I balk at Silvius. “What sentence?”
“Why . . .” One of his black eyebrows hooks up. “For the crime you committed.”
Ice spills down my torso, into my stomach, but must miss my heart because that organ doesn’t freeze like the rest of me. It heats and beats, a staccato that rattles my teeth and bones.
Silvius isn’t here to transport me to Dante but to Marco.
Someone from Phoebus’s household must’ve denounced me.
I whip my attention to the men in the vessel, searching for my friend’s pale hair and loud clothes amidst the sea of white uniforms.
“I advise you not to run, Signorina, for I am not the sort of man you want chasing you.” Silvius’s low menace rattles my insides, shattering the ice.
Truer words have never been spoken. I finally unpin my hand from where it sits rigidly at my side and place it in Silvius’s. “I commit so many crimes, Commander. May I know which one has earned me a trip to the palace, escorted by my grandfather’s favorite right hand?”
Silvius smiles, oblivious, or more likely, impervious to my sarcasm. “Your diabolical choice of friends.”
Is he speaking of Phoebus?
“Ptolemy Timeus is positively seething.”
I don’t even attempt to stifle my exhale. “High Fae have such tender egos.”
The corners of Silvius’s mouth rise as he leads me to a seat at the heart of the boat. Although I don’t want to sit, a stray wave coupled with his proximity forces my knees to bend.
“And low Fae have such wicked tongues.” Silvius looms over me, amber gaze sliding across my painted mouth. He better not be picturing it on his body, because if there’s one place my wicked tongue willnevergo, it’s anywhere near this male’s skin. “As you so righteously noted earlier, your grandfather does favor me.”
I wait to see where he goes with this.
“My influence is consequential around Isolacuori. One word from me on your character and your sentence would be greatly reduced.”
“I thought sentences were delivered after trials?”
Once we turn into the southernmost canal that brackets the twenty-five islands, the water-Fae controlling our speed and trajectory propels the boat faster, generating a deep wake. The wind plays in Silvius’s long black hair, flinging the pungent scent of the incense forever burning in the private rooms above the tavern, inside my nose. Either he’s come straight from some doxy’s bed or he hasn’t showered this morning.
His eyebrows bend. “Sentencesaredelivered after trials.”
“Then aren’t you getting ahead of yourself by assuming my sentence will necessitate a reduction?”
Silvius’s hand lands on the top of my seat, and he leans over, shoving more of his sickly pungency into my face. “Fallon Rossi, this isn’t your first serpent infraction.”
I tilt my head back to get my nose away from him. “What other serpent infraction have I committed?”
He presses himself back to his full height. “In the royal harbor. A decade ago. Don’t think anyone’s forgotten.”
“I wasn’t aware clumsiness was against Lucin law.”
He widens his stance as the boat merges onto open water, arrowing toward the looming island upon which resides the king, and ironically, the second of the five crows I need to collect. “It isn’t your clumsiness that worries our king.”
“It’s my sympathy toward animals?”
“Youaretroublingly humane.”
“Perhaps because I’m troublinglyhuman.”
“Only half so.” If Silvius states this with zero hesitation, does it mean Phoebus’s theory of my being a changeling is false? “May I impart some wisdom with you, youngling?”
“I’d save your breath, Commander.”
