“Aye, I did.” Magnus settled back on his arse, too damned tired to be bent down in a squat anymore. If she killed him for it, good for her. “Wanna tell me about it?”
“It was the same fucking cunt from before.” She leaned further away, a wary frown on her face as she gave him a once-over. “Whoever… The one who… I just know it, eh? It feels right.”
“You keep saying that. What do you mean?” He had to stifle a yawn, every fucking dreadful minute catching up with him.
He couldn’t let it. He raced up here as fast as Pet could take him when he saw the tower crumbling, unable to sense his brother or the witchling nearby where they should’ve been. Those he’d left behind would be out of their stupor by now, looking for answers he didn’t have, and there were too many people who needed pulling from the wreckage.
Her look softened ever-so-slightly, turning inward. “The smell of him is in my bones.” She breathed deep, like she could still recall the scent from her ravaged memory. “So much pain, the first time it entered my lungs.” Another breath. “Both for me and the ones I was with. They were like you. Shifters? But they’re gone now. I think. Because of him.” A shudder worked its way through her. “I canfeelit.”
Magnus sat up a little straighter at that. The last time she would’ve been around Wolflords… “Are you trying to say amalerazed Glynmor and he’shere?”
That couldn’t be right. A dreadbeast had done the deed. They’d killed it. He’d had his justice.
“I don’t know, but Iknow.Fuck.” A hand landed on her chest, over her heart. “In here, I know what you just said is the truth.” She jabbed a finger against her forehead. “Up here, I can’t make sense of fucking anything. But yes. That. He’s here.I can feel it.”
“Aye, alright. Alright.” Mag tried to keep his breathing steady. Everyone else would have to wait. “Did he speak?”
“I’ll say. That cunting bag of pixie shit called me a fuckingfairy, then had the nerve toshushme while I struggled,” she spat, a grunted screech leaving her. “I’m going to peel his fucking flesh away with my teeth when I find him.”
Weary as he was, a rising wrath boiled in his veins to match hers.
“Tell me everything he said, Fern,” he breathed. “Word for word.”
She rolled her eyes.“’You should have stayed dead the first time. Now, go to sleep like a good little fairy and stop fucking up my plans.’”
Fucking fuck. Apersonhad done it.
Could a single creature be responsible for all of it, or was he working with someone else? Baldrir, Glynmor, the chasm, the dozens of fucking dreadbeasts and attacks—seemed like too much for a single individual. Unless…
—Unless they could be more than one person at a time, moving to and fro unnoticed. Aye, lad. That might be your proof?—
Vann had been wrong. Magnus was sure of it. The Kohamaians might not have any documentation of a shapeshifter being born in the last couple centuries, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Especially if he was working for extremists. They’d have gladly hidden him away to be used later.
“What did he look like? Sound like?” It might not help, but he had to ask.
“I only caught a glimpse of long, silvered hair and pale skin before I was eating pillow stuffing. As for his voice…” Her lips peeled back, sneering. “Sounded like he’s riddled with seeping cock warts, the uppity arsehole.”
Even spinning from the night’s events, Magnus almost laughed. “That’s not a sound.”
“Shitting seasons. Fine.” Her head tilted, lips pursed. “Not like you or me, eh? Or the witch. Deep, high-handed. Too stupid to realize he’s already fucking dead. Probably proud of his twig dick.”
Aye. Fiery as the sunstar.
Long, silvered hair, like Bal’s abductor. Not Thodeleborian, Kohamaian, or Nachthellian. It wasn’t even half the dots that needed connecting, but it was something.
—Except, he could be anyone, Maggie. At any time?—
Shite. There is that.
Everything else aside, the lass was sitting there telling him the one who’d slaughtered his people had been in this room within the last couple of hours.
No one could be trusted. Not until she pointed the shite-sucker out.
—We’ll feast on his bones when she does?—
Aye, Pet. He’s ours.
But not tonight. His people were already gone, Demons were suffering down in the city, and Lunara needed him.Brandneeded him.
