Epilogue
Knock, knock. Who’s there? Death. Death who?
Death you. *stabbity stab stab* - Evangeline (head of the Fairy Intelligence)
Somewhere in the dark underbelly of Raza
Standing outside the door of Richard’s suite, I knock on it very politely. I might be here to kill him for all he’s done to fuck up Raza with his idea of “morals” and “humanity”, but one simply does not pass up a good setup for a joke. And I have been waiting to tell this one to someone for ages.
“You thought it up fifteen seconds ago, when you were knocking out his head of security,” Aurelia says dryly – the voice of a ghost inside my skull. “You really need to learn to be more patient.”
I am extremely patient, I shoot back. Otherwise, I would have strangled you a long time ago.
She snorts. “Oh yeah? And how exactly would you go about strangling a voice inside your head? I’m you. Just nicer and prettier.”
I’d figure out a way.
She laughs. “If anyone could do it, it would be you.”
I preen. Then frown. Then place my ear to the door to try to figure out if Richard is coming to answer it yet. At the sound of footsteps, I light up again. Raising my hand, I tap my knuckles twice on the wood, this time saying, “Knock, knock!”
The footsteps stop immediately.
I bounce on my feet, waiting for him to call out, “Who’s there?” considering I definitely don’t sound like his head of security. Grinning wildly, I pull out a knife.
But instead of saying what he’s supposed to, he yells, “Die!” Then a ball of magic smacks into the door, splintering it apart and throwing me back.
The protection runes I tattooed on this body flare as I fly through the air. They eat up most of the damage I would’ve taken, but when I slam into the wall on the other side of the corridor, it still feels like I’ve been kicked off a cliff.
“You father fucker!” I shout as I roll to the side, dodging a red ball of magic.
As it crackles across the wall, scorching a large mark in the grey paint, I throw up a glittery, light-blue shield.
I surge to my feet, but I don’t run for the door leading into Richard’s suite.
I ram straight through the wall, taking him by surprise.
He spins towards me, screaming like a little boy as dust falls all around me.
But the magic in his shitty premade wand is no match for mine. The runes I use as powerbanks –having fed them with my magic over the last few days– flare red. I reach an arm in his direction, then snap it back behind me. His wand flies towards me, then past me to clatter onto the floor.
“Fuck you, Richard! You ruined my joke!” I snarl.
“You have the wrong person!” he yelps as he turns to run away. “I’m not Richard!”
“That’s what they all say!” Raising my hand, I pull him to me this time – or rather, I manipulate the air in front of him to push him to me, but who cares about semantics at a time like this?
The end result is the same. He flies across the room, his arms swinging madly as if he thinks he can swim through the air.
He lands in front of me, spins around in fear, and then falls on his ass in terror.
“What do you want? I’ll give you anything! Money? You want money, right? Or power? I can give you whatever you want!”
I scoff as I pointedly look around his shitty hobble of a home. If he’s a man with money and power, then I’m a lass with two legs and only one voice in my head. Instead, I have a fucking cool prosthesis and the last remnants of a dead friend haunting my sanity.
“I have connections!” he shouts as he pisses himself.
“I want,” I say as I crouch down in front of him and stare into his wild orange eyes, “you to say, ‘Who’s there?’”
His mouth falls open. “What?”
“Wrong fucking question!” Grabbing his wrist, I hold up his hand and stab him through the palm with my knife.
Screaming, he tries to shove me away, using his other hand. But I just stab that one too, this time pinning it to the floor.
“Okay!” he shrieks. “Okay! I’ll say it.” He starts to cry. “Who’s... there?”
“Death.”
He whimpers.
“Say it, Richard,” I coo.
“I’m not Richard,” he whines.
“You’re all Richard.” Every single person I kill while working as the head of the Fairy Intelligence is Richard fucking Morningstar. But since I can’t kill the king –not until I find evidence of him killing Aurelia– these targets of mine will have to do. “Say it,” I tell the ‘Richard’ at my feet.
“Death…” He trembles. Whining, he shakes his head.
“Ugh. Forget it. You’ve ruined it anyway.” Disgusted, I yank the knife out of his hand. Then I wave it in front of his face, flicking blood everywhere. “Now,” I say with a cheery smile. “You mentioned you have connections.”
He nods on a whimper as he cradles both of his hands to his chest. “I can get you whatever you want.”
“I want to know who in the Court has just put a bounty on King Morningstar’s head.
” It’s not even been three hours since that intel landed in my ear, but I can already feel the ticking of time.
I need to solve this fast, before an assassin finds their way past Jace.
He might be good at his job, great even, but there’s only so many people he can fight at once.
The threat of being executed for treason will make a lot of assassins hesitant to take on the job, but in addition to the hit, there are talks of a coup brewing in Raza’s underbelly.
Once those two things collide, even I might struggle to keep this kingdom safe.
The man’s eyes widen. “I don’t know what –”
“Yes, you do,” I cut in. “You’re the one who put out the hit on her behalf so she could stay anonymous.” So I know he has the next clue I need to track that bitch down.
“She’ll kill me!”
Insulted, I wave the knife harder. “Um, hello? What do you think I’m fucking doing?”
He wails.
Dammit.
“Great job,” Aurelia laughs. “Tell him you’re going to kill him regardless. That’ll get him to talk.”
“That was a joke,” I lie. “Because I didn’t get to say my knock knock joke earlier. I’ll let you go if you tell me what I want to know.”
He sniffles. “She’ll find me and kill me.”
I roll my eyes. I kinda already have you here, mate; you will be dead long before she finds you. Smiling sweetly, I say, “I’m Evangeline Sinclair, head of FI-9. I’ll give you protection.”
“You’re not Evangeline! She’s –”
“Beautiful. Smart. Hilarious. Choose your words wisely.”
“Only has one leg,” he finishes.
Dear fucking gods, I hate interrogating stupid people.
Standing, I pull up my left trouser leg and show him my pretty prosthesis.
Made of moonlight ore, it glistens like the silver rays of the moon.
Etched down its full length is a ruler, with notches in it at: the ankle, mid-shin, right below the knee, above the knee, half-way up the thigh, and at my hip.
From bottom to top, the notches read: just don’t like you, nothing personal, cunt, dick, rot in Hel you asswipe, and now it’s personal.
This way, when I shove my foot up people’s asses, they know exactly how much they’ve pissed me off.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” I purr.
“I’m not an idiot,” he snivels. “Evangeline lost her right leg, not her left.”
“I can shapeshift, dumbass.” Well, not technically. I can only modify my mass, not add or subtract from it like a true shapeshifter can. It’s very helpful for changing identities, not so helpful for proving who I am. “Though if you don’t feel like talking, I can just kill you now.”
Locking his body still with my magic, I start to plunge my knife into his –
“I don’t know!” he shouts. “I was never given a name.”
“Then how is someone supposed to collect the bounty?” A fairy’s promise is magically binding. Most anonymous contracts don’t get picked up due to the uncertainty of being paid, so she must’ve given him something solid.
“She’s already moved the full payment into an account. They just need to come to me, prove they did it, and then I’m to transfer the money to them.”
“Give me the bank details.” They won’t lead to her – unless she was dumb enough to open it in her real name, but it’s another path through this jungle of treason. At the very least, I might be able to drain the account dry and halt the assassination attempts – for now.
But I know that Richard is making gains to destroy the monarchy, and with it, the Court. The twelve Dragons of Kholar will be desperate to stop him from doing that given the only way they get to retire is through death. Which means that the attempts on his life are only about to get worse.
Dammit. I need to go to Kholar.
I hate going to Kholar. Richard is there. And Jace.
“And Diedre,” Aurelia adds. “You still like her.”
True. But she’s still a memory of what used to be.
A reminder that there was a time when we were all friends once.
When the four of us fought on the front lines together, alongside Princess Aurelia.
We were willing to die for her. She was like a sister to me.
She was Diedre’s fiancée. She was Jace’s love. She was Richard’s own flesh and blood.
Yet, I’m the only one who gives a shit that she’s gone.
Focusing on the ‘Richard’ in front of me, I make him squeal like the pathetic, little pig he is. Then I cut off his wings, drag him over to the window, and let him go just like I promised.
A twisted smile on my face, I leave his shitty apartment and head for Kholar.
One of these days, I’m going to kill the real Richard too.
But first, I have to save him from the assholes who are trying to cut in line.