My eyes dart down to Boralas – and then back, toward the window. Toward that dark ship in the harbor. From my position against the door, I can just see the end of it. Out of reach for me.
Unless—
I jerk into movement, feet eating up the space between us as I drop. My knees land in the scarlet pool that spreads from beneath his body, and I force the memories away as I rummage through, rifling through the endless layers of silk that Boralas wears as a long coat.
He keeps them with him, always.
But what if—
No—
I refuse to entertain that option. They’re here. They have to be here.
My heart leaps in my chest as something presses into my palm: the smooth, worn metal of a key. When I yank it free, the rest follow—dozens of them, all kept on one metal ring that Boralas hoards like a draegon with his gold, a creature from one of the wild fantasy tales the Travelers tell as they pass through each territory, eking out a living and receiving wide eyes and tossed coins in return.
My lips press together as I flick through, searching for a match. I have no desire to attempt an escape with a chain attached to me. My looks alone are enough to draw attention, and my wings will be near impossible to hide. I need the thin, matching key to my cuff, the one that will let me rip it from my skin and toss it aside.
I haven’t been free of the cuff for ten years. No matter what small freedoms I’ve managed to coax from Boralas, in turn for good behavior—and bad, when he wanted that from me—he has never, not once, removed it.
Perhaps it’s embedded in my skin. Part of me, now. Copper scars. Burns. Although I haven’t felt the pain of them in years, which gives some indication of what I’ll find if I can manage to get it off.
I need that key if I’m going to survive. My already slim odds will dip to zero if the full effect of mymaegis stays trapped behind walls of copper, dampening, pressing down on me. Holding me back.
If I can even work out how to use it.
If I even have it at all, since I never Ascended to Hala’s temple. Never completed the sacred prayers at the Sanctum.
Perhaps I will not be gifted. I won’t have a Calling, a specialty. I won’t be a Healer like Calista, or a Weaver like Nyx.
But maybe… I am still a faeyte. And all faeytes have certain gifts.
My teeth draw blood from my lip where I bite down heavily as I flick through once, then twice. “Comeon, you gods-damned bastard.”
But with every frenzied second, the small flicker of hope inside my chest begins to drain away, as if it were never there.
There is no copper key.
And as those seconds pass, my cuff feels as though it grows tighter, and the noose gets closer.
My head jerks up at the sound of a door opening.
I’m out of time.
Tieren stares, her eyes wide and her skin paler than I’ve ever seen as she looks between us. “What did youdo?”
Something that could hang us both, if she does not raise the alarm. And she knows it, too, from the hesitation, the hitch in her breath, the parting of her lips as she looks to the door—
“Please.”
At my quiet, begging plea, her head turns to me again.
We have never been friends, Tieren and I. But we have never been enemies, either. Rivals at worst, during our early years. Boralas found it amusing to set us against each other, both for entertainment and to stop any plotting that might have arisen from friendship. Reluctant allies at best, during the nights where Boralas’s temper got the better of him. I nursed her when the fever swept through Terrosa, closing every tavern as we barricaded ourselves inside until it had passed. She went for help when a customer felt cheated in his experience and took his frustration at my silence out on me with his belt. And she helped me bathe afterward, both of us silent as my blood tinted the water pink.
“Give me a chance.” My whisper stretches between us. “A few minutes, Tieren. You were asleep. You didn’t hear.”
I hold her gaze, and she holds mine. Both of us have something to lose.
I glance to the doorway. “There is a pouch in the bedroom. It’s sewn into the underside of the mattress. Five hundred crowns.”
