Straightening, I eye Xander over the table. She’s taken his powers so everyone can see his scarred, empty eye sockets. He smells of human blood and charred fury. But only I can see the black mark on his neck. Seeing it in person, I understand now that it’s a stunning thing of higher work. And I think he and I are the only two people on the planet who know what it means.
I turn my attention to the unopened envelope sitting before the hyena. “What, scared of a little paper, old lady?”
“I’ll giveyousomething to be scared of, little boy,” she gruffs. I smile with my fangs. “It has the smell of serpent magic all over it,” The Collector says impatiently. “Tell us if it’s dangerous.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s dangerous,” I say lightly. “That’s why we should open it straight away.”
“Is it going to detonate or something?” The Collector snaps. “We should do it outside.”
“Doubt it.” I shrug. “Go on, your witchiness.”
The hyena matriarch eyes me in a nasty sort of way before she slides her finger under the seam of the opening. Nothing happens when she opens it, nor when she slides the letter out. But as she unfolds it?—
“Argh!” Her shriek nearly pierces my eardrums as she drops the paper like it’s burned her. Sure enough, the paper steams and hisses on the tile floor, and the hyena queen is glaring at her now reddened hand in rage.
“Oh look,” I say brightly. “It looks like there’s blood on your hands, Your Highness.” I bend down to pick up the steaming note. It doesn’t hurt me, of course; its job is done.
There is no scent on the paper itself as I open it up, but I would know the scent of my regina’s venom in any life. There, written in a mixture of venom and blood, is a complex sigil so ancient, it pre-dates the arrival of animalia into this world.
Mypretty little snakelet did this? But of course she did. She’d been trained since before she could write. Mace Naga took his serpentine magics seriously, and she’d read the writing in the catacombs under the Naga household competently. Scythe had gotten shot by the venom bullet because she’d missed a piece, but she wasn’t going to be caught off guard this time. Mace is going to bepissedwhen I tell him.
“What does it say?” The Collector asks carefully. She doesn’t want to appear weak or fearful, though I know she’s being very cautious.
“So interesting,” I say painfully slowly. “I can’t be sure.”
“Stop playing, boy,” the hyena queen snaps.
I bare my fangs at her. “This venom is Aurelia Boneweaver’s.” I let that sink in. Xander doesn’t so much as flinch. But the animas—their pupils dilate, and their brows lift in surprise. “She has sent you an ancient symbol serpents send to their enemies,” I continue, professionally. “She has marked you for death.”
Now it may be a trick of the light…or the shadows, but a brief smile twitches the lips of the hyena matriarch. Maybe people lose control of their face in old age, I don’t know.
The Collector scoffs, and the moment passes. “What a stupid girl.”
And a feeling that I’ve never known, a feeling I’ve been waiting for, glowing like the moon, expansive like growing shadows, begins to spread through my chest. Not stupid. Brave. Bloodthirsty.
The hyena queen shares my sentiment. “You should not underestimate her,” she warns, wrapping her hand in a handkerchief. “She means to try something.”
“Of course she does,” The Collector scoffs. “But she has so many eyes on her she can’t get away with anything at all. Mace, for one”—she nods at me—“won’t be far off with his own plans, and we’ll all be set.”
There’s an urgent knock at the door, and Connor walks in. I know him from my studies of the students while I was play-acting as a guard at the academy. He has a cotton ball taped to his arm where his blood looks like it has been taken multiple times for The Collector’s experiments. I sense more samples have been taken from him, at the very least his bone marrow and multiple rounds of egg harvesting. But if he’s in human form right now, that means he’s in between collection cycles.
“What is it?” The Collector snaps.
“So sorry, my lady, but Mr Pardalia is, uh…well, he set up a protest on your…in your….”
“Set up a what?” Katerina’s heels clack away across the tile towards her bedroom. Without being asked, I follow her and Connor down a series of corridors. My brows knit together at the lionesses’ strange tone. The moment The Collector steps foot into her room, she lets out a feral screech. “Back in your cages! Back, you asshole!”
And then it hits me…and my nose. I peer into the room to confirm.
Lyle has shat on Katerina’s bed.
Savage is watching from the corner, and there’s a naughty gleam in his eye.
“I can see your smirk,” Connor hisses, side-eyeing me a good distance from the doorway. “Might want to hide that.”
“I don’t need to hide anything, Connor.” I grin wider.
Katerina has procured a dinosaur-strength cattle prod from under her bed, and she zaps Lyle with a furious cry. The lion obediently whips around and walks back into his cell, plonking himself down on the floor and peering at her as if he’s done nothing wrong.
