Marco’s livid stare veers off Roberto and his fellow soldier and smacks his brother. “I gave you one job, Dante. One. Fucking. Job. And what do you do? You fucking botch it.” Under his breath, he mutters, “Useless.”
A lesser man would’ve flinched, but Dante stands his ground, chin held high. “Whodid this?”
“Humans.” The other guard spits out the word as though it were the vilest one in the Lucin dictionary.
“Humans?” Marco repeats, as though stunned they have it in them to revolt.
Dante pivots fully toward the guard, and the beads in his long braids ding. “How did they get past Dargento and the royal guard?”
“A distraction, sire. A bank of serpents attacked the boats in the harbor. It was mayhem. They sank three vessels before the commander managed to chase them away.”
All eyes veer to me. Do they think I ordered the hit? I’m standing right here.
My grandfather steps around the king and barks, “If I learn this is your doing, Fallon . . .” He lets his threat hang in the deathly quiet reception room.
“Please.” I roll my eyes. “If I sank the royal fleet, Nonno, I’d make sure you were on board one of the boats.”
Justus’s ponytail swings like a pendulum as he rears his head.
“What type of demon did your daughter birth, son?” Xema shrills.
The insult reverberates against every faceted crystal and dangling shell of the dozen or so chandeliers swathing the grand room in Fae light.
“Did you order the hit, Fallon?” Dante lowers his gaze to me.
Nothing, not even his previous backing of the horrid women in my family, prepares me for his inquest. “Of course not!” How could he think such a thing? “I’m standing right here.”
Roberto clears his throat. “It happened this morning.”
“And what? Do you think I was on the other side of the kingdom this morning? My horse may be quick, but he’s just a horse.”
“Maybe she rode in on a serpent.” Domitina’s intimation sparks whispers about my connection to serpents amidst the rapt spectators.
My temper hollows my cheeks. “However convenient that would’ve been, zia, I can assure you I didn’t come by way of sea.”
As deeply awed as I am by your backbone, Behach Éan, perhaps curb it, or my distraction will have been for naught.
I jump at the sound of Morrgot’s voice. Even though a part of me wants to strangle the crow for having abandoned me in this nest of pointy-eared vipers—apologies to snakes, kingdomwide—another part wants to congratulate him for his cunning.
Though, could you have picked another animal? One not associated with me? Maybe ordered a militia of termites to chew through the wood?
“Feed her salt!” Xema says at the same time as her parrot squawks, “Traitor.”
He is the first animal I dislike, and I picture him becoming Minimus’s snack.
Dante fishes a snuffbox out of his pant pocket, pops it open, and holds it out.
Without removing my gaze from Xema and her loutish pet, I grab the box and shoot back the contents, so no one can accuse me of ingesting too few flakes. I gag but gulp.
And then I state loudly and clearly: “I did not order a hit on the royal harbor. I cannot control serpents.”
Eyes widen, mouths, too. I’ve stumped them all.
I scan their flummoxed faces. “Any other query you’d like a genuine answer to while I’m under oath?”
Although my family members’ expressions remain suspicious, Dante and Marco drop their death stare. It’s only a lull in the storm that will beat back down on me eventually, but it’s a lull nonetheless.
“What did they take from Isolacuori?” Marco’s knuckles whiten around the pommel of a dagger strapped to his waist.
