When the cellar wall rushes at me a little faster than anticipated and the metal floor shatters an entire row of wine bottles, I turn my head and squeeze my lids to avoid glass projectiles. The only thing I get splashed with, though, is wine.
“Lastra, rope down the cage!” the same Faerie hollers at a green-eyed soldier.
I spring my lids wide just as the cage bowls down another row of surely valuable drink. Metal groans as the bars warp, angering the hinges. I suspect that with a few more hits, I may just succeed in cracking this damn thing open.
An emerald vine streams out of the soldier’s palm and wraps around the bars. The pureling must not have anticipated the momentum of my cage because, suddenly, he’s airborne, too. Had I not felt so full of wrath, I may have grinned.
His shocked yelp rends the air in the dungeon, but it’s swiftly snuffed out when the fool crashes into the wall, unshelving more old bottles. For a few heartbeats, his limp, wine-soaked body sways from his magic vine like the black-teethed savages who accosted me in the wilds of Tarespagia. But then, his loss of consciousness snuffs out his magic, and he drops to the floor, his creeper sparkling out of existence.
While the amber-eyed soldier rushes to his side, an air-Fae blasts my cage with wind. Instead of halting the mad rocking I’ve achieved, the gusts of his magic spin my cage. My stomach jerks into my throat at the maddening whirl, then plummets when the ceiling begins to groan.
Strangling the bars with my fingers, I jerk my attention upward. Although my hair swirls around my face and whips my wide eyes, it doesn’t hide the cracks webbing the ceiling.
My cage is about to fall.
Since my magic is bound, and my ears, round, dropping from this high up may just kill me. In the words of Lore,focá.
Another deeper crack slashes the ceiling, sprinkling my upturned face with stone pellets. I want to yell at the air-Fae to stop shoving air at my twirling cage, but at the same time, if the ceiling caves, then perhaps so will the ground above it. Unless the tunnels have been excavated kilometers deep . . . Here’s to hoping the Fae got lazy during their great dig.
I twist around and, back pinned to the bars, survey the cot. When it brushes against my boots, I fling myself onto it. Its reediness is a double-edged sword, because it both knocks the breath from my lungs and allows me to roll myself into it.
Cocooned like a silk worm, I suck in lungfuls of air as I await the imminent collapse. When it comes, I release my frenzied breaths with a squeak.
The cage sinks so fast that my mattress-clad body rises like a petal caught on a breeze before shooting downward. I clench my lids, tucking all I can tuck of myself inside my downy shell.
Yelling erupts around me. The din transports me back to the night in the cave. If only I’d tried harder to find Lorcan before rushing out of his highland fortress. If only I’d read Bronwen’s ill intent inside her white eyes. If only I’d run Dante through with my sword instead of Dargento.
But I didn’t because I was a trusting fool.
The cage crashes into the ground, yet somehow . . . somehow, I don’t. I float as though some winged being has caught me.
Lore?I croak down the bond.
When no honeyed voice or caw sounds around me, I’m forced to accept the fact that my savior is no Crow but an air-Fae worried about banging up the king’s precious prisoner.
I shut my lids for long seconds and breathe through my heartache.I hate you, Bronwen. I hate you so godsdamned much. I hope Lore found out what you did, and I hope he separated you from your mate like you separated us.
“What the bloody Cauldron is happening in here?”
Ah, just the man I wanted to see. And kill.
The sound of Dante’s voice sharpens my listless pulse and mood. “Set her down, Cato!”
Cato?
My heart starts and stops, starts and stops as I drift toward solid ground.
MyCato. Well, not mine—Nonna’s?
Shock slackens my grip on the mattress, which flops open like a poorly tied scroll, and I sit up so fast that the blood roars between my temples. There, before the dinged bars of my cage, long white hair bound into a plait, stands the man I’d pictured at Nonna’s side.
But Cato Brambilla didn’t choose her side; he picked the Regios’.
Two
Istare at the white-garbed sergeant, and he stares back. The foolish romantic in me was under the impression that the day Marco fell, Cato had headed to Shabbe to find my grandmother. Evidently, Cato cared more about his station than his heart since he remained in the service of the Faerie Crown.
Political ambition brings out the very worst in people. It brought out the worst in me when I hunted down iron birds for a crumb of Dante’s affection and regard. Although I regret the manner in which I went about collecting Lore’s crows, I don’t regret the end result, because a life without Lore wouldn’t have been worth living.
