Oh, Minimus. I smile fondly at my pet serpent. That is, until one of the men unsheathes a dagger, and another—the one who offered to take me home—raises fire-coated palms.
Anger surges through me so fast that I contemplate jumping into the canal to spook Minimus, but Nonna’s complexion the day I bonded with my beast shoots to the forefront of my mind.
The Lucins may suspect I have an affinity for sea serpents, but they don’t know it for a fact. If I jump in now, I’ll reveal it, and gods only know where that would lead.
To the palace, a soft voice whispers into my mind.
Santo Caldrone.Is Bronwen stirring up this chaos to keep me on track?
Minimus slaps the boat again, and the wood whimpers. The two weaponless men scrabble up the embankment like spiders while the fire-Fae and the armed one stay behind.
The man with the dagger swings. The clay pot slips from my hands and crashes at my feet.
The noise startles them long enough for me to grab my slipper and lob it at his head. It collides into the fire-Fae’s instead, making him shoot flames sideways instead of at Minimus. A stomach-curdling shriek rises from my serpent, hurtling through my ribs and into my heart.
The dagger sticks out of Minimus’s cheek like a vicious barnacle, so close to his eye that I roar as though the blade sliced through my own face.
“You crazy giglet!” the fire-Fae yips at me.
I contemplate my cracked pot and using the largest piece to drop his squawking ass into the canal.
“Clyde, get the guards!” he barks at a sprite dressed in the same red silk as he wears.
Another cry, softer this time, curdles my insides.
Even though the water is dark, I spot Minimus writhing, trying to get the knife out of his cheek. Fearing all he’ll manage is to drive it in farther, I climb onto the railing and jump.
Nonna will murder me if the king doesn’t beat her to it.
My body collides into a wall of cold, my legs sinking like toothpicks while my skirt billows up like a jellyfish. I punch the material until the rest of my body glides beneath. My lids are pried open as I spin on myself, searching for Minimus.
His long body flashes beside me, still spiraling spasmodically. I touch his neck and he hisses. My heart bolts into my throat. When his eyes lock on mine, he finally stops moving and floats like algae.
Algae that keens.
I grip the dagger with one hand, brace the other on his horn, and yank. As it drops to the silty bottom, more blood clouds the water, followed by a bone-deep cry.
I wish I could suture his wound, but my saliva isn’t miraculous like his. Gods know I tried after the market incident. The only thing I achieved was getting Sybille and Phoebus to wonder if I was dropped on my head at birth.
Minimus laces himself around my scissoring legs and abdomen as I stroke his dorsal fins, relieved the dagger didn’t blind him.
I’m going to need air soon, but until my lungs shrivel, I hug this strange animal, wishing I could shield him from the cruelty of men and establish peace between our two species.
When the tingle in my lungs turns intolerable, I nod to the surface, and intelligent beast that he is, he swims me back up. But before we break through the agitated surf, I push him away. He doesn’t leave. I press him again. He stays.
I shape the word,Go, getting a lungful of salt in the process. I seal my lips and shove. His eyes, black from lid to lid, stare steadily into mine. He must sense my anguish because he finally loosens the coils of his body and turns.
Praying he didn’t misunderstand my reasons for making him leave, I propel myself to the surface, sputtering when my head emerges. My dress billows around me again, and I push it back down as I kick toward the embankment opposite the Fae swine. I make it to the ladder hooked into the stone wall and, hand over hand, scale it.
When I reach dry land, I spit and hack the salt that clings to my throat and squeeze the water from my hair. When I look over my shoulder, I find a military vessel carving the canal toward us. Cato’s hair snaps like a white flag, luminous like his eyes. The sprite springs away from the sergeant and zips back toward his master.
“This girl attacked me!” the fire-Fae proclaims. The man’s ears are long and weighed down by rubies as large as my thumbnail. More red stones sparkle in his waist-long brown hair and decorate the vest he wears over an untucked white shirt. He is, without a doubt, a high-ranking member of the nobility.
Cato’s boat eases to a stop between us. “Why did she attack you, Marquess Timeus?”
Figures my run-in would be with a marquess. One step beneath duke. Two steps beneath the royal family.
“Why?” The marquess’s amber eyes bulge. “You do mean,how?”
