“I’dloveto invite another man to share our bed tonight, my sweets. Do you have anyone in mind?”
I blink up at my friend, perplexed, until I catch the twinkle in his eye.
The guard from earlier steps in front of us, gray eyes drawn to the bag. “That was a quick lunch.” Even though my battered arm is twisted around Phoebus’s, the bloodied bandage peeks out. “And a brutal one.”
Phoebus shoots the man a tight-lipped smile. “Keeping track now, are we?”
“Part of my job.” The guard’s eyes rove over the lumpy shape of the leather.
“If you must know everything, it turns out my entire family has left for Tarespagia and forgotten to inform me, so I took my girl shopping instead, and she brushed up against a rusted hook, and—Hmm.” Phoebus looks the male from gilt stand-up collar to polished boot. “Might you be interested in joining us tonight? We were looking for an extra cock to spice things up.”
The guard’s attention jolts off our bulky satchel, and a blush steals across his jaw. “I don’t—I—” He shakes his head as though to toss off the heat filling it. “Just cross.”
Phoebus chuckles at the man’s discomfiture and flings him a wink as he tugs me past him.
I don’t think I’ve breathed since the guard stepped in our path.
Phoebus must’ve realized it too because he murmurs, “Deep breath, Fal.”
My lips part and I all but gasp.
“No offense, but you make a terrible thief.”
I nudge him with my elbow. “My ears aren’t pointed.”
“True, but your tongue can be. You should use it. And not just to lick up the planes of Dante’s chest.”
I cannot help the stuttering laughter that erupts from my mouth as the tension finally falls from my shoulders.
We made it across.
Weactuallymade it.
* * *
As we climbthe stairs to my bedroom, Phoebus offers to assist me in finding us a lift to Rax in order to melt the crow immediately. I shush him with an index finger to my lips and shake my head.
Nonna isn’t home, but Mamma is. She’s fast asleep in her chair, neck and head cradled by a scraggly pillow that wasn’t there when I left. Nonna must’ve come and gone.
I’m glad for my grandmother’s absence. It gives me time to clean my arm and decide how to deal with my loot.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” Phoebus tosses me a gold coin that flips head over tails as it arches through the air toward me. I cup my palms, just managing to catch the gold piece. “And no paying me back.” He starts for my door, but then his attention drops to my feet. “Merda, we forgot about the cobbler.”
“No cobbler. You’ve gone above and beyond. As for the coin . . .”
He plugs his ears as I insist on paying him back, then blows me a kiss and leaves.
When the front door shuts, rattling our frescoed walls, I head to the bathing room to wash the dried blood off my arm with clean water from the bucket we replenish every day. I make quick work of redressing the wound with a band of gauze I find in a wicker basket dedicated to ointments and oils made from healing herbs, then scamper back to my bedroom and shut the door.
The bag sits atop my bed, the blue frock spilling out like foamy waves. I creep closer, and pluck the dress off the crow that glimmers like a shiny lure in the dark depths. Avoiding its bill and talons, I grip the bird by the wings and fish it out, then set it on my faded floral bedspread, and stare down at its thick body and broad wingspan, at its right talon that gleams copper where my blood coats the iron.
“One down. Four to go.”
I slide my lip between my teeth as I run my fingertip over the delicate barbs, over its fluffed neck and the perfect sphere of its head. I trace the shape of its eye, noticing the black pinprick the artist added beneath the citrine cabochon to give the illusion of a pupil.
“How does a statue and its duplicates get a prince onto the throne?” I muse aloud, raking my fingertip gently over the bird’s bulbous chest.
I freeze as a shallow vibration nips my skin. What in the three kingdoms . . .? I snatch my hand back and step away, heart pinned to my spine, which has become as rigid as the crow’s wings.
