I hope he’ll ask Nonna for my hand before getting down on one knee with a really beautiful ring. I would really like to own something pretty. Something that didn’t belong to anyone else. Something made only for me.
Cauldron, I’m old-fashioned.
After an hour of painting the perfect proposal inside my mind, one worthy of gracing the pages of a book, I flick my gaze to the sky to make sure Morrgot is still around. It takes me a few sweeps of the dawn sky to spot him.
He soars high, eyes on the horizon, large wings slicing through the inert heat. I cannot read his mind, yet feel he’s contemplating his future also. Once he’s achieved all of his and Lore’s political ambitions, will he settle with a female friend? Or five female friends, one for each of his crows?
He slants me a droll look.
I guess a heart which has beat solely for revenge, won’t beat for anything else until all his Crows have returned, and I’m not speaking of the ones that make up his body, but the ones that make up his . . . What is a group of crows called again?
I remember the class snickering about the term, and Headmistress Alice reminding everyone it was no laughing matter.
A murder!
A murder of crows.
A shiver drags up my spine like nails on a chalkboard, and I grimace. Oh how Headmistress Alice will scowl once the blue sky blackens with birds. Gods, I’ll start my reign by being loathed by all the Fae.
As long as I’m loved by some—Phoebus, Sybille, Mamma, Nonna, and Dante—it’ll be all right.
Flat rooftops appear in the distance, quieting my thoughts. Although I heard Selvati is as much a shanty town as Racocci, dipped in dawn, it resembles a magical city from one of Mamma’s stories.
Don’t speak of Bronwen’s exchange, not even to your princeling, or she’ll be put to death.I’m about to tell him that I’m no snitch when he adds,Understand that I’ll stop at nothing . . .nothingto protect her, Fallon Rossi.
I mash my lips together. His threat comes through loud and clear, especially since he called me by my Fae family name.
“Don’t betray me and I won’t betray you.” I kick Furia, urging my stallion into a gallop. I want to get away from Morrgot even though I know that until my task is done, I won’t be rid of him.
How would I betray you?
I can sense his body soaring over mine but keep my gaze pinned to the rambling town.
“By being too greedy and eliminating not one but two Regios.” The hot wind snatches my words and hurls them at him.
Fifty-Six
Your shirt.
Morrgot and I haven’t talked once since our spat, if the heated words we exchanged could be considered a spat.
“Ask nicely and I might unknot it.” I thought we’d arrived at an understanding, he and I, but the only place we’ve reached is another impasse.
He doesn’t trust me; I don’t trust him.
What a team we make.
I think he swears, but unlike Lucin, which sounds melodious even shrieked, every word in Crow sounds guttural and angry.
“And keep your voice down. My brain hurts.”
That makes him quit his muttering.
I wait for him to ask me to unroll my shirt.
And wait.
How proud can a bird be?
