Phoebus cranes his neck.“That’s as far as I’ve come to date.”
I turn on myself to take in the cavernous stone room covered with trellises of vertically growing— “Is that squash?” I stride closer to one of the leafy wall panels and slide my fingertips over the heart-shaped frond poking from a green bulb.
“Tà.” A woman with black hair shot through with silver, blackened eyes, and the same feather tattoo that graces every Crow cheek loops twine around the stem of another swelling bulb, securing it to the crisscrossed wood. “Squash.” After clipping the twine with an elongated, iron talon, she sets her attention on me and speaks a string of Crow words, none of which I pick up until the very last one. “Beinnfrhal.”
“I knowbenfrol,” I proclaim with childish excitement. I whirl toward Phoebus, who gazes down at me with a soft smile. “It means mountain berries. I tasted them during my journey across Monteluce. They’re the most delicious fruit ever.”
The woman’s black eyebrows gather over a slender nose that’s so straight and symmetrical it reminds me of Lorcan’s nose.
Which is a rather odd thought to have.
One surely brought on by exertion. Phoebus and I have been trekking for hours, and I do meanhours. The sky shining through the large hatch in this three-storied cavern of a room has turned a gorgeous bronzed lavender.
Soon night will drape across the Sky Kingdom. A night I may have to spend curled in some hallway because I don’t think I’ll make it back. My feet arekillingme. Of course, I refuse to admit this to Phoebus, who keeps eyeing them and pointing out all the comfortable shoes I could’ve been wearing.
By kilometer fourteen, I threatened that if he didn’t stop spotlighting my silliness, I’d tell Lorcan that my friend was lining up suitors for me. For all his ensuing eye rolls, Phoebus has palmed hisjewelsmore than once since I dropped my menace.
“Fallon?” The woman pronounces my name like all the other Crows, twisting it into a foreign word that sounds like a brook tripping over smooth rock. She nods to another section of the oddly shaped cavern and gestures for me to follow.
And I do. I may have felt many emotions when I was brought up here against my will, but chariness toward these people has never been one of them.
At the foot of one of the trellises, her outline blurs into a cloud of black. I take a tiny step back as she transforms into her other self. Although large, I’ve noted the females aren’t quite as big as males, and no male is as imposing as Lorcan.
She swoops upward, her black feathers glimmering sapphire as she nears the opened hatch.
“What do you think she’s trying to show you?” Phoebus’s breath catches in my hair.
“I’m not sure.”
She flies to the very top of a wall, her wings beating like a hummingbird’s as she levels off and snatches something with her iron beak. My heart misses a beat when I spot the slender branch dotted with pink berries—benfrol.
Did she fetch them because of how excited I became when she mentioned them?
The woman doesn’t land. Instead, she puffs into smoke that coalesces into her two-legged shape. With a smile that presses slender wrinkles around her mouth, she removes the branch from between her human teeth and tenders it.
I return her smile. “Thank you . . .” As I take her offering, I point to her. She frowns, so I point to myself and say, “Fallon,” then point to her again.
She touches the base of her neck and says, “Arin.”
“Thank you, Arin.”
She smiles, dark gaze flitting over my features, studying them.
I twist a berry off the stem and pop it into my mouth, and Great Cauldron, it’s just as I remember—syrupy with the slightest tang.
Phoebus grabs a pink pod, sniffs it, then tosses it inside his mouth. When he moans and reaches for more, I skip away from him and hurry to fill my mouth with as many as I can pack. It’s silly and childish, and if my cheeks weren’t so full, I’d melt into a puddle of laughter.
He grabs me around the waist and tickles me until I concede the almost-bare branch. “Dear Gods, how old are you, Fallon?”
In between bursts of laughter, I lick the sweet berry juice off my lips. “It’s all the walking,” I say, barely able to keep a straight face. I swipe what feels like pink drool off my chin then plop my finger into my mouth.
“That’s bringing out your animal nature?”
The mention of my Crow nature smothers my delight.
Phoebus heaves a sigh and presents me with the last berry as a peace offering. “Here. Take this magical fruit and giggle again.”
I cross my arms. “It’s just fruit. Plus, I’m all out of giggles.”
