I stare at Phoebus pointedly. “Talk.”
“About?” Phoebus is studying his silver stein as though he intends on reproducing its shape during one of his stone carving sessions with Reid.
When he sees Reid again, that is, since Reid is in Shabbe with Mamma. I mean, Agrippina.
“The weather seems more clement this—oh, fuck.” His wide green eyes are fixed on the doorway.
I turn in my seat because I sense we’re no longer discussing Lore’s aptitude for meteorology. “Did Syb not make it?”
I freeze when my gaze lands on the two men standing in the doorway of the Sky Tavern.
Fifty-Three
Iget up so quickly that I bang my knee into the table. “Connor?” I try to speak his name calmly but it comes out brashly.
He steps out from behind the bar. “Tà, Fallon?”
“Please escort Antoni back out of the Sky Kingdom.”
Mattia gasps. “What’s gotten into you? It’s Antoni.”
My jaw ticks from how hard I clench my molars. “Antoni’s no longer welcome within these walls.”
Connor regards me for a long second before closing in on Antoni whose eyes cut to mine.
My heartbeats spring against my ribs, quick like wildling arrows.
Phoebus curls his arm around my waist. “You’ve some nerve to show up here, Greco.”
Connor nods to the hallway, but Antoni stands his ground. “I came to apologize.” He tips up a chin smooth from a fresh shave.
Although I want him out of my sight, away from my mate, I’m glad to see he didn’t spend his night on the street. “Has he been searched for weapons?”
The five Crows wetting their beaks in pints all glance up at Antoni. Even Mattia pivots to give his friend a once-over.
“I carry no obsidian but I do have a knife.” Antoni holds one palm aloft to keep the shifters from attacking, then lowers the other to his waist and unsheathes a sharp blade that glints silver.
“You don’t think he came to murder Lore here, in his own home?” Phoebus’s breath smacks the shell of my ear.
Before my friend’s imagination can birth a riot, I say, “No.”
Mattia grips Antoni’s rigid shoulder. “He needs a safe place to land and regain his strength, Fallon.”
“I’ll arrange for a house to be put at his disposal. Anywhere in Luce. But not here.”
Mattia runs a hand through his shaggy blond mane. “Fallon, be reasonable. The streets of Luce aren’t safe.”
“Donottell me to be reasonable, Mattia.” My fingers are clenched into fists that tighten when Antoni has the audacity to shake his head in disappointment and regard me with the same iciness as the night I turned down his advances to pursue Dante.
How can he be disappointed? He wants my mate dead, and he’s fucking surprised I want to pitch him outside these castle walls?
“Tarespagia belongs to the Crows,” I say. “It’s safe.”
Mattia snorts. “There are uprisings. Homes are being looted and burned by the humans. The High Fae are setting sail in droves to Tarecuori and to Glace. Everyone is trying to get out, and you want to send himthere?” The blond halfling’s gaze settles on his friend’s hands, on the bare nailbeds wrapped around his dagger’s sheath. “Hasn’t he suffered enough?”
“Where does your allegiance lie, Mattia?” Even though my blood feels pressurized, my stance is astoundingly steady.
“What is going on out here?” Sybille, who’s returned from the loo, carves across the tavern to her sailor whose waist she encircles with a thin arm.
