I squint at the valley far below, on the lookout for sleighs, but my eyesight, though improved by my Shabbin blood, is not crisp enough.
My father suddenly caws, which makes me jump out of both my skin and the bear’s. I whip my gaze to his wings. When I see that his feathers keep fluttering, my stationary heart begins to pound anew.
Lore, what happened?
Your father couldn’t contain his excitement,Lore grumbles, one of his crows leveling off beside my face.
They’re here?My pulse jumps out of alignment.
Yes. Just like Gabriele said, they’ve taken refuge in the ice cavern.
Gripping my father’s body between my thighs, I trail the direction of Lore’s gold eyes toward a turquoise smudge but then whip my gaze back to him.Dematerialize.
We’re too high—
Please. For my sanity, please.
With a soft sigh, he turns to smoke. After stroking my lips, he murmurs,I’ll be right back.
When I catch five streaks of black whizzing toward the splotch of blue, I yell,Lore, no! Come back immediately! LORE!“Dádhi, follow him.”
My father doesn’t heed my cry. Doesn’t go after my insane mate. No one does. I growl my frustration and keep growling until the five streaks of black shoot back toward us like fireworks.
I press my lips together, so mad I cannot even ask whether he’s ended every soldier’s life.
I’ve ended no life.His tenor is as impenetrable as my mood.
I side-eye him.
Lorcan’s shadows swarm toward Justus. He must drop an offensive image inside his mind because my grandfather’s lip curls and he sneers, “Meriam wouldn’t betray us. There must be another reason. He must’ve struck a bargain and used it to make her draw the sigil on all . . .”
White-hot pain sluices up my arm. I shove my sleeve up, expecting to see blood or welts or the Cauldron only knows what, but my skin is unblemished. Another hot jab of pain tears my palm from my arm. I clap my neck that burns as though someone was running a fiery poker over it.
What is this? Some sort of spell? Is Meriam casting a spell to harm me?
Fallon?I hear Lore shout, but his voice sounds as though it’s coming from Luce.
My grip slackens and I list. Not even my father’s great wings manage to break my fall. Caws echo all around me.
I hit a broad body that swoops upward. It takes my muddled mind a minute to realize the alarmed eyes peering back at me are yellow.Oh my Gods, Lore, no!
Mo khrà, what—Before my mate can finish his sentence, his body stills, and my worst nightmare comes to pass—black feathers harden into metal.
Time seems to stop as I stare around me and meet my grandfather’s stare, then Gabriele’s, and finally Bronwen’s. For a breath, we’re all suspended in the sky, and then . . . and then we’re plunging into the valley.
Two thoughts flare inside my mind—one, my Faerie companions are all purelings, so they’ll survive the fall, and two, if Lore is iron, then he hasn’t lost his humanity.
Seventy-Nine
“The fall broke her neck, Dee. If her magic hadn’t been unleashed, she’d be dead right now, and we’d be screwed.”
“I fucking know that, Tavo!”
I died?
“Don’t you think I know that?” Dante’s voice sounds brittle, almost as though he’s truly distraught. “Fuck.” He growls again, but his growl gets lost in the tremors that rattle whatever I lie on. “What the Cauldron was that?”
“Another avalanche. I’ll admit that using the life tether to bring Fallon down was brilliant, but Meriam’s not healing all too well. Must be affecting the Shabbin wards.” Just as Tavo says this, scorching pain sluices up my neck anew.
