath my boots, upsetting the stillness and betraying my invisibility. I’m about to morph into my Crow when a soft keening has my neck straining and my pulse hammering. I squint, scanning the gloom for the source of the noise.
There .
My breathing sharpens, then turns ragged when I spot a hunched figure with quivering shoulders and a tumble of flaxen locks.
I take to the air and swirl noiselessly toward the kneeling weeper. When I make out the body sprawled at the Faerie’s knees, my heart fills with conflicting emotions. I land, my lofty heels—which I should really have swapped out back in my closet—clicking against the stone.
Izolda flinches and tilts her head. Her eyebrows dip, because of course, she cannot see me. But she must sense me, for she calls out my name past the shaky fist she holds against her mouth.
“Are you all right?” I murmur, glancing left and right, hardly believing this isn’t a trap.
“Aodhan’s not—he’s n-not waking up.” Her muffled voice is a tormented croak.
“He will. Once the obsidian flees his system.” Please let it be true… “How did you get away?”
Her wet eyes are smudged with runny kohl. “Ksenia le-le-left me.”
“Where’s Konstantin?”
She points to the War Room door. “Tr-Tr-Train.”
I whirl but freeze, for there, slumped in the first pew, sits a huge man with a shoulder-length blond mane.
“D-Don’t look,” she murmurs.
My nerve endings begin to tingle as I not only behold but also approach. Salom has been skewered to the backrest of the tufted bench with a sword.
Bile swims up my throat. Although I gulp it back, the acid burn lingers. Shame sweeps through me at having believed him complicit. Horror quickly takes its place, and finally, grief. For Konstantin.
“Has your brother seen him?” I imagine he has if he’s come through this room.
“Yes.” Her voice is near. When I feel fingertips brush against my arm, I jerk. “S-Sorry. Just needed to be sure I wasn’t talking to a gh-ghost. I feel like I’m go-going mad.”
“I’m real, Iz.”
Her lash line is heavy with fresh moisture that carves through her stripes. Stripes which, for once, she didn’t match to her outfit.
Talk to me, mo khráach. My father’s voice knells between my temples. What’s happening?
In a second, Dádhi… “I’m going to save your brother. Aodhan’s going to wake up. This nightmare will be over before the sun rises. I promise.”
Fist still held against her mouth, she whispers, “The s-sun won’t rise for m-months.”
I regret my metaphor and am about to repackage it when I spot a faint white line just above her eyebrow—the mark of a freshly healed scar.
“P-Please hurry.”
I lock my gaze on her mouth, concealed behind her fist. I itch to tow it aside and inspect her teeth, but instead, I carry my hand up to her cheek, covering her feather tattoo with my thumb.
“I’ll get him out,” I say, as I drag my thumb toward her hairline in a sham caress. “It’s going to be all right.”
The crisp edges of her feather blur. My anger at having fallen for her dupery inflames my temper.
As I contemplate whether to behead the two-faced Faerie or keep her alive for Konstantin to decide her fate, fire rips across my waist.