Magnus stood, ignoring the creak of his battered body as he debated what to do.
Her ability to identify the culprit was worth its weight in all of Bordoroth’s gold. Leaving her alone, vulnerable, would be a mistake. On the other hand, taking her out where she might be seen was just as fucking bad.
—If you take her with you, you’ll need to cuff her to your own wrist, lad. Never let her out of our sight. At least by leaving her here, you can lock the door and keep pretending you know nothing. Keep her safe?—
Aye, that’s?—
“Oh, I’ll be staying with her,” Fern said, jutting her chin towards the bed.
Every particle of Mag’s being snapped to attention, honing in on her. She’d said that like it was in answer to his conversation withPet.“Fern…”
“Piss off. She was with me the whole time I was lost. Saved me.” She rose to unsteady legs, snapping her teeth at him whenhe moved in a daze to help. “She might be asleep, or healing, or whatever the fuck, but she’s the only person in this twigging place I trust.I’m staying with her.”
His heart was pounding hard enough to make him sick. Good thing he could see there was absolutely no point in arguing with her.
He was too fucking shaken to do it, anyway.
Blood sprayedthe second Endellion’s tormentor finally grew sick of her silence and disappeared—a red mist that flew from her lips and coated her shackles, the slivers of her exposed skin, her infinite hair.
It had been near impossible to hold it in, but this had needed to be secret laughter.
Just between her and her.
She’d choked on it as he’d beaten her. Setting it free was a relief, her manic cackles like music as they echoed from the walls of her prison.
They’d just made a terrible, wonderful, mistake. Or, at least, his unwitting accomplice had—if she could be called such thing, ignorant as she was.
Poetic, really, the way her surprise blunder would eventually ruin him.
He would be scrambling. Sloppy, because he was too fucking selfish to realize that life didn’t revolve around him anymore. His egotistical mindset would only work in their favor.
“It’s done,” she breathed to no one, voice still shaking with her mirth.
The end of the middle of the beginning of the middle of the end.
So many pieces, pieces, pieces, all moving, moving, moving.
They’d brought it on themselves. Her little vengeful moth would be coming for them now, lit up like her sisters in the sky—just as soon as she woke up.
Then, it would get dark and dangerous and complicated.
Then, it wouldreallybegin.
“No, no, no, no, no!”
Brand jolted, life flooding into him as the vision of Luna’s broken body faded into the dark edges of his mind along with her imagined screams.
He wasn’t actually dead. The fierce pounding of his heart told him that much, at least, though a part of him wished he was.
His head was a leaden vessel full of jagged rocks, body throbbing like it had been thrown against the coast amidst crashing waves. And fucking shite, the taste in his mouth—made worse by the choking dryness of his throat and tongue. He couldn’t even swallow properly.
Sisters, let the whole thing be a horrific nightmare. Let him turn over to find his mate beside him and the Horned City whole.
Eyes gritty, he lifted his hands to?—
No.
For one hopeful, terrible second, Brand tried to convince himself he was still asleep—that there weren’t really chainsholding him down—but they tightened, digging into his flesh and glowing a faint, fiery orange. Shadow and bone combined, the links writhed around him, and nausea churned at the sight, the feel.
