Goosebumps course over my skin at the vivid gleam of the bird’s citrine eyes.
“It’s so lifelike, isn’t it?” Phoebus swipes his gaze down the bird’s fanned tail.
I hold my breath. I’m not even certain why. It’s not like statues can caw or nip. “Exceedingly,” I murmur, transfixed by the definition the artist achieved. It’s as though a real bird has been mummified in metal. The mere thought makes bile cloud the back of my throat. “What sort of bird do you suppose it’s modeled after?” My tongue palpitates with heartbeats that make my voice palpitate in turn, because I know the answer before Phoebus gives it to me.
“A crow.” No hesitation.
I flip my eyes up to his.
“My mother told me. I followed her into the vault when I was a child. I must’ve been very young because I remember her perching me on her hip so I could get a closer look at the pest. Gods, the stories she recounted about them. It would make even you reconsider your love for animals.”
Dante will truly be king, and me, his queen.I don’t know whether to rejoice or balk that my destiny isn’t mine to govern after all.
“I’ve heard the stories.” My timbre is still deformed by my pulse. “I sat next to you in class, remember?”
“Headmistress Alice gave us a watered-down account. Trust me.” He points to the curled talons that gleam like thorns, then to the bird’s bill. “These birds were trained to kill and had a taste for Fae hearts.”
I press my palm against my agitated insides. “Why would anyone create an effigy of this bird?”
“To remind us of what we went through? Of what we survived?” He shrugs as though he’s not actually certain. “The appendages were clipped off real birds apparently.”
“What sort of twisted person clips bill and claw off an animal?”
Phoebus narrows his eyes on me. “I just told you these predators gobbled down Fae hearts, and you’re confounded by the snipping of their extremities?”
I close my eyes a second. Phoebus is right. What he is, is also scrutinizing me. If I’m supposed to walk out of here with this bird, which is most definitely not pocket-sized, I need to earn his trust.
My pulse sprints against my throat. Am I really expecting Phoebus to let me take it off the wall? Could I unhook it and slip it inside the bag while his back is turned? What if the spikes are wedged so deep into the stone that I need some tool to cleave them out?
I have two options: either return to get it at a later date, alone, if I can get past all the staff and recall the dance of Phoebus’s fingers on the latch, or tell him it’ll somehow get Dante on the throne. Dante is as much his friend as he is mine. Surely, he’d help me steal a statue. But what of dooming a bunch of people?
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
“You look about to toss your cornetto.”
“I didn’t eat any this morning.”
“It’s an expression, Fal. Why are you so upset?”
My eyes settle on his concerned green ones. “You know me and animals.”
“Right. Well, why don’t you step out of the vault.” He grips my shoulder gently, squeezes. “I’ll grab a couple coins, and we—”
“This statue isn’t part of your inheritance, is it?”
His fingers don’t lift from my shoulder, but they stop kneading it. “You couldn’t hawk it without my parents finding out.”
“Oh. That’s not—I wouldn’t hawk it.”
The corners of his mouth lift again. “Oh.”
My own heart punches me in the ribs. “Oh?”
“I just figured out what you’ll do with it.”
I highly doubt it but heft a brow to egg him into disclosing his thoughts before mine stomp out of my mouth.
“You’re going to toss it into the canal so it’s out of sight?”
