Chapter 3
One of them taps a knife against his thigh. “And what sort of magic is this?”
“Excuse me,” the woman says evenly. “Why are you blocking my path? I hope you realize I’m a baroness of Listenoise.”
Ah. That explains why she’s this shockingly clueless. If I remember correctly, Listenoise is the Waste Land—a desolate, ravaged kingdom cut off from the rest of the world. I had no idea anyone could leave it, to be honest.
Standing stock-still, I weigh my options.
I could turn back and slip away, sneaking out the other side of the alley. This isn’t my fight, and I have limited time. I’ve got to get this key to Tristan and make it back to the church before the portal closes. After all, I’m not the one wandering around London flaunting Fey magic—
Then again, she really doesn’t know better.
If I still had the magic I possessed as a teenager, I could kill them all within seconds. Unfortunately, my magic is broken.
And yet—I’m Fey, and they’re human. Even without magic, I’m faster and stronger than they are. The baroness must be, too. Two Fey can probably take down four mortals, even if we’re unarmed and magicless.
“Fey bitch,” one of the men spits. “Do you know what we do to creatures like you?”
Now her face has gone white as she seems to understand the danger she’s in. “What’s the meaning of this? You want to kill me simply because I’m Fey?”
She really missed a few key things when she was preparing for her trip into London.
The tall one points his iron dagger at her. “You killed enough of us, didn’t you?”
He lunges forward and grabs her by the hair. Viciously, he throws her to the pavement.
She slams down hard, grunting. She’s not much of a fighter.
Fuck.
“Why are you doing this?” she cries from the ground.
“The Fey army murdered my wife. An eye for an eye—”
The baroness pushes herself up, glaring at him. “But your wife’s not dead. She ran away because you beat her.”
The leader kicks her hard in the stomach. “Shut up.”
A tether snaps within me, and I find myself marching out of the alley.
“Hi! Everyone all right?” I force my voice to sound cheerful, unassuming.
Just a curious little lady here.
As I cross toward the men, I blink innocently. But underneath, unease coils through me. I’m not exactly prepared for a fight these days.
One of them barks something at me about my sunglasses, but I’m busy assessing them. Three larger, armed with iron. One’s smaller, with a steak knife and soft hands. Not much taller than me, and his knife is steel. He’s the weak link.
I dart forward, knocking the blade out of his hand. In the next instant, I slam my forehead into his nose.
Pivoting, I face a man with an iron-plated sword just as he raises it above his head. I grab his forearm and kick him in the chest, and he falls back into his friend.
It’s all sloppy and awkward, but it’s enough to break the baroness free.
I grab the wrist of the Fey woman and pull her up. “Fucking run!”
We run faster than I have in years.
Behind us, they shout and give chase. Passersby stare but don’t intervene, clearly happy not to be involved.
We hurtle down Cheapside, far faster than a human can run.
As we sprint, my gaze lands on the number fifteen bus, its door still open. Perfect. I grab the baroness’s hand, and we leap onto it just before the door shuts. Catching my breath, I reach into my pocket and pay the fare for both of us.
Slowly, it starts to roll east toward the Tower.
“Pull your cloak up and follow me,” I whisper to her.
Keeping my head down, I push through to the back of the bus.
It smells of sweat and beer. A woman is shouting that she got “fucked outside St. Paul’s Cathedral last night” and it was “the most romantic thing I’ve ever done.
” She’s dressed like Marie Antoinette for some reason, which is great because literally no one is looking at us.
Besides the baroness and me, the only sober person here is a thief pickpocketing a drunk American woman.
We cram into the back where the doors will open, and my Fey companion stands with her hood pulled up over her ears, covering her strange halo.
“I appreciate your assistance,” she whispers. “I didn’t know the humans were hunting Fey in this kingdom. It all seems rather barbaric.”
Her posh accent is immediately apparent, clipped and aristocratic. That puts me on edge. I haven’t had the best experiences with nobility.
Still, she seems harmless.
“They’ve been at it for months now,” I whisper. “Organized this whole Iron Legion of paramilitaries. It’s not safe here for us. We need to be discreet.”
She narrows silver eyes at me. She’s pretty with a small mouth, a narrow nose, and elegant features. “Do they not want peace?”
They want revenge.
“You’re a telepath, right?” I whisper. “That’s how you know that man beat his wife.”
She nods. “Yes, but look what good my magic did me. Not much use in knowing someone plans to kill you if you can’t wield a sword. I wasn’t trained as I should have been. There wasn’t a chance for it in Listenoise.”
I glance out the window and see that we’re nearly to Aldgate High Street and the Tower of London.
Where are you headed? I ask her in my mind.
“The Tower of London. Do you know it?”
I nod. I do. This is our stop. I’ll walk you there.
When the door opens, I jump off, and the baroness follows me onto the street.
Side by side, heads down, we walk south.
I peer over my shoulder a few times, checking for signs of the Iron Legion, but I don’t see anyone. On weekend nights in the City, there aren’t many people around.
What are you doing at the Tower? I think.
“I am not permitted to say,” she says curtly.
I have a solid guess that she’s meeting Tristan. This is his secret spy stakeout situation.
Her hood moves slightly as the woman shoots me a sharp look.
I try to make my mind go quiet, but that’s impossible for me. My mind is never quiet.
I now regret offering to walk with her, since being around a telepath means she can hear every word in my mind, which is deeply intrusive, and also brings out my absolute worst thoughts.
There was a time when I practiced concealing my thoughts from telepaths, but I haven’t done it in ages. It takes a few minutes of calm to muster up a mind shield, something King Auberon taught me long ago.
She turns to me with a half-smile and a wink. “Don’t worry, stranger. We will have a new monarch soon enough.”
Cold fury slides through my veins. “What do you mean?”
Her smile falls fast.
I glare at her, knowing she can hear every furious idea whirling through my mind.
I hate kings. Did you know that one summer, King Auberon burned over three hundred people to death? Their crime was refusing to worship him as a god. Some took hours to die. I can still hear their screams. And that bastard might actually be still alive, because no one saw his body—
I try to stop the next thought. I’m really not supposed to fantasize about killing a king, especially around a monarchist, which she obviously is. Auberon still has supporters. But that man ruined my fucking life. He broke my magic, destroyed my family, and poisoned my sister.
The next thing I imagine is smashing Auberon’s blond head into a rock, cracking open his skull, and watching his bloodied crown roll into the dirt.
The baroness stops walking and whirls sharply.
A wave of naked hostility radiates from her.
Of course, I’ve given her the impression that I possess the bloodlust of a Victorian serial killer.
“What is wrong with you?” she hisses. “Traitor.”
“I’ve asked myself the same thing many times. But what’s wrong with you? Stop listening to my thoughts. Walk ahead or behind me if you can’t stop yourself. Your telepathy is very intrusive.”
“You cannot injure a king,” she snarls at me in Fey.
“And we’re better off without a king,” I whisper back in kind. “But you need to be quiet. We could be killed for speaking our language.”
As I take a step, she grabs my arm in a vise-like grip. “You’re the one who will ruin everything.”
I narrow my eyes. “Your dear King Auberon cheated and lied his way to the throne. And even if he was the true king, descended from Bran himself, I’d kill him all the same. He’s a monster. Why don’t you stop listening to my thoughts, since you are so easily offended? Get out of my head.”
I wrench my arm out of her grasp, marching on. But the woman grabs my bicep again—harder now—and spins me to face her.
“You could destroy the world!” she shouts, clinging to my arm. “Never has a Fey committed such a great wrong.”
“Are you daft?”
“I know exactly what you are. Because of you, the land will lie in ruin, the powerful will sicken, and sorrow will reign in our kingdom. Cursed is the hour you were born,” she hisses, her eyes flashing. “You must die.”
My stomach plummets at the venom in her words.
Her brown hair is wild, her silver eyes frantic like a panicked animal’s. She reaches for my throat, hands clamping around my neck, and slams me against a brick wall with unexpected strength.
She’s trying to kill me.
Where was this power when she was facing down the mortals?
Gritting her teeth, her fingers tighten, pressing, choking. I can’t breathe. She’s crushing my windpipe, compressing my airway.
My thoughts go dim. The world slows. For a moment, I’m at peace.
I’m in the cottage again where I grew up, and sunlight streams in, catching on dust motes. I turn, running my fingers over the little flowers my father carved into the wood above my bed. Mother is outside, pulling weeds from her garden, and I can hear her singing to herself as she works…
Until—faintly— I hear a distant song.
A melody drowned underwater…
A raven’s wing brushes against my cheek like a kiss…
Faintly, my old magic thrums through my veins in a slow symphony.
I jab up at the baroness’s forearm with my fist and hear the snap of bone. Then I grab her by the hair and slam her head into the wall.
The sharp crack of her skull against the brick makes my heart lurch.
Even a Fey can’t survive a crushed skull.
Her body crumples to the pavement, crimson pooling onto the gray.
I stare at her, stunned, horror sliding through my bones.
My breathing sounds wrong—everything is wrong. I’ve just killed the person I was trying to help. How did this night fall apart so fast?
And what, exactly, should I do with the Fey corpse at my feet?