The armchair creaks again, but not like someone is destroying it . . . like someone is getting up. The carpet swallows the footfalls of the Crow King, but I, nonetheless, hear him pad closer in the silence of my bedroom. And then I feel him even though he doesn’t touch me—neither with his shadows, nor with his flesh.
“Go away, Lore. I’m not in the mood to fight.”
The air churns, and I think he’s finally listened to me, but when I crack my lids open, I find him crouched beside me, his golden eyes fastened to mine.
“I’m not in the mood to fight either, Little Bird.” He reaches out and tentatively pushes a strand of hair off my face, untangling it from my clumped lashes.
“Please, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t stroke my face as though I were some child.”
“Trust me, that is not how I see you.”
Why must he be so confusing? Why must I be so confused each time he is near?
His cool fingers linger beside the crease of my ear. “Fallon, I—” A series of rapid plinks on my window makes him heave an annoyed breath and mutter, “Forfocá’ssake . . .”
He stands, towing the sheets over my skimpy chemise. I’d thank him for covering me up, but my throat is too tight with embarrassment to produce words.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
I’m not sure where exactly he’s expecting me to go. To Antoni’s bed? If my failed onanistic performance proved anything, it was that I turned that male down for a reason, and that reason wasn’t my obsession with Dante.
Lore’s pupils shrink, and his mouth flattens. I think he’s about to growl something when the plink of metal against glass comes again, and he strides around the foot of the bed and wrenches open the curtains.
One of his Crows is treading air. Lore steps aside with a nod. Instantly, the bird dissolves into smoke that slips through the closed window before firming back into a woman.
“What is it, Imogen?” His voice is low and rough, but a different kind of rough than when he was addressing me. Instead of a velvety rasp, his timbre is grave.
Imogen murmurs a rapid-fire series of words in their tongue that all elude me. What doesn’t elude me is the reaction Lorcan has to her words.
Every one of his features turns bladed. “You’re certain?”
“Tà, Mórrgaht.”
What is she sayingyesto? What’s happened?
“Focà,” he mutters again.
I prop myself up. “What’s happened?”
Imogen casts my chemise a long-suffering look. What exactly does she wear to bed? Full-body armor?
Lorcan’s gaze flicks to me, and the corners of his eyes crinkle just the slimmest bit. “Your wish has come true, Fallon. I need to depart immediately.”
My heart starts and stops, starts and stops. I blame its irregular pattern on whatever bad news Imogen has brought with her.
Lorcan must command Imogen to leave the bedroom because she steps into the living room and shuts the door while he pulls the curtains tight again.
“What happened?”
He returns to my side of the bed and sits on the edge of the mattress. “Two Crows have gone missing.”
“Missing? Where?”
“In Nebba.”
