by Jaida Jones
Could she teach Rags how to do that? He’d welcome being less aware of every swelling breath in Shining Talon’s chest, every silken lock of hair stirred by the breeze streaming in through the gaping hole in the wall.
“I’m mostly sure it’s true about him being a fae prince,” Rags added, mouth running to fill the quiet. “I’ve seen him in the rain. The tattoos don’t run off. They’re legitimate.”
“How can you joke about something as serious as collaboration with the fae?” Color flowed hotly into Inis Ever-Loyal’s voice.
Rags hid his triumph. Got her talking, hadn’t he?
“But,” Cabhan’s voice was a dull, rusted sword, and he wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye, “there’s something else you should worry about. Not pleasant, like . . .” His hand strayed to One and, finding her by his side, stroked the scales on the back of her neck with a callused thumb. “Not like this.”
“There’s more, is there?” A glint in Inis’s eyes suggested she was planning the best way to murder Cabhan and his lizard. “Out with it.”
“I believe I can answer that.” A shadow fell from the opening in the wall across the floor and sent the crawlies jittering up Rags’s spine. Morien stood at their backs, blotting out the sunlight. Two the cat hissed. Something wordless passed between him and One, unspoken explanation. Rags shuddered. Cab clenched his jaw.
Morien’s eyes surveyed the little hovel and its contents, mock pity in his eyes. For a moment, everyone remained frozen in time and place, the sorcerer’s captive, disgusted audience.
“Traitors to the crown, rejoice.” Morien gestured with a red-gloved hand. “Your Queen has found a new use for you. Or rather, for one of you.”
Inis reached over to her little sister, pulling her close to cover her eyes and ears.
And Morien did what had to be done.
41
Cab
Once again, Cab was present to watch darkness descend on House Ever-Loyal.
“Was that necessary?” he asked Morien.
If he thought he was making up for what he’d done to the Ever-Loyals by expressing helpless concern for their eldest daughter, a shard newly lodged in her heart, he was fooling himself.
The little one cried. Their manservant tried and failed to comfort her.
Cab had to get out of there. Couldn’t breathe under the weight of his guilt. Told himself he’d done what everyone expected of a deserter. Hadn’t let anyone down except himself, who didn’t matter.
“Everything I do is in service of the Queen,” Morien replied. “Would you question Her Majesty’s will?”
Yes, Cab thought, but that road led only to a yet thornier mire. Morien was implying it was the Queen behind their quest, not House Ever-Learning.
“What about Lord Faolan?” If Cab had learned anything of politics while in the Queensguard, it was always to answer questions with more questions. Made for a miserable conversation, but at least one you might survive without surrendering valuable intelligence.
“I will leave to inform him of these developments,” Morien replied, looking pleased to have won their minor standoff. His expression darkened when he glanced at Cab. “Never forget that I see all. Escape from me is impossible. Whether I am here or elsewhere, I am watching—through this.”
He touched his own chest, stared at Cab’s.
After he left, while Inis Ever-Loyal recovered, Cab set about finding the wood he needed to fix what he could mend: the wall. Rags wouldn’t go with him. “These hands aren’t for hard labor or swinging clumsy chop-chop blades around,” he’d said, and Shining Talon had refused to leave the thief’s side, so that ruled his assistance out.
Cab would have been alone, except the manservant—“Name’s Bute. It seems you’ve brought harm to my doorstep twice, sir”—had insisted on coming along. Together they trundled to the heath and chopped down slim-trunked trees, stripped them of their branches. Cab tore into the work with a dedication that made his palms bleed.
Felt nothing.
My silly boy. One’s voice floated to him from the cottage, across the clearing. Her chin rested on her front feet as she surveyed his work at a respectful distance. That’s a flaw of your kind. Always building, destroying, then destroying to rebuild . . .
This has to be done, he replied.
Does it? An artful, serpentine shrug.
Cab wiped sweat off his brow with his forearm, taking stock of the materials. The pile of wood was nearly waist high. Enough to start.
Bute clamped a hand on his shoulder before Cab could head back up the hill.
“If you bring more death to this family,” he said under his breath, “I don’t care who’s on your side, what sorcerer’s working with you, or”—he gestured to One—“what that thing can do. I’ll hold you accountable. You understand me?”
“On my life,” Cab replied.
They worked through the night. By sunup, they had the basic structure of the wall back in place.
On shaky feet, Inis stepped out to join them at work. (Anything, Cab suspected, to ignore the mirror in her heart and the voice in her head until she was ready to face both.) She was handy with a hammer, and Cab stayed out of her way, letting Bute move between them and settle there.
The wall got fixed.
Ivy came out with breakfast. Cab wouldn’t take food from an Ever-Loyal’s mouth; there was enough left in his pack to satisfy him. He ate outside by the horses to avoid more discomfort under the Ever-Loyals’ roof.
Your attitude might be misinterpreted as sulking, One told him. Or worse, cowardice.
Cab shrugged that aside. Went to bathe off the night’s dirt, sweat, and blood in a nearby stream. He stripped out of his shirt and plunged into the cold water, shocking everything but shivers from his thoughts.
He stayed under the surface until the pain in his lungs sliced through the numbness everywhere else. Then he rose. Water in his eyes and ears, his nose and mouth. Not to mention every cut and scrape he’d earned while repairing the cottage. He waited for them to sting so he could feel again. Feel anything he was supposed to.
He’d fled from House Ever-Loyal and unswerving loyalty to the Queen. Somehow, he’d wound up back where he’d started.
But with a new purpose. He couldn’t let the Queen get her hands on One and the rest of her kind.
The bruises on his jaw and the back of his head were both thanks to Inis Ever-Loyal. Cab deserved them. Deserved more.
And Inis deserved better.
He couldn’t put things right; he could only do right from now on. One knew best—he should stop worrying.
Cab swiped the water out of his eyes with his hand.
He heard the rush of air behind him and understood what it was—large object, about to connect with my head—too late to do anything but let it hit him.
And the world went black.
42
Rags
Rags managed to hang on until just after breakfast before he knew: He had to get out of that house. Had to get away from everything, everyone, in it.
Including Two, locked up with Inis in her room since breakfast.
Including the woman sitting motionless by the fireplace in a rocking chair, her face younger than her gray hair suggested, who hadn’t spoken a word to anyone or looked once at her unexpected guests since they’d arrived. Hadn’t glanced at the missing wall or acknowledged the loud, sweaty efforts to fix it.
And the little girl hiding under the table, staring at Shining Talon from beneath the tablecloth.
And the manservant who kept aggressively asking Rags and Shining Talon if they wanted more tea, as though he believed the next cup could pour life back to normal.
And Shining Talon, refusing to leave Rags’s side, even after Rags made it clear that he wanted to be alone.
The instant Rags stepped out the front door, Shining Talon was there at his side like a late-afternoon shadow, if a shadow could glow more golden than the thief who cast it. “You will have to learn how to work in unison with others when you
command the Great Paragon. Is it not better to begin practice now?”
Way too much to argue with there.
“I work fine with others,” Rags told him. “You want something stolen, you let me know. But sitting around and chatting? Making friends? It doesn’t work out. I’ve already told you I’m not your guy. I’m not going to waste time with your fae mind exercises, or whatever you want from me.”
Perfect. It was rude enough that Rags prepared himself for the blissful distraction of an argument.
He wasn’t prepared for Shining Talon shoving him to the ground, palm against his chest, and crouching over him like an alleycat guarding its first meal in days.
“Ow,” Rags began pointedly, only to find his mouth covered by the same hand that had pushed him down. It smelled of green grass and precious metal.
Shining Talon’s silver eyes flashed with sudden danger, scanned the tree line.
“Something is amiss,” the fae prince hissed.
Then a black arrow sprouted from his shoulder. Too quick for Rags to think, to react, to process what was happening, Shining Talon snatched the next one out of the air. Shouts rose from the trees. To Rags, they sounded like a charge.
“Get back inside,” Shining Talon commanded. “It will be easier to defend from within.”
“Mmph!” Rags yelled. For once he was glad his mouth was covered. He didn’t know what would’ve come out otherwise.
The arrow remained fully planted in Shining Talon’s shoulder. Silver blood had blossomed around the buried tip. Didn’t it hurt? Or did fae not feel pain?
All living things feel pain.
Fae blood dripped onto Rags’s shirt. Figures melted toward them from between the trees, faces bulging and colorful. They were wearing masks.
Where was the enormous silver lizard when you needed her?
Where was the ex-Queensguard, for that matter, presumably trained to defend and attack?
Rags wriggled out from under Shining Talon’s weight. Opened his mouth to shout for Cabhan. Found he’d lost his voice.
Dane had always wondered what it would take to shut Rags up.
Shining Talon lunged away to meet the enemy, muscles coiled, an arc of pure grace and power.
“Cabhan!” Rags finally croaked, flipping onto his belly and digging his nails into the grass, heaving himself to his feet. The wall of the cottage at his back, protecting him, also made him an obvious target. “Cabhan of Kerry’s-End, you’d better get your well-trained, well-muscled Queensguard ass back here, or I swear on Lady Winter’s tits—”
A window squealed open from above. Bossy Brown-Curls stuck her head out. “My sister is still a . . . ,” Inis began, then trailed off, noticing the assault on her home.
Two. Her mouth formed the word, and the silver cat appeared at her side.
Both disappeared from the window frame. Rags swiveled in time to witness Shining Talon catch the haft of an ax and wrench it away from his assailant.
Heavy, blocky, pulp-paper masks, painted deep gold with black markings. Like the ones from the theater costumes human actors wore to transform into fae. Beneath the colorful masks, the figures were dressed in black.
It must’ve been wild for Shining Talon to be fighting himself. Or for him to see what humans thought of his kind. So much gaudier than the real thing, the difference between paste jewels and precious stones. Even their motions were jerky, clumsy, compared to Shining Talon’s speed and sinuous movement.
He caught one by the head and slammed them to the ground.
Unlike Rags, they stayed down.
Where was everyone else? Shining Talon was amazing and all, but he was one against too many.
Rags grimaced, pushed away from the house, and rushed down the green toward the fighting, cringing the entire time. He’d seen too many decent thieves ruin their livelihoods by throwing a bad punch and breaking their fingers.
But Shining Talon was badly outnumbered. If anything happened to him, Rags was as good as dead.
Anyway, if harm came to the last of the fae, it wasn’t going to be because Rags had stood back to watch him die alone.
Their attackers were shouting wildly. Shining Talon was silent. Small relief. Rags didn’t think he could handle a fae battle cry. If he had to bet, they’d be epic poems.
“Pissing balls of fucking fire!” As he charged the line, Rags failed to convince himself that he wasn’t as small as a shed feather tossed on the wind.
He tackled a masked attacker around the waist, headbutting them in the stomach for good measure. They fell to the ground but kicked as they went, hard-toed boots winding Rags as he scrambled to pry his fingers under the edges of the heavy mask.
It was stuck. Rags fumbled. The slice-song of a knife being drawn, slashing a violent arc toward Rags’s throat.
Stopped by Shining Talon’s hand, palm to sharp edge.
“This is not inside the house!” Shining Talon bellowed at Rags as he grabbed the mask with his other hand, slamming it down to the earth, knocking its wearer out cold. He tossed the blade away as though it were a splinter. The skin of his palm was split, dripping more silver blood.
Like he’d forgotten the shit they were in, Shining Talon touched Rags’s throat, painfully merciful, to satisfy himself that it was unharmed. Left a streak of cool fae blood on Rags’s pulse.
Rags swallowed, shivered. Sensed Morien’s arrival like river-flu season.
That prick must have been waiting for the most dramatic moment to show up.
“Oh dear.” Though Morien’s voice snapped in the air with the charged promise of lightning, boredom dripped from his syllables. “If it isn’t the Resistance. Come to defend their beloved Ever-Loyals? Or to steal more of the Queen’s royal assets?”
A black-swathed body fell boneless at Rags’s feet, its arms and legs twisted at limp angles. Rags looked away from it, but that meant he was looking at Morien. He wished he wasn’t. Couldn’t look away now.
Arms lifted, thumbs drawing sharp geometric patterns, Morien turned his palms to the sky.
A foreboding in the act made Rags’s heart shudder.
Morien flicked his forefingers. Rags shouted. A fine diamond spray exploded outward toward the dozen or so black-clad attackers. Shining Talon dove to the earth atop Rags, chest on chest, chill blood splashing Rags’s cheek. The mirror-dust cloud enveloped the Resistance fighters like a swarm of angry mudjackets. Screaming so desperate it might never stop. Rags was ashamed to find himself cringing, sick to his stomach, sick to his heart.
He’d seen plenty of death in his time, watched it claim friends, strangers, enemies.
And he knew what the mirrorglass felt like in his heart. Couldn’t imagine how much worse it’d feel piercing every part of him at once.
His arms shook. His throat ached when he swallowed. The worst was the silence, the moment every scream died. The bloody shards of mirrorglass and mirror-dust drifted back to Morien on an invisible breeze like pollen blown off a wisher-willow in spring. The air was still and thick with death.
Rags looked up, nose brushing Shining Talon’s chin. Only Shining Talon’s heartbeat anchored Rags in place. The arrow remained embedded in his shoulder.
Rags was gonna kill him.
But then Shining Talon pulled Rags up with him, his long hair brushing Rags’s lips as he stood. He proceeded to pat Rags down in search of injury, which left Rags too scrambled to grumble in protest.
Much.
“You’re the one with an arrow sticking out of him,” Rags muttered. “Why don’t you look after your own self?”
Shining Talon ignored that reasonable question and turned to face Morien, keeping himself between Rags and the sorcerer. “These warriors could have been questioned as honorable prisoners. I fought to incapacitate, not kill, for this reason. Now they are dead, and the dead cannot speak.”
Shiny had been thinking about honor. Meanwhile, Morien the Last had downed—Rags counted quickly, breath hitching—twenty-two fighters in masks. They looked sm
aller now that they were unmoving. A couple were Rags’s size, if that. Meaning they might be kids. Laid out across the front garden of the Ever-Loyals’ grounds, never to move again.
“I protected you from the Queen’s enemies.” Rags would swear later that Morien had yawned, bored by the proceedings.
The muscles in Shining Talon’s back twitched and clenched under his shirt. He was about to call Morien a Lying One again.
A shout from the other side of the Ever-Loyal house kept that from happening. Inis and Two appeared—Bit late, Rags thought darkly—the former holding Cab’s muddy shirt in one hand. The wind picked up, air finally moving, Morien’s mirror bullshit no longer keeping it at bay, and twitched the corners of the garment like a peace flag.
“Cabhan of Kerry’s-End is gone,” Shining Talon murmured quietly, for only Rags to hear. “And One has gone with him.”
“Shit,” Rags said.
“Indeed,” Shining Talon agreed.
Rags was clearly a bad influence on him.
43
Inis
Violence and slaughter had come to Inis Ever-Loyal’s doorstep once again. Only she wasn’t helpless this time, and she wasn’t alone.
The one you don’t like is missing, Two said as he shot ahead, slinking past her ankles to patter down the stairs.
“Bute!” Inis hissed. The man poked his head out of the kitchen, hands still busily drying a kettle. Hands that stilled when he saw the look in her eye. She cleared the tightness from her throat. “Find Ivy and take her to Mother’s room. Barricade yourselves in and block the windows.”
“And you, Miss Inis—” Bute began. Inis held up her hand, and he honored her by falling silent.
Perhaps you think it doesn’t matter if the one you don’t like is missing? But it does. Two was waiting patiently for Inis at the back exit, expecting Inis not to question him.
“What’s happening?” Ivy burst from beneath the coatrack, where she’d been eavesdropping by the door. Listening in on the fae, the small thief, and especially the small thief’s gutter mouth. Just as Inis had suspected.