by Jaida Jones
“Well.” Faolan gazed at something, anything other than Somhairle, angling his face until he was all aquiline profile. Cheekbones like daggers. Patrician and remote. “We’re here on the Queen’s business. The business of thwarting the Resistance.”
Although Queen Catriona heralded a time of miracles, she’d also weathered her share of disasters. Most recently, the former Eastside district had collapsed after the launch of a contentious tunneling project to build new sewer systems, and the people blamed her bitterly for their loss of land and livelihood.
Somhairle hadn’t minded leaving sour rumors and unpleasantness behind when he’d left the Hill. But why should trouble with court malcontents, the Queen’s grumbling detractors, have brought Lord Faolan and Morien the Last here, of all places? “That’s still a concern, is it?”
Faolan’s lashes fluttered. “More threat than ever, Your Highness, since their agents were discovered amid the Queen’s favorites. In House Ever-Loyal.”
Somhairle, who had a lifetime of experience in receiving ill news with a glass smile, felt the world drop out from under him.
22
Rags
PRESENT DAY
Morning showed up, shivery and wet. Rags had dreamed no clever solutions to his shit situation during the night, had spent most of it sleepless, pondering dangerous questions.
The type of questions that got little thieves killed.
Just how much had Lord Faolan and Morien known before they sent Rags down into the fae ruins? They couldn’t be after a weapon the Queen wasn’t aware of, not right under the Queen’s nose. The Queen was after the Great Paragon all along, Rags thought.
He opened his eyes to darkness. A looming form crouched over him, a canopy of—was that hair?—like an umbrella, sheltering him from the drizzling sky.
“The human body is artlessly built,” Shining Talon explained from above, “and susceptible to disease in the simplest of weather conditions.”
“Argh,” Rags replied.
He managed to wriggle free, wrinkling his nose as the drizzle fell on his skin. He stumbled to the stream’s edge to wash his face, clean the dead fae remnants off his hands, rebandage them, relieve himself, escape Shining Talon.
His hollow cheeks stared back at him from the clear waters, rippling but distinct. Dark hair matted, darker eyes hard. He plunged his head under the current. Pulled it out, cursing, streaming wet, cold.
“Allow me to assist.” Shining Talon was beside him again. He’d approached soundlessly and handsomely, an irritating shadow Rags couldn’t shake.
“I can wash myself—” Rags began.
Shining Talon cupped stream water in his hands, lifted them without losing a drop. As Rags watched, steam began to rise from the water’s surface, like Shining Talon was offering Rags a mug of hot tea on a midwinter day.
“Now it will be less offensive to your tender human flesh,” Shining Talon explained.
“Stop that.” Rags shoved ineffectually at Shining Talon’s arms in an attempt to make him spill the heated water. He didn’t budge, and Rags choked down a gurgle of impatience. “I swear, it’s not necessary. I’ve bathed in puddles of city water—which isn’t all water, if you catch my meaning. This is fresh. Clean. Besides, the cold clears my head.” He clenched his jaw, sticking said head back under the current to prove his point.
Damn piss balls ass shit, it was colder the second time.
Getting the dirt out of his ears with warm water, letting it sluice over his tense shoulders, would have been more comfortable. It’d also make him sloppy, hungry for luxury. Once his edge dulled, that was it. A ruined weapon that wouldn’t drive home.
He held his head under the current for a ten count before he emerged, pink cheeked and sodden to the collar, shaking out his hair.
Shining Talon dodged each droplet of water with a speed Rags didn’t want to think about.
“See? My tender human flesh made it through the experience in one piece, thanks.” All he had to do was keep his teeth from chattering, and he might pull off the act. “But if your tender fae flesh needs the pampering, don’t hold back on my account. . . .”
Rags trailed off. Shining Talon had a hand plunged into the stream, eyes shut, the faintest wrinkle of concentration on his forehead like he was listening to something.
“Uh . . . ,” Rags said.
Shining Talon’s dark lashes fluttered, his eyes opening. “Seven hundred years.” He removed his hand and held it in front of him, staring at his palm. “The stream says it has been seven hundred years since it has seen one of my kind.”
“That specific, huh?” Rags asked.
“Water is not known for its specificity, no, but it is accurate enough. It was necessary that I ask the stream. The trees would not answer.”
“Right.” The trees. “Hey, when are we gonna have a talk about the rock in my pocket?”
Shining Talon’s gaze narrowed, and he glanced over his shoulder, back in the direction of their camp, his meaning clear enough to anyone accustomed to deceiving people: Not while Morien’s around.
Except Morien was gonna be around for a while. Rags didn’t have a solution to that problem. Yet. He rocked back on his heels, thought about asking Shining Talon to apologize to the stream for him—sorry I plunged my dirty head into you—then shook the idiot idea away and left the riverbank.
Returned to the fireside, where Morien was waiting.
Sure, the sorcerer wanted to kill him, but at least he wasn’t talking to water.
23
Rags
A half day’s riding and the forest began to thin. Shining Talon paused near the edge of the woods, something Rags noticed because he was watching for exactly this kind of mold-for-brains behavior from their fae companion. It was already strange enough that he easily kept pace with the horses, though he was on foot.
Shining Talon needed to quit being bizarre so they could both stay alive. Rags had no doubt of Shining Talon’s ability to overpower Morien, especially with One the lizard on his side, but the big fae didn’t seem to think it was worth shredding Rags’s heart in the process.
A bad bargain any way you sliced it.
Right now, Shining Talon was simply gazing at the trees with a fierce look fixed on his face. Something about his expression made Rags feel like an intruder just by watching. Nothing in that silver gaze was remotely human. It should have made Rags tremble. Instead, he couldn’t help but notice the sharp, wolfish beauty in the golden planes of Shining Talon’s face. Looking at him, Rags got that same feeling he’d get when he caught the glimmer of untended coin. An excited twist in his gut. Pleasure so unexpected it was almost pain.
Any good thief knew when he’d glimpsed something he shouldn’t. Something that should have stayed in the safe.
“Quit staring at the trees and shake a leg,” Rags hissed, stomping the feeling flat.
Shining Talon looked at him, startled. The moment was broken. Good. “But I am saying goodbye.”
The wind shifted, and with it the clouds, which cast the long, ragged shadows of the tree line across them both. It was more than the trees he was saying farewell to. It was the Lost-Lands themselves, and all the fae who’d lived in them.
“Is there a problem?” Morien’s voice, when it came, was near enough that Rags could blame his gooseflesh on the sorcerer.
“Nothing.” Rags fixed his best I-haven’t-got-a-string-of-pearls-down-my-pants smile on his face.
Rags could see Morien’s frown even beneath the scarves. The sorcerer’s gaze passed to Shining Talon, but Morien didn’t say anything. Rags figured he didn’t want to talk to the fae any more than he had to.
“I must ask that you keep pace,” was all Morien said to Rags.
Then they were riding again.
Rags quickly noticed that while he’d been distracted, Morien had removed the Queensguard’s blindfolds. They seemed unimpressed with the new members of their party. Either they’d been working with the sorcerer long enough that nothi
ng surprised them anymore, or they were well trained enough to keep their thoughts about a fae and an enormous silver lizard to themselves. Either way, when Rags looked around to see if he wasn’t the only one knocked on his ass by current events, he caught not one of the Queensguard offering so much as a startled blink.
In fact, they barely spoke to one another. Eerie. Like being surrounded by marching tin soldiers come to life. When presented with an audience of one captive thief, one impossible creature from a long-extinct race, and one monstrous silver lizard, the Queensguard ought to have been crowing about another noble victory over Shining Talon’s people, shoving Rags’s face in how easily he’d been caught in an Ever-Noble’s game, and so on.
And yet, not a jeer.
Rags didn’t like that.
The twisting, lonely patches of road they traveled hadn’t been proper thoroughfare in decades, but were still leading them toward civilization, one hooved step at a time. Morien disappeared from the path once or twice to report to his master. Whether that was Faolan or the Queen, Rags wasn’t sure.
Soon enough, they saw the first humble signs of human life: an abandoned hut; a filthy shepherd girl who stopped and gawped as they passed.
Morien waved a hand in the girl’s direction. “She won’t remember the lizard,” he said distantly, by way of explanation.
From the way the sheep stumbled over themselves to get away, he hadn’t bothered ensorcelling them to forget the shit they’d seen.
“We require additional resources for our return trip,” Morien said sometime later, “and must stop in the nearest village in order to restock our supplies. However . . .” He spared a glance for One, who lifted her chin defiantly, her third eye flashing, then nodded at Shining Talon. “. . . that will prove difficult, with certain more conspicuous members of our party.”
“In this, Lying One, you do not lie,” Shining Talon replied.
“Cloak for him,” Rags suggested quickly, with a glance at Shining Talon, a look he hoped conveyed the sentiment: Enough with the “Lying One” shit before it pisses Morien off for good. “But the lizard . . .” He couldn’t think of a fix for that problem.
Morien affected a half bow, still in his saddle. “With its permission, I will take care of that matter.”
“Her,” Shining Talon murmured softly.
Morien didn’t appear to hear him.
Rags did.
A cloak for Shining Talon was pulled from a Queensguard pack, and another was procured for the lizard and draped over the majority of her bulk. She shuffled beneath the fall of wool. For a time, Morien’s hands traced the signs of his craft in the air above his horse’s mane, until Rags realized that when he wasn’t paying close attention, the brown cloak made the silver lizard look like a shaggy herding dog. If he let his attention wander, he started to believe the illusion, despite knowing the truth. He shuddered.
Shining Talon pulled the hood of his own cloak over his face, hiding his hair beneath. The cloak took care of the major details—the glow of his skin, the tattoos, the whiteless silver eyes, the pointed ears.
Rags didn’t believe that disguise as easily as One’s.
“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?” Rags asked him, unable to keep it in any longer.
The expression of calm on Shining Talon’s face was downright infuriating. “As long as I am by your side, and we are by hers, I do not question that I am where I am needed.”
Rags envied him.
His confidence was stupid, but it must’ve been pleasant.
When they came to it, the village was exactly what Rags expected. One stable, a few unfashionable shops for necessities, and a public house with half its roof in need of rethatching. Homesteads neighbored the town’s center—not that it could be called a “town” with a straight face—and dotted the surrounding fields. The sun, a low red gash, kissed the hills as it set.
Morien instructed them to wait at the edge of the village while he negotiated terms of their stay with the owner of the public house.
The sun was not yet gone when Morien returned. “We have the run of the place tonight,” he informed them curtly. “Stable for the horses in the back. Queensguard, see to it. As for the rest . . . some of us must remain upstairs in private quarters for the duration of our stay.”
“Meaning the dirty thief, the tattooed fae lunatic, and the dog who’s actually a silver lizard?” Rags asked, and grinned recklessly. Some of his humor had returned with the thought of sleeping in an actual bed. Morien stared him down until the grin faltered. It dropped altogether as Rags dismounted.
“Remain upstairs. Got it.” He handed his horse’s reins to the nearest Queensguard. “Want us to scale the outside wall while we’re at it? I’m good at sneaking into places.”
Morien tossed Rags a cloak, which he caught against his chest. “That won’t be necessary. All details of maintaining discretion have already been taken care of.”
He wasn’t lying on that point, either. Nobody looked Rags’s dirty-thief way when he entered: the barkeep polished the same spot on the bar top over and over, while the lone barmaid faced a far corner of the taproom and didn’t turn, didn’t seem to breathe.
The emptiness of the public house was odd enough, but this many royal horses being put to stable should have meant a taproom quivering for Hill gossip, especially with House Ever-Loyal’s treason and destruction last year still shadowing everyone’s thoughts. Soon the bones of that carcass would be picked clean, and scavenging Cheapsiders would have to turn their eyes upward again, waiting for the next House to fall.
So his city churned, grinding the poor under its wheels so roughly compared to the rest. Rags put his kicking pulse down to homesickness, not fear, and scurried up the dusty stairs.
24
Rags
Staying out of sight in the ramshackle inn meant Rags was alone in a small room under a low ceiling with only Shining Talon and One the lizard for company.
To keep himself occupied, he fished the lump out of his pocket, followed by the silver beetle. Excluding One, this was all the actual treasure he’d come back with out of the fathoms-deep fae ruin, submerged within the Lost-Lands.
No one would ever believe him.
The beetle would be his keepsake for this job, stored in the hidey-hole alongside a dull arrowhead from House Ever-Bold’s Heroes of the Fair Wars collection, Lady Blodwen Ever-Striving’s silver earwax cleaner, and three bent coins Rags had found after they’d buckled under carriage wheels.
He would have tried to sleep, but there was Shining Talon’s tendency to creep up noiselessly beside Rags to consider. Rags would never know if he was alone or if Shining Talon was standing obsessive vigil, eyes unblinking, staring at him.
He couldn’t deal with that.
Instead, he poked at the beetle. His fingers still stung from where its buggy brothers had bitten him, but the pain was definitely receding, thanks to Shining Talon’s magic dirt.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this thing.” He held the lump aloft. It was the size of an overripe apple, left to grow on its branch too long. The lamplight caught the lumpy, silver blobs twisted around its base like a gloppy coating of tar, making the object glow in Rags’s hand.
Even this, a thing that looked like ossified dung, was too beautiful a fae treasure for Rags to hold on to.
Shining Talon came to stand by the bed. He didn’t reach for the rock, which made Rags realize he’d been hoping he would relieve him of the important artifact.
But Shining Talon, irritatingly, merely gazed at it, leaving both of them staring like yokels.
“It was in your coffin,” Rags prompted, like Shining Talon was a watch that needed a wind to get going. “With you the whole time. You sure you don’t have any tips?”
Shining Talon shook his head. His hair moved like a black river, shimmering as it flowed down his back. Absurd, to see someone this elegant and noble in a cramped, backwater inn. Against the grim backdrop, Shining Talon wa
s so beautiful, it hurt worse than any infected splinter under Rags’s skin. Comparing himself to the unearthly creature next to him ached like the shard in Rags’s heart.
“Forgive me,” Shining Talon explained. “I must have been unclear. The artifact was not placed into Sleep with me. Rather, it was . . . stored somewhere safe, until such a time as it was meant to be found.”
Rags didn’t need to see the uncertainty in the thoughtful set of Shining Talon’s lower lip to hear it in his words. Fae might not lie, but he knew when someone was loitering around the edges of untruth without crossing its threshold.
“Somewhere safe?”
Shining Talon blinked. The crossbones at the corners of his mouth twitched. “It is said that our queen placed the artifact among the stars. That she alone would know when it was time for it to fall.”
“Great,” Rags said. “I get a fragment that’s not going to lead us anywhere.”
Shining Talon nodded, halting. It was clear he didn’t want to admit it, but there was no other conclusion to be drawn. “It is said that one fragment must be led, not do the leading. That this is a test of its master’s worth.”
There were those words again. Test, master, worth.
Did they have thieves from the gutter in the fae court? Did they have gutters?
Nah, Rags thought. Fae probably didn’t shit.
“If that’s true, we’re gonna be waiting a long time.” Rags tossed the lump from one hand to the other, testing its weight like a juggling ball. “I’m not worthy. I’m as lost as anyone. Don’t think I’ll be leading anything anywhere any time soon.” He set the lump on the bed, then patted his thighs mockingly. “Here, boy!”
Naturally, the lump didn’t move.
Shining Talon’s brow wrinkled in confusion. Rags didn’t feel like explaining the joke. Mostly because he was afraid of pulling the thread that revealed that he, Rags, was the only joke in the room.
If fae were so smart, Shining Talon would figure it out.
In the meantime, Rags unwrapped the red bandages on his hands, had to keep himself from exclaiming when he saw how the scabbed-over flesh had healed cleanly. After that, he didn’t know what to do with Morien’s red scarves—which, despite having been packed with dirt, weren’t dirty—so he stuffed them in a pocket and did his best to forget about them. They might be worth something someday, more than the beetle and the fae lump anyway, if he lived long enough to sell them.