As we weave deeper down the crooked, sandy lanes, the air grows heavy with the scent of woodfire, ale, and stew. Smoke curls through whichever opening it can find, be it a missing window pane or a tear in the roof. It fills the torchlit darkness with the scent of boiled rice and beans, and sizzling animal grease.
Dogs, as scrawny as the children playing ball by the river, poke their heads into dilapidated homes. One even runs off with a chicken, which earns him a sputtering pursuer armed with a broom.
Most of the establishments in Selvati are open to the elements. Either the inhabitants can’t afford walls, or the weather remains warm enough year-round to allow people not to immure themselves.
Because the roads are narrow, Sewell must often ease his mangy mare behind Furia. Although I’m bursting with too much anger for there to be much room for any other feeling, each time a human grazes my horse or velvet frock with more than just their eyes, unease pierces through my rage and reminds me that, although my ears aren’t spiked, my hair rests at my shoulders and I’ve meat on my bones.
The deeper into Selvati we ride, the fewer the people and the quieter it becomes, as though the dwellers bordering Fae territory fear making noise.
Sewell sidles up to me, his bald head gleaming from the light of a fat candle melting on a neighboring sill. “We’re almost at the checkpoint. When the guards ask who I am, tell them I’m your horse’s steward.”
I stare beyond the flickering flame of the candle, into the house where a gnarled man is hunched over a book, a quill in his hands. I imagine he’s drawing since humans aren’t literate.
I roll my shoulders, which are tense again. What I wouldn’t give for another phantom rubdown. “Horses have stewards?”
“Every Tarespagian animal has an attendant.”
I imagine Morrgot with a maid to fluff up the twigs in his nest and another to replenish his birdbath. “A vestige of the Crows’ legacy?”
Sewell’s Adam’s apple jumps in time with his eyes that scan the street. “It’s best not to mention them, milady.”
The sand gives way to cobbles lined with a golden gate that stretches farther than the eye can behold.
Tarespagia.
We’ve arrived . . .
“I’ve never met my great-grandmother.”
Sewell glances at me before returning his attention to the uniformed guard standing at one of the checkpoints. “She’s . . . something.”
“Something?” I smile for the first time since we left his house. “Something fearful? Sprightly? Warm?”
“Most definitely not warm.”
“My grandmother raised me, and she absolutely detests her mother-in-law,” I say as we near the guard, whose eyebrows have slid toward his nose.
He steps toward us, spiderwebs of green magic glittering from his raised palms. “Halt!”
Did he think we were going to try and jump the gate topped with spikes that carry the same lethal shine as Morrgot’s talons?
Speaking of . . . where is the crow? I flick my gaze skyward, hunting the star-sprayed firmament for the twin golden orbs that have tracked my every movement since I stepped into the Acoltis’ vault.
“State your business,” the guard barks, the hand not crackling with magic resting on the pommel of his baldric’s sword.
“We’re guests of Xema Rossi.”
“Not we,” Sewell breathes beside me.
I frown until it dawns on me why he’s hissed the correction. “By we, I meant my horse and I. The human tends to my stallion.”
The guard squints at me, Furia, Sewell, then back at me. I’m waiting for recognition to flare across his face, but there’s only suspicion. “Names!”
I thought everyone and their sprite was looking for me. I wonder if I should make up an alias.
“Her name is Fallon Rossi.” Like always, the deep voice steals some beats from my heart.
I scour the darkness for Dante, find him riding a white horse as tall and muscular as Furia, flanked by four men also on horseback, two of which I recognize—uncouth Tavo and discreet Gabriele.
