Chapter Sixteen
SIXTEEN
Talon leads me back to my room.
I don’t know how much of that is them realizing I don’t know the way, or knowing that even if I did, the last thing I want is to be alone in these shadowed halls.
Aoife follows us, painfully pale with blood shock. I see it in in her reddened eyes, in her pale cheeks. I felt it once too, that echoing weight of horror from witnessing slaughter.
I don’t know if I should be relieved or horrified that I can move on from it so quickly after all these years of living under the shadow of the Black Quay.
Her slippers are quiet on the stone as she moves to take a separate staircase winding in another direction from the one that leads to my room.
As much as I hate to admit it, part of me wants to go to her, offer her some comfort.
“Are you sure you’re okay to head back?” I hesitate, because she’s already nodded once.
But if it were me, even though I might never admit it, I’d want someone to ask.
The small smile she gives falters. “I’m fine,” she whispers. “I just need to lie down.”
Is it possible Aoife has never seen death up close before?
We watch her walk away. Neither of us speaks until Talon stops right outside my door. The knob creaks as I turn it, and I notice that in the shadows of the flickering hall tapers, the black metal seems… almost dull. My fingers run over the scuffed iron.
The metal is marked with dozens of tiny scratches.
A low growl rumbles from Talon’s throat. “Someone’s tried to get into your room.”
“While we were gone?” An even worse possibility sprouts in my mind. “Or while I’ve been here… before?”
While I’ve been in here alone.
Talon shakes their head, copper hair catching in the weak candlelight. “I don’t know,” they admit. “But neither one is good.” They draw something from their pocket. “Here.”
The object they offer is barely bigger than my finger. I look closer and find it’s a long, narrow triangle of wood, slim at one end and widening to roughly two inches at the other.
“Wedge it under your door,” Talon explains. “Even if the lock breaks, no one will be able to push past it to get into your room.”
I arch a brow. “And you just happen to have one handy?”
“Wolf makes them for all of us.” Talon watches me, like they’re curious about what effect the words will have on me.
I give them nothing, but my fingers drift along the carefully chiseled edges of the wedge.
An image of Wolf, his brow furrowing in concentration, deft fingers carefully shaping the path of a wood plane, fills my mind.
Who was he before he became a Whisperer? The son of a carpenter or a craftsman?
There were so many cuts and calluses all over his hands.
I can’t keep myself from wondering again: What mistakes does he think he’s made, to hold so much of himself back?
A coal of curiosity flickers in me.
I stamp it down.
There’s no way Wolf would ever let me in. It’s all business between us—a transaction, a deal, to make us even. Nothing more.
Talon’s shoulder nudges at mine, and they open the door. “Go on. I have to send him a message. To let him know…”
“I’m not dead yet?” I say sarcastically.
Their answering look is serious. “Yes. Try and keep it that way, will you?”
A jaw-cracking yawn escapes me, and this time I don’t need Talon to nudge me to the door. I’m already right there, slipping past the frame with a shiver as I trail my hand over the scratched knob.
I hear Talon’s boots pad down the hall before I pause and call out softly for them. “Wait.”
Talon freezes, hand reaching not for the standard gardai sword at their side but for their wrists—for the gauntlet sheaths I know are under the loose sleeves of their uniform. They relax a second later, turning back to me.
I almost hesitate. But who cares if they think this is weakness or homesickness or anything else? It matters. What I need to make it through all of this matters.
“Can you get a message to Finn too? Let her know I’m—”
“Not dead?” Talon leaves out the last part. Yet.
I swallow a flare of hurt at my sister’s name. Old Ones, I miss her. Just hearing her voice, seeing her laugh.
“Exactly,” I almost whisper past the ache in my chest.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Talon’s face softens, just a little bit. “I promise, Maeve.”
There’s a shift between us. A peace of sorts, I think.
“Thank you.”
Talon just nods, then gestures to the wedge in my hand. “Make sure you use that.”
In answer, I slip past the door and shut it, then kick the wedge into place. It slides in firmly, and I let out a taut breath at the relief washing over me.
I can just make out their soft laugh before it fades down the hall.
The noble daughters try to kill me twice in two days.
Neve throws a knife in the corridor outside the banquet hall as I arrive to dinner the next night.
The whistle of the blade is my only warning in the heartbeat before it flies so close to me that all the hairs down the back of my neck prickle.
I duck, a thin slice of hot pain opening along my forehead, the blade clattering against the glittering wall behind my head.
Aoife picks it up with shaking fingers and hands it to me.
Another for my collection, I guess.
Neve waves her fingers at my glare, a menacing smile twisting her lips, before slipping away with a pair of older nobles into the waiting banquet.
Talon’s eyes nearly bulge out of their head at the sight of me wiping the blood away.
“I’m fine.” I brush them off.
I’m not.
I knew it was only a matter of time before the noble daughters tried to kill me, but the brazen way she did it… I draw in a shaking breath and force my chin high.
Aisling makes the next attempt.
Three days after the High King’s attack on the musician, another banquet sees the tables set closely enough to one another that nobles grumble as they settle into their chairs.
Stoneware cups of dark, rich wine wait for us on the table at the very back of the room, and I’m sure it’s no mistake that I’m seated as far away from the prince as possible.
Talon stands half-hidden by a flickering candle in a corner, blending in just like the dozen or so other gardai lining the room’s edges.
Shucked oysters on ice sit in the center of the table, and the nobles around me wear gems covered with faint scratches and gold that’s long past glowing. They sneer at every attempt I make at speaking to them, their eyes lightening only when Aisling glides toward us.
I spot the vial in her palm before she stumbles clumsily, grabbing on to me and clearly trying to hide the sprinkle of white powder she scatters across the oysters on my plate.
It dissolves into the brine quickly, but I recognize it by the lack of any smell at all.
Arsenic.
My stomach churns, but it’s nowhere close to what it would do if I consumed that poison.
Arsenic is notorious for either long-term use in small, precise doses if you want to stretch a death out to avoid suspicion…
or a particularly inglorious end if you’re impatient.
Violent diarrhea. Vomiting like you would not believe.
The fact that most victims die of shock from the trauma on the body speaks to the indignity of death by this particular poison—and I can’t help but wonder with grim curiosity who she bought it from. Surely, Keeva wouldn’t deal to nobles now, knowing I’m here.
She must know I’m here by now.
I shove the plate away and flee to my room the second the formal meal is done.
That night, sleep refuses to come.
Faint shadows ring my eyes as I tie my hair back the next morning. The buttery soft leathers and tunic that have become my uniform fit a little looser than when I got here. Worry, I think. I can’t seem to settle because the second test is just days away.
A gauntlet sheath covers my wrist. I let my sleeve flow over it, concealing the tiny knives Talon left for me with breakfast yesterday morning—along with the special item I asked for—and slip out into the garden.
A cool crispness clings to the air. Mist beads droplets of dew on my eyelashes, and my eyes sting. I rub at them and draw in a deep breath.
Aoife’s windows are shut tight. No whisper of a rustle in the curtains.
I knock—softly at first, then harder.
There’s a long moment of nothing. I almost turn around and go back to my room when a sliver of light breaks the solid sheet of the curtain and Aoife peers out.
I wave and offer a small smile.
The lock on the other side shifts, and she opens her door just a crack.
Her eyes flicker to the cut on my forehead. I know a thin scab crusts along the curve. “It’s healing.”
“I told you it would.”
“You’ll have a scar.” She frowns, pity in her blue eyes.
“I’m alive.” I shrug. A scar is nothing.
“I have a balm that might help,” she offers. “I could go get it—”
“No, that’s not why…” I cough, holding out the small item Talon brought for me. “I wanted to say thank you.”
Aoife glances down at the small bundle of soft suede, keeping the door gap narrow. There’s a dusty, preserved kind of stillness to the room behind her.
The thin blade inside the bundle gleams in the morning light.
“Back home, we give knives to say thank you.” It’s a lie, but there’s no way Aoife will know that. And she seemed so curious about how I trained, how I learned to defend myself. “If you want,” I offer cautiously, letting her think I’m hesitant, “I could show you how to use one.”
I remember the way the other women in the baths and at the First Look stared at her openly—the sneering, the condescension. And I remember the way she flinched, like she feared them.
Could I have given Aoife one of my own knives? Sure. But as much as she could learn to use one, I need mine a damn lot more than she does.
The one I’ve given Aoife is an impressive mimic of Málmar steel. It’s one of the best fakes Finn could have chosen. That and the message Talon passed from her along with it made my heart sing.
Don’t be afraid to get your hands bloody.
With each passing day I survive here, the hope in my chest that I might be able to do this grows a little bit more.
Wariness narrows Aoife’s blue eyes. “What would you want in exchange?”