Magically knocked out.
I. Will. Kill—
No one. You will kill no one. You swore.
I did not swear to that.
Please, Lore.
His phantom touch slips over the apple of my cheek.Why don’t you use your bargain, Behach Éan? I do owe you one . . .
I was hoping to use it for funner things.
If your definition of fun matches my own, then nothing you have in mind will require coercion.
I give him my best side-eye but end up relenting to preserve Justus’s livelihood.Lorcan Ríhbiadh, I call forth my bargain: do not harm Justus Rossi.The same way I felt the bargain prick my skin, I feel it lift like snipped thread.
“Where in the ocean, Rossi?” my father repeats, brashly this time.
“Zendaya lost a lot of blood the night she was captured,” Justus says.
Guilt swarms me. I may not be the only reason for her blood loss but I’ve no doubt I’m the greatest cause of it.
Lore pinches my chin with his phantom hand and tips my face toward his.Behach Éan, none of what happened is your fault.
If she hadn’t been pregnant with me—
Don’t.He presses his forehead to mine, and although mine dents his, if I close my eyes and hold very still, I can almost imagine he’s made of flesh and not mere eddies of darkness.
I want the whole of you back.My eyes snap open.Where is your fallen crow?
One thing at a time, Little Bird.He caresses my cheek.First, let us find your mother.
Why do you keep stalling?My heart hastens with newfangled disquiet.Your crowissalvageable, right?
Yes.
Swear it.
I swear.
As my heartbeats ease back into a more regular rhythm, I turn my attention away from my concerns and back onto my father’s.
“The only reason Meriam did what she did,” Justus is saying, “was to save Zen—”
“Where in the fucking ocean is my fucking mate, Rossi?” my father snarls. “Spit it out before I pry—” My father sucks in a harsh breath, then heaves it out with such force that it sounds like a growl and cuts his eyes to Lore’s. “Did I tell you to calm the fuck down when you were looking for my daughter, Lore?”
A beat of charged silence echoes around us.
“The day Fallon was born, she felt it and went mad. She tried to saw off her wrists to escape Marco’s dungeon.” The abounding stone amplifies Justus’s grave voice. “No matter how many healing and calming Shabbin crystals I placed on her body, she wouldn’t settle, so I brought her to her mother. I was desperate to ease her heartache, Cathal.”
“If you were that desperate, you would’ve released her! You would’ve let her be with Fallon.” Every vein in my father’s body bulges and throbs.
“I did not know about Fallon until much later! As for Meriam, strange as it may sound to the lot of you, I trusted she had Zendaya’s best interests at heart. I’d known her for decades by then and realized she wasn’t the evil sorceress the world painted her out to be. She was a woman who’d done the wrong thing. Who’d loved the wrong man. And Gods, Cathal, how she’s paid for it! She’s cursed to sit in a throne that eats at her flesh! She’s been locked up underground, in a vault, for five centuries!”
My father’s anger detonates. “Sheput Costa on the throne! She brought this upon herself! Upon all of us!”
Lore must sense my father is a second away from murdering Justus for he swerves away from me and reappears between the two men in the form of a smoke screen.
