My palm grazes my mouth too, but not in gratitude. In horror. Because the white flesh is ensconced in pink scales.
I step back, forgetting I’m surrounded, and end up squashing someone’s toes. They mutter and shove me.
“Fallon?” Phoebus’s brows are drawn. He backtracks toward me and steals one of the hands strangling the scratchy fabric of my skirt. “What’s come over you?”
I swallow, but my saliva cannot slide past the ball of grief swelling in my throat. Phoebus doesn’t know about my friendship with Minimus. No one knows I meet the serpent nightly to feed him scraps and caress his scales and beautiful horn.
No one can know.
And now, no one will ever know because . . .
My lower lip begins to wobble. I snag it with my top teeth.
I hear my name fall from Phoebus’s mouth again but cannot answer him. My anguish is too thick, too terrible.
“Fallon, what—”
“Who? Who killed him?” I murmur.
“Him?”
“If you’ve gotten your serpent meat, please move to the back to allow those who have not to receive the royal offering,” a guard bellows from the center of the crowd.
As people shift, I catch the glint of gold against brown braids, the swing of a honed arm cloaked in flesh that glimmers bronze from sweat and seawater, the gleam of a wide silver machete as it comes down on what remains of the beast’s trunk.
I want to run away.
I want to cry.
Instead, I lower my hand from my trembling mouth, snatch my fingers from Phoebus’s, and push through the Fae and halflings standing before me.
Over the years, I’ve mapped out every white scar on Minimus’s body. He has five—four from Nonna’s vines and one from the horn of a fellow serpent.
I know them by heart because I stroke the scaleless, rubbery flesh every single time we meet, wishing I had the power to heal him like, once upon a time, he healed me.
Cato stands in front of the prince, keeping the crowd at bay. When he catches me approaching, he gives the smallest shake of his head. Does he think I’ll harm Dante for having murdered an animal? For all my despair and disgust, I could no more harm a man than a beast.
Phoebus palms the small of my back and dips his mouth to my ear. “Let’s go.”
Although I’m grateful for his support, I cannot leave.
Not before I see.
My eyes trace over the coiled remains of the dead serpent, hunting for discrepancies amidst the pink, but see none. I make another sweep of the tubular body, just in case. Although this serpent is as long and thick as Minimus, it’s not Minimus. Tears of relief, and of shame for being relieved, trickle down my cheeks.
I scrape them away, praying no one saw them, but Dante’s eyes are on me.
Blinking back my emotion, I start to turn when a gondola docks next to the prince, and the royal Fae healer, a giant of a man, dressed in his customary black robes, steps off the boat.
Dante hands the meat cleaver to one of his many guards, then goes to the healer, who stands so close to me I can count the number of gold hoops speared through the tall shell of his ear—thirty. Each one is adorned with a healing crystal, which he fingers to extract its essence when he works on his patients.
Dante watches me, a dent cutting into his forehead. Like Phoebus, he must sense my anguish since he knows I cannot stomach animal cruelty. Slowly he pivots, exposing his back to the healer. Blood weeps from a deep gouge beneath his shoulder blade and dribbles down his spine.
“The beast attacked me first.” Dante doesn’t say my name, but I know his words are for me.
Although my eyes sting, I keep them open and on his wound.
Dante was hurt first.
