“So you wouldn’t transform to obsidian . . .” He says this almost with wonder, but then all traces of awe drop from his tongue. “The Crows were no longerpresentwhen you were born, so who bound it?”
Dante is wary of me enough as it is that I decide not to share the Shabbins’ involvement. “Like I said, they bound itbeforemy birth,beforethey were all cursed.”
“Sounds like Shabbin magic to me.” Gabriele glances up at the sky. “The wards were weak back then. One of them could’ve snuck in.”
“To bind my magic? A waste of their time and competence, if you ask me.” I snort, uneasiness crawling up my breastbone.
“Not if you’re the beasts’ only key to return to the land of the living.” Tavo rubs the back of his head as though it still aches from his fall. “If you hadn’t intervened, those Fae killers would’ve been gone another five centuries.”
“If I hadn’t intervened, Marco would’ve ended up killing Dante to keep the throne, just like he killed his own father!”
My revelation causes the loudest hush to fall over my entourage.
Even the horses go still, stopping in the middle of a darkened road.
“The vulture king tell you that?” Tavo finally says. “’Cause the real story—”
Lore must be showing him thereal storybecause the Fae’s eyes glaze over. Dante’s and Gabriele’s too.
“Every coin’s got two sides, Corvo.” Tavo’s grumble makes his horse flick his ears back and forth.
“If what he just showed us is true . . .” The moonlight that drizzles through the trees hits Gabriele’s face, highlighting the male’s sudden pallor. “If Marco—”
Tavo tosses his hand in the air. “Marco may be impulsive, but if he’d beheaded his own father, it would be known.”
“Would it?” Dante’s pupils have dilated, eclipsing the blue. “Lazarus once told me . . .” His words are quiet. So quiet. “That my father wanted to make peace with the Crows.” He licks his lips. “And that Marco never allowed him to perform the traditional Fae burial rites on our father. Instead, my brother set fire to our father’s corpse right where it lay in Rax.”
Gabriele’s intake of air is so swift, it disturbs the pale flyaways edging his face. “Because a healer would’ve been able to tell what had caused the lethal wound.”
“Fuck.” Tavo, for once, seems browbeaten. “His own father.Yourfather.”
I twist in the saddle. “I’m sorry, Dante.”
He acknowledges my empathy with a nod. “Let’s find a place to spend the night. The cliff roads are too treacherous to travel without light.”
With barely any nudging, Furia sets off again. Two streets down, we come upon a two-storied structure that glows in spite of the late hour. The words TAVERNA MARE are shaped in seashells above the door. An ocean inn sounds like an idyllic resting spot.
Dante releases the reins. “Gabriele, help Fallon down.”
“I don’t need help.”
Tavo hops off his mare. “Planning on flying down, are you?”
I flip him off as I swing my leg over Furia’s neck and dismount in a heap of velvet.
The male smirks.
Gods, I really hate him.
Gabriele’s attention is leveled on the sky. “Did he follow us here?”
“What do you think?” Dante nods toward the glued seashells, where a sooty drift breaks off into three separate puffs.
It’s been hours since I’ve spoken to Lorcan, and although my anger hasn’t waned, something bothers me too much to keep up my cold shoulder.You can morph into a man, right?
I can.
I think of the hands I felt along my spine last night.Have you? Turned into one?
