Nonetheless, he circles me to check.
I want to ask him why my word is never good enough for him, but Morrgot has trust issues galore, and he seems genuinely worried, so I let him hover.
“Your gold!”
What about my gold?
“We need to go back and get it.”
Why?
“Because one, there was a lot of it, and two, those hooligans will surely put it to terrible use.”
It’ll keep them away from you. That is all that matters. Besides, there’s plenty more where it came from.
“Wheredidit come from?” And no, I’m not planning on stealing from him, which isn’t to say that if he hands me a coin or three, I’ll turn any down. I have endureda lot.
From—how did you put it?—my nest full of libidinous birds.
I freeze because I don’t remember saying that out loud, but I must’ve. I change the subject. “I cannot believe you severed Lyrial’s arm.”
Morrgot takes his time answering:He’s lucky he still has his head.
I swallow down the lump of acid crawling up my throat. Morrgot’s appendages are all made of iron. “It won’t grow back, though, will it?” The thud of my heart matches Furia’s fast trot.
You have to admit, I was on my best behavior. I left the others unscathed. If it had been up to me, you wouldn’t have had time to chitchat with the lot, and they wouldn’t have had appendages enough to spring arrows your way.
I decide to overlook his latter comment and focus on the one that isn’t making my coconut lunch attempt to flee my stomach. “Chitchat? Is that honestly what you think I was doing?”
Well, youwerediscussing the status of Fae in Lucin society.
“To buy you time to get me out of the rotten situation! Which, by the way, was entirely your fault to begin with.”
I don’t recall putting a price upon your head.
I crank my neck back and glare into the canopy of starlit branches. “I wasn’t speaking of the rewa—”
Furia leaps over a felled tree, effectively snapping my mouth shut. His pace turns manic again. Either he senses more evil Fae, or Morrgot is telling him to go faster so I can no longer argue with him.
I spend the rest of the night clinging to Furia as he blazes across the vertiginous uneven terrain and marveling at my twilit surroundings. I’m aware this isn’t a sightseeing journey, but I’m calm enough again to appreciate the splendor.
Until I hear a branch breaking over my head, followed by a scratchy hiss.
Morrgot sweeps low.
“What was that?”
I get my answer a half second later when two wide-set eyes gleam at me from a large head full of speckled fur. “Is that a . . . leopard?” My whisper is as tense as the lines of the predator’s body, which I note with a swallow, is almost the same size as Furia’s.
Morrgot lets out an ear-shredding squawk that startles the spit down my airway. As I wheeze, the leopard’s shoulders unbunch, and he lurches onto his paws and spins on himself, vanishing into the brush.
“I didn’t know you were capable of such a sound.” Hacking out a lung has thinned and roughened my voice.
I favor mind-walking.
“So, mind-walking. Is that a Crow power?”
No. Only I am capable of this.
