You’re not going to die.
Sewell did.
Sewell was human; you aren’t.
The stars churn, their sparkle dimming before brightening. Slowly, my lungs and throat stop spasming. My nostrils and eyes stop boiling. Although my mouth tastes like ash, my throat lining no longer feels like it’s being scooped out with a fiery spoon.
Morrgot hovers over me, his velvety feathers sweeping over my collarbone, my neck, my shoulders, my cheeks. He may only be soothing me for his own sake, but it’s nonetheless nice not to lie here alone.
My mind clears long enough for me to realize that the sprites and guards must be closing in on us.
Neither is coming.
My eyebrows scrunch.Did you kill them all?
No.
I press my palms into the moss, catching the steady pulse of the earth.Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.Unless I’m feeling my own heartbeat, someone is coming.
A high-pitched whinny echoes around me.
Furia.
I roll my head to catch sight of my beautiful stallion, but the horse prancing around me isn’t black; it’s white. And someone sits in the saddle. Someone with waist-long hair and a white uniform.
The rider swings off his horse and lands beside me in a crouch of crisp white and black leather. “I believe you and I need to talk, Fal.”
Sixty-Five
The way Dante stares at me raises the fine hairs on the nape of my neck. “Start talking.”
I press up into sitting, the acrid taste in my mouth replaced by that of metal.He doesn’t know what you’re up to,I tell myself.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you, Dante Regio,” I wheeze.
His gaze drifts to the gray smoke billowing from the obsidian dome, then back to me, a muscle quivering above the gilt collar of his unbuttoned white jacket. The same one he’d lent me and which I’d suggested burning. Apparently, no flame was needed to cleanse the fabric.
I scoot away from Dante and proceed to stand with as much grace as I can muster. “Not after you shut me out and left with your princess.”
“If I’d left with her, I wouldn’t be here withyou.” Dante rises from his crouch, looking me over from forehead to fingertip and back. “Besides, she isn’tmyprincess.”
I shouldn’t care, not after his callous words from earlier, nonetheless, his admission is a balm to my battered ego.
“Where’s that squire of yours?” Overly attentive Tavo asks. “Shouldn’t he besquiringyou?”
“He’s keeping an eye on my horse while I visit my family’s famed gardens.” I cough, my lungs still feeling as though Marcello has speared them onto a spit and placed them in the kitchen’s hearth.
“What’s wrong with your voice?” Gabriele asks, his nervous steed turning in circles.
“Faerie smoke inhalation. She triggered the shield,” Dante says with no hesitation. “That’s what’s wrong with her.”
Gabriele’s silver eyes grow wide. “But that can only happen if—”
“How many, Fallon?” Dante’s palm hovers over the pommel of his sword. “How many?”
For the first time in my life, I wish Dante was with that other woman. “How many what?” I feign innocence.
“How many crows have you found?”
