Lorcan stares to the side, toward the little window overlooking Mareluce. “Not yet.”
“Do you think his disappearance was an accident?”
“I don’t much believe in accidents.” Moonlight gloves the straight line of his nose, the strong pane of his forehead, and the hard cut of his jaw.
“So you think he was ambushed?”
“Yes.”
My heartrate spikes. “Do you think he—he—” I cannot get myself to finish the sentence.
“I don’t think they’d have killed him, but I have no connection to him for he is not a Crow, so I cannot sense his pulse.” He wets his lips, and although he does so unintentionally, it gusts heat low in my belly.
Why couldn’t Mórrígan have blessed Lorcan with a porcine nose, a reedy mouth, and a few boils? It’s the least she could’ve done considering the immeasurable power she gave that man. It’s simply unjust for the rest of us.
He stares over his broad shoulder at me, one hand resting on the tall stone mantle, the other relaxed at his side. “You find me pretty, Behach Éan?”
His question makes my finger skitter off the embossed title full of accents and apostrophes. “Fishing for compliments is beneath a king.”
“Alyona finds me hideous. Her exact word was:bestial.”
My first reaction is:What? How?But that would just blow air up his ass, so I brush off the subject entirely and flip distractedly through a book, refocusing on our earlier conversation. “You believe Meriam is holding Daya prisoner?”
“I believe Dante is holdingbothprisoner.”
My hand jerks off the book, and the leather binding settles with a muted thump over the silken pages. “Dante? But he’s . . . I thought he believed she’d escaped his dungeon and was running amok?” Even though I now know she isn’t running amok. “So he knows she’s in Tarespagia? Is he the one who locked her up there?”
Lorcan drops into a crouch, grabs logs from a metal hamper, and tosses them atop the cold ashes, making them puff and scatter. He then seizes some brambles, tucks them over the logs, and picks up two blackened rocks which he snaps together over the dried branches until a spark forms.
“Lore?” My voice has gone up a full octave. “Are you saying I went to Luce for fucking nothing?”
He finally sets the rocks down and rises from his crouch. “Don’t swear.”
My eyes bulge as I lurch to my feet. Invigorated by my fury, I swing around the table and poke his chest with my finger. “Are youfuckingsaying I went to Luce forfuckingnothing?”
His pupils shrink. “You got to see your friends, adopt a horse, and meet Eponine of Nebba. I would hardly call thatnothing.”
I stumble back a step. “You knew?” I hiss. “You knew all this time that Meriam wasn’t on the loose?”
“Fallon, do you really believe I would’ve let you wander around the Fae lands as bait to lure a witch who damned my people and her own? Why are you so angry?”
“Because! Because I feel like a fool, Lorcan. On par with the day I learned you could shapeshift into a man!”
“Why?”
“Because!” My anger vibrates against the wooden rafters and bone-smooth stone. “Because . . .” I give a humorless laugh. “How many people know?”
“Only the members of the Siorkahd.”
“So not Antoni?”
“And Antoni.”
“What about Riccio, Mattia, and Giana?”
“I believe they were told since they helped excavate the tunnels under Rax.”
“The tunnels he vanished in?”
