I need all five of my crows for my flesh to turn solid.
I cannot help the wrinkle that pleats my nose.You mean, I’d see your insides?
A chuckle comes through our bond.No insides. Just a shadow that, with every crow, grows more solid.
“Care to share what he’s telling you?” Dante asks.
Keep the fact that you can walk into my mind our secret, all right?
I chew on my lip, curious as to why I should keep it to myself since Dante and his friends are now part of the team, but I suspect Morr—Lore has a good reason.
Morrlore? It has a nice ring to it.
Don’t get used to it. I’m trying to forget the majesty part, but you know what they say about a bad habit?
Enlighten me. What do they say?
That it’s like parchment tossed in water . . . it takes a while for it to sink.
“They’re probably conspiring against us.” Tavo tries to walk Furia to the trough, but my stallion refuses to follow where the Fae soldier leads.
“Definitely sleep with one eye open tonight.” I pluck the lead rope from him.
My quip leaches some of the amber from his irises.
“If anything happens to me,” Dante says, voice low and slow, “he will never walk the earth.”
I frown at Dante. Is he implying he’d command me to stop reviving Lorcan’s crows?
Not command.Lorcan’s deep timbre strokes my mind like a finger gloved in velvet.
He’d imprison me?When the crow offers no response, I look at Dante, who’s rubbing the soles of his boots against the doormat. “How would you stop me, Dante?”
His gaze stays locked on the bristly pad beneath him. “I’d hope an oath would suffice.”
Instead of mentioning that oaths don’t take to my skin, I ask, “You’dhope?”
He sighs. “Fal, don’t make me say it. It’ll only anger you, and you’re already in a wretched mood.”
My eyes go as wide as my mouth. Is he saying—is he saying . . .? “You’d kill me?”
“I’d prefer not to but my kingdom—”
I raise my hand to shut him up.
Dante would kill me.
He’d kill me.
My anger shifts from the crow to the faerie, then back to the crow who started all this, before swinging back to the faerie who cannot love me enough if he’s willing to end my life.
Dante keeps polishing his boots when what needs polishing is his cold, cold heart because that part of him has wholly lost its luster.
Mood soured, I tie Furia to a water trough on the side of the inn, then swipe a finger across my collarbone that comes away coated in umber sludge. Not that I care so much about what anyone thinks of me at the moment, I pass my hands through my damp hair and shake out more grit.
“What’s our story?” Gabriele’s hand rests on the doorknob, which he’s yet to twist.
Dante palms his wet coat sleeves, then his trousers. “We’re riding home.”
