I swallow and nod.
“Well,merda. That’s no good.” He looks toward Syb whose steps have a literal bounce to them she’s so happy. “We better warn Syb before she encourages Mattia to bring him back.”
“Antoni won’t dare come back. He wouldn’t risk his life to end my mate’s.” As I say this, I feel the weight of someone’s stare press against the left side of my face. I know it’s Lore’s without having to turn. Did he hear all I’ve confessed to my friends?
“Why do you two look like someone’s kicked a serpent?” Sybille’s gaze springs from Phoebus to me until I nod.
As Phoebus fills Sybille in, Lore’s voice ribbons through my mind.Antoni loathing me is not news to me, Little Bird.
Before Lore can detect that loathing is the least of my worries, I seal off my thoughts, too afraid my mate will flock from the Sky Kingdom to hunt Antoni down himself, thus risking losing a second crow.
Once I’ve gotten ahold of my expression, I turn toward the pocket of darkness where Lore stands, boxed in by Imogen and three other Crows.
The half-Fae pines for all I have. My kingdom . . . mymate.
I squeeze my lips.I don’t think he pines for me anymore, Lore.
Did Bronwen ever tell you what the Cauldron showed her the night we set out to free my second crow?
No. She only said that if he came along, it would alter my fate.I glance toward my soothsaying aunt.I assume you know how?
I do.
I hunt the darkness for the gold stare that hasn’t moved off my body.How?
Instead of telling me, Lorcan shows me, and though the events did not transpire, the vision goads tears down my cheeks.
Forty-Five
“Fal, what is it?” Phoebus’s stare is filled with such earnest worry that I paste a smile onto my lips and cup his bony cheek.
“Nothing, Pheebs. It’s nothing”
“Yeah. Really looks like nothing,” he says with a sigh.
Sybille’s throat bobs with swallow after swallow. “It’s Antoni.”
Not in the way she thinks, but yes, Antoni is at the root of my heartache, so I nod. Perhaps someday I will tell them about the alternate life I could’ve had, but right now, I don’t want to contemplate a world where Lorcan Ríhbiadh does not exist.
I stand, ready to go to him, eager to be near him, when he sweeps across the Market Tavern toward me in all of his gossamer beauty. Sybille and Phoebus back up to give him room to swell.
Lore’s nearness amplifies my grief.Don’t cry, my love.
My eyes prickle as I stare into his sparkling ones. I’d like to think I couldn’t have been so easily swayed, but back when I set out to steal the five iron crows, I was so naïve that offered the right words, given the right reasons, I’d have done the wrong thing.
My mind plunges me back into the vision, and I see myself once again driving an obsidian stake into Lorcan’s wing after Antoni convinced me the crow would wreak havoc on the world.
My mate’s shadows glide like velvet across my cheeks, brushing away the tears before they can trip off my chin.It did not come to pass, Fallon.
After grief comes anger. I tug my hair at the roots.But it could have, Lore. It could have! I was stupid enough—
You are not stupid. You wereneverstupid. You were driven by your heart.Lore eases my fingers off my hair with his spectral ones.You know what I believe, mo khrà?
No. What?I snap, still thoroughly disenchanted with myself.
I believe that your heart would’ve guided you back to me.
You’ve too much faith in my heart,I grumble.
