“Because she can communicate with the damned beasts, that’s why,” Silvius mutters.
Dante’s eyes flick to his, while mine roam over the rest of the room, landing everywhere but on the source of the blaze.
I start to turn but freeze when my gaze latches onto the table’s centerpiece—a gold and pewter bowl. Although the room burns with a thousand candles, its gloom sinks into my bones, because the steel-gray metal is a curved wing.
A wing that leads to a fist-sized head.
So focused was I on the ivory tusk monstrosity, I missed the crow someone bent into a bowl.
My skin breaks out in gooseflesh. I’m not certain how prophecies work—whether Bronwen whispers into men’s ears and they obey, or whether she tosses strange ingredients into a cauldron and stirs—but my coming to Isolacuori . . . my discovery of crow number two . . .thiscannot be a coincidence.
Or if it is, then bring on more of them.
At the rate of two a day, I’ll have won the Lucin crown before Marco even returns from Tarespagia.
Pulse drowning out all ambient noise, I move deeper into the king’s oval mausoleum to stand over the crow. His eyes shine as brightly as the first crow’s. Correction, one eye shines. The other is obscured by a layer of wax as thick ascastagnoledough.
I’m tempted to scrape off the obstruction, glad my nails are short and blunt from hours spent scrubbing saucepots and linens. Even though I’m not entirely certain if the crow feels pain in this form—or in any form—I’d prefer not to scratch out its cornea.
Before my finger can meet metal, Dante yells, “Fallon! Don’t!”
I startle and snatch my hand back, burrowing it in the gauzy folds of my dress.
Oh my Gods . . . had I really been about to touch the iron crow? How could I be so foolish?
“This dish is exquisite. And so lifelike.” Do any of them know that there’s a real—somewhat real—bird beneath the iron?
“You’re not to touch anything in this room without the king’s consent.” My grandfather’s eyes are pools of shiny blue ink.
“Oh no, Justus. Let her.” The king flaps a hand, the smile straining over his lips chillingly sunny.
“My sincerest apologies for my terrible manners.” Turning back to the crow, I rack my brain for an ingenious way to leave Isolacuori with it, since I cannot exactly stuff it beneath my skirt, however voluminous the fabric.
I suck in a breath as I realize the king wants something from me. Perhaps he’ll consider an exchange: the bowl for my serpent-charm. I spin around to ask, releasing a muffled shriek when I find myself nose-to-chest with the man.
I settle my gaze on the Regio brother nearest me. “I really like your bowl.”
“Do you, now? What is it you like about it?”
Another trap?
Genuine interest?
“Although I’m only part faerie, I’m fully a woman, and you know how much we like shiny trinkets. Not to mention, I love animals.” The veins in my neck must protrude, but there isn’t much I can do to disguise my stampeding pulse. “Did one of your ancestors have it made, or was it given to them by another ruler?”
“Ihad it made after a battle thatIwon.”
The only battle Marco won was the battle of Primanivi, the one that, according to Giana, changed his demeanor and emptied his eyes. His eyes look pretty full to me, though. His irises churn with heated pride while his pupils pulse with dangerous suspicion.
If he had the crow-bowl made, then that means he collected the crow himself. I wonder what form the bird was in before it became a bowl. Was it already metallic and rigid or downy and black?
“It’s a crow, right?”
Marco acquiesces.
“Headmistress Alice depicted them as giant beasts, but they’re rathersmall.” I school my features into a mask of perfect innocence.
I feel everyone’s gaze slide from me to Marco, then back to me.
