“I don’t want to talk about Maura.”
“Oh? I’m the one she beat near to death. I would think it’s my choice if we discuss her.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” He sounded so calm, as if she had ceased to exist when he banished her.
“How do you know she won’t reveal our plans to everyone?” I asked, and when he gave me a look as if it were a strange question, I added, “She must hate you now. And she has a Bismyth dragon. How will her dragon feel about her being cast out of the clan?”
“She won’t betray us. She wants to earn her way back intoourgood graces and return to Bismyth.” He seemed amused and it took me a beat to realize he was responding to my use of the wordsourplans.
I raked my hand through my hair. To my surprise, my fingers slipped through the thick, smooth strands as if through butter, without hitting a snarl, for the first time in my memory. Right. I’d been fixed by the Fae.
Healed. Perfected. But unchanged, on the inside.
“When are you going to make a deal with the Fae?”
“Once I’ve gotten you settled in the clan. I don’t want to risk drawing attention to usfirst.”
“What if I don’twantto be claimed by your clan?” I demanded. “What if I want to join another clan?”
“Everyone wants to be claimed by Bismyth.” He sounded so confident.
“Is that what Nixi and Maura both wanted?” Pressing him on the subject of the twins was pressing a bruise, I could tell. Maybe even a scab. But I couldn’t resist the impulse.
“Do you want to join Ander’s clan?” He looked as if he meant to sound disinterested.
I studied his face, trying to understand the facets of this trial and its aftermath. “You know I’ll make a poor showing. Are you going to claim me first anyway?”
He scoffed. “Maybe I won’t claim you at all.”
Well. He was pouting at the vision of me at Ander’s side, and I guarded my smile. “I know you have a plan for me, Fieran. There’s no point in pretending you don’t.”
“My plan is to keep you alive.” Under his breath, he added, “So you can be as big a pain in the ass to our enemies as you are to me.”
“Will it make you look stupid if you claim me after I get knocked unconscious like I did with Maura?” I mused.
“Maybe I’ll leave you for last,” he said grimly. “I doubt I’ll have to fight anyone else for you. No one needs the hassle of a mouthy mortal.”
“I bet Ander would claim me if I asked him.”
He gave me a look that was half amused, as if something had given me away. “If that’s what you want, Cara.”
He knew it wasn’t. It was my turn to be irritated.
“Welcome to my home,” he told me, leading me to a gate in a long, marble wall. The marble shimmered faintly, veins of gold and silver running through its surface like captured lightning.
The gate swung open for us as we approached it.
We stepped into an enormous green courtyard—large enough for dragons to land—and in the distance was a house so large it might as well have been a castle.
My heart quickened. We walked beneath the arms of spreading trees, petals fluttering down that landed in Fieran’s dark hair and on the shoulders of his tunic, but I barely saw any of it.
Now that I was so close to my brother, I couldn’t shake the fear that he was lying to me, that Tay wasn’t here, that he wasgone.
I couldn’t breathe.
Elaborately carved doors opened on their own accord as Fieran and I climbed the marble steps.
“He’s in here,” Fieran told me, guiding me past arched windows with elaborate stained glass patterns, through a door that led into a massive library.
