Our kitchen has been gouged with more profane language, the windows cracked, the frescoed walls smeared with more cruel words painted in what looks like blood.
Crimson whore.
Crow wench.
Shabbin bitch.
Murderess.
Traitress.
Noxious puddles haloed by flies dapple the honeycomb tiles, and the stench of piss punches up my flaring nostrils.
“Welcome home, Fallon Rossi.” Tavo’s voice rises over the gentle slap of water and wends through the shattered glass into my throbbing ears.
My gaze cuts to the fiery depths of his irises that sparkle with a smug smile.
“Who is behind this, Diotto?” Phoebus’s jaw tics.
“Purelings. Halflings. Underlings. Overlings. I even heard some humans came to pay tribute to the girl who revived the Crimson Crow and his army of obsidian butchers.”
Phoebus’s tendons strain against his long, slender neck like stretched twine. “Were they punished? Tell me they were punished.”
“We believe in freedom of expression in Luce now.”
Fucking really?The words stay lodged in my cramping throat.
“You call hate speech freedom of expression!” Phoebus flings his arms in a wide circle while I whirl on myself to take in the very worst of Faekind.
I’m struck by something of greater importance than debating the crude application of this new law. “Were my grandmother and mother—were they still here when the vandals visited?”
“I wouldn’t know, Fallon, for I was in Tarespagia.”
Liar.He was in the south with Dante.
With me.
With Marco’s severed head.
“Perhaps you could use your spanking new clout to enquire on my behalf?”
My snide comment is met with a sneer. “You’d be wise not to address me in that tone.”
“Or what, General?”
The twinkling amethysts he wears along his peaked ears refract the nascent sunlight.
“You’ll brand those monikers into my flesh with your Fae-fire?”
His eyes grow slitted. “Don’t mistake me for your savages, Fallon. We neither ink nor score our skin to display what we are.”
I don’t bother with a retort for my breath is wasted on this man who believes me a demon. I turn on my heels, sidestep an ochre puddle, and climb the creaking stairs. Every bedroom door hangs off its hinges, giving me an unobstructed view of the chaos inside.
Mamma’s rocking chair has been charred and splintered. Nonna’s wicker baskets full of medicinal vials have been overturned and their contents smashed. The windows in our rooms have been blown out, the drapes slashed. A motionless bird lies on my bare mattress, its wings splayed like the crow from the Acolti family’s vault.
The reek of rot that suffuses the air has me reaching for purchase and sagging the second my palms connect with something solid. I try to harness my breakfast but every last morsel makes its way out. Once my stomach is empty, I press away from the wall and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, stilling when I catch the sooty hue of my fingertips.
I raise my gaze, and a blaze as hot as Fae-fire begins to chew my thrashing insides.
