Chapter Six
SIX
He wears his shadows like a second skin.
Even from across the room, his green eyes feel like flames too close to my skin, sparking in the dark.
He moves with a lethal grace, the candlelight caressing the edges of his sharp jaw, then the flash of the dozen or so daggers in sheathes down his ribs.
Not one of them is longer than my hand, but the threat rippling off him leaves no doubt any one of them could slit my throat.
My mind howls in warning, just before recognition flares.
I smell the blood pooling in the market dirt all over again. Hear the scream of the guard’s sword flying for my head, and the words the cloaked man gritted out to me after killing him.
Go for the throat.
Danger crackles in the air between us as the man stalks out of the shadows. The floorboards don’t make a sound beneath his feet, though the soft brown leather boots look almost exactly like the ones the gardai wear; it’s as if he snatched a pair for himself and somehow managed to escape them.
“Your friend’s right,” he says in a voice somehow both soft and rough. “If you were smart, you wouldn’t have walked through that door.”
His voice tugs at something deep inside me, drawing out a flicker of defiance. I raise my chin and dare to meet his burning gaze. I refuse to let anyone intimidate me from getting what could save my sister. “And if you were smart, you’d stop wasting our time and give me what I came here for.”
A smirk toys with those curved, full lips. He raises one brow. “Why should I?”
Keeva’s shoulders tighten, and she squares them to face the man who can’t be more than a few years older than me. “She’s as quick as you with a knife, so giving her what she wants is probably your best move here.”
She conveniently leaves out the fact that he’s got about eight inches on me and could no doubt put me on my back in a hand-to-hand fight in five seconds flat. Finn was right about that, at least—I’m better with daggers than fists.
Not that I would ever let a Whisperer get close enough to put hands on me.
But Old Ones, the way Keeva and this man talk to each other… it’s as if they’ve known each other for so much more than mere seconds.
The man tilts his head, eyes climbing up the length of my body. One finger strokes the edge of the hilt lowest on his ribs, tucked in against the faded leather jacket worn over his black tunic. There’s a sheath hanging by his side, as if it’s meant to hold a sword, but it’s empty. “Is that so?”
He moves in a blur of shadows and steel. I feel him slashing for my ribs before the whistle of the blade hits my ears and I jump back, twisting out of his reach.
The knife just misses my skin but catches the fraying hem of my cloak, exposing the green tunic underneath.
His jaw ticks, eyes flitting to the color before lifting back to me, and something unreadable glints in his cunning stare. “Quite the choice of color.”
My cheeks flush, and I’m grateful for the dark. “I’m not here to fuck around.”
Those green eyes narrow dangerously on mine, but I grit my jaw against the fear.
There’s only one thing worth being afraid of right now, and it’s sure as shit not him.
It’s losing Finn. That fear blocks out everything else and quickly curdles into the desperation I have to fight to keep off my face.
“So, if you don’t mind,” I continue, “I’d like to get down to business. ”
“And what business would that be?” The man steps closer, the candlelight catching on the outline of a thin, branching scar curling beneath dark stubble on his jaw—it looks like lightning in darkness.
Keeva’s hand skims my wrist. Are you sure? she asks silently.
I brush her hand away and stand straight. “I’m here to buy magic.”
Just asking for magic is treason—if anyone knew, the gardai could rip me from my bed and execute me just like they executed my mother.
No one moves in the taut stillness; even the crackle of the candle wicks is thunder.
“Magic.” He laughs softly, but the sound is harsh. “If you’re looking for a love potion, I can’t help you.”
“I’m not looking for a love potion,” I snap. As if I would risk my life for something as foolish as that. I’m not a noble daughter and this isn’t the Assay.
He doesn’t so much as blink, but his long fingers stroke the hilt of a longer dagger sheathed down his left side. Every inch of him is carved with muscle from what can only be years of training. He just cocks his head and raises a dark brow.
Spit it out, he seems to dare me.
I swallow hard. “I need enough magic to save a life.”
There’s no sign of emotion in him—no hint of what’s going on behind his dark green eyes except for a quick glance to Keeva, who stands tense beside me.
My sister’s partner shifts as the man takes one step closer. As he studies me, his shadowed mask cracks, if only for a moment—briefly, a look strangely close to grief flashes in his hard stare, there and gone before I can draw my next breath. “I can’t sell you magic.”
My heart cracks.
“If we sold magic to everyone losing someone they love in this place, we’d have nothing left.” He shakes his head, and his hand tightens on his blade. “I’m sorry, whether you believe me or not.”
“Wait.” This wasn’t how it was supposed to go—not when I was willing to risk everything. I dig out the contents of my pockets, fingers trembling around the scant coins there. “I can pay, I can get more—”
“We don’t need coin,” he says, bristling. “And you knew the risk that we could refuse when you walked in here.”
Ice floods my bones as his eyes lock on mine. I step back, then again. Still, he soars over me, lean ripples of muscle shifting dangerously beneath the V of his black tunic.
Finn’s years of training and knife drills scream through me—
Hesitate and die.
There’s no way I’m letting him get those lethal hands on me.
My hand finds the razor-thin blade at my side. Almost a knife, but longer, and just as light. I don’t hesitate—I hurl the blade at him, and it screams in the air.
Keeva curses somewhere to the side, but my eyes never waver from my target.
A lock of dark hair falls to his shoulder, and the man’s breath catches. A thin line of red traces from his temple to his hairline. One hand goes up to touch the streak of crimson, and his eyes darken, flashing back to mine. “Missed me.”
He closes the space between us in an instant, and I step back until my spine meets the hard wall behind me.
Each of his movements is graceful, deliberate, unflinching.
Dark green eyes trail along my face as he leans in close enough that his scent washes over me.
Smoke and leather, and there’s something else, too, warm and sweetly spicy—sage, maybe?
“You want magic so badly?” An expression I can’t read lights in his scheming glare. Dangerous, but alluring. Like poison in wine. “Then make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
“We’ve got another shipment coming in this week,” Keeva cuts in behind us, reaching for my shoulder. “Weapons. The kind you prefer. And I’ve got a new supplier, one with access to the catacombs out—”
He raises the dagger in his hand to her throat.
“Not from you,” he snarls. “We’ve had enough of your shipments to last a High King’s lifetime.” He nods back to me. “Her.”
Again, I don’t hesitate. “A life for a life.”
Keeva’s breath catches.
The man tilts his head, studying me. He pulls the blade back from her throat and moves it lightly, tauntingly along the hollow of my neck, lingering on the silver chain disappearing beneath my neckline.
A brief flash of curiosity shows from behind his hard stare.
“Go on,” he says, almost reluctantly.
I shiver at the closeness of the blade, and speak.
“Give me the magic to heal one person, and my life is yours. I’ll do whatever you ask.
But…” I drop my voice, and somehow, the man steps closer.
I remind myself to breathe and ignore the bite of the blade where it touches my neck.
“It is a life. I’ll do whatever you want, but you can’t hurt me. ”
Keeva’s horrified gaze flies to me. “Maeve, no! She wouldn’t want this.”
“My sister doesn’t make decisions for me. And neither do you.”
The man’s eyes lock on Keeva. “That’s who the magic is for?”
“Does it make a difference?” Bitterness twists my words. Who the magic is for shouldn’t matter—we should all be able to get help when we need it.
He doesn’t answer but trails the dagger from my jaw to the place where the silver chain hangs down my neck and disappears into my tunic. I feel the tingle of its fading power and shiver. He lowers the blade.
“A life for a life,” I insist. “Swear it.”
Nothing else fills my lungs but leather and smoke and sweet sage, even as every instinct in me screams to run.
His green eyes are pure scheming, working through the bargain, studying me like if he just looks hard enough, he can find a way around the condition not to hurt me.
Something flares deep behind the shadows in his cunning stare, and he leans in closer—close enough for his breath to just barely brush over my skin.
“I swear,” he murmurs, reaching inside his leather jacket, right over where his heart would be—if he even has one. “Looks like we have ourselves a deal.”
The walk home is achingly quiet.
Midnight gathers around us, gauzy and clinging thinly to the stones. The mist is thicker than on the way here, wrapping in heavy tendrils that feel like a collar tightening around my neck.
I can’t tell how much of that comes from the tiny vial of shimmering magic now tucked in my pocket and how much is the weight of the promise I just made.