You belong.Lorcan growls.You belong—
Before he addsto the sky—which he’s appropriated—or to the pink dot on the horizon, I ask, “If my mother isn’t in Shabbe, where is she?”
“I do not know.” My father wraps his giant fingers around the tankard of wine. Metal scrapes against metal like chalk against slate. It takes me a second to realize the sound came from him, from his nails that have elongated and hooked into iron talons, even though the rest of his body has remained humanoid. “I do not know. I cannot feel her.” Kahol crushes his goblet, and wine sloshes out.
Feel her?
They are mates.
I blink.Mates can feel each other?
Yes.
If he cannot feel her, then how does he know she lives?
Hope.Is Lorcan telling me to hope, or is he saying that my father does not actually know?
“We will find her, Cathal.” Lorcan curls his fingers around one of my father’s leather vambraces, which I doubt he has much need for, considering the breadth of his bones and muscles. “We will find her and bring her home. But first we must bring down the wards so the rest of our people can return. We need the manpower.”
“You mean,birdpower?” The correction slips out before I can stifle it.
Neither the time nor the place, Fallon.
My impertinence wins me two sets of pointed stares. On the upside, it’s heaved my father out of his chasm of despair.
“Not everyone’s returned?” I ask.
Lorcan drums his fingers. “The Crows who sought refuge in Shabbe are confined there.”
Unlike my father whose nails are spiky and pewter-colored, Lore’s are blunt and nude. They never glided over my skin, yet I distinctly remember the feel of his ghostly fingers slithering over my body. He stops drumming them and flattens both his palm and lips.
What?Did he think I enjoyed being touched without my consent? I refocus on my father. “So, how do we bring down the wards?”
“We wait until Priya has tortured Meriam’s location out of one of the Fae the serpents dragged to her shores.”
Good serpents.
“Or until Dante figures out where his brother hid her,” my father interjects.
“My grand—”You’re not related to him, I remind myself. It may very well be the first time I’m glad I’m not a Rossi. “The general was closest to Marco. He’d know.”
“Your grandfather was not retrieved.”
“He’s alive?”
“If he is, he has not shown his face around Luce yet.”
“What about Commander Dargento?” I ask hopefully. “Has he washed up on Shabbe?”
Smoke begins to waft off Lore’s iron pauldrons as though the man were about to shift into his bird. “No.”
My pulse quickens as I recall the odious Fae with black hair and amber eyes who threatened to murder everyone I loved. “Is he dead?”
Not yet. Not. Yet.Out loud, Lore says, “Imogen overheard Dante’s soldiers chatter about the commander’s miraculous return. Although we’ve yet to set eyes on him, we’re to believe he’s made it back to Isolacuori alive.”
Four
Both my stomach and my heart harden at the news of Silvius’s survival. “Good,” I end up saying.
