“Halflings aren’t vermin, Soldati Lastra, but I’ll take note of your beliefs and revisit them when I rule Luce. Anyone else have an opinion on halflings they’d like to share with their future queen while they have my undivided attention?”
Lastra’s lips thin and he averts his gaze.Coward.
“You already rule Luce, Fallon,” Justus says under his breath. “You’re married.”
“Blood-bound. Not married.”
I stare at the twined circles, my fingers itching to claw the tattoo out of my skin.
As we plod through the torchlit darkness, I sink into my mind, picturing my reunion with Lore, whose side I willneverleave again. I’ll graft myself to him. I’m certain he’d be all for it. Then again, how does one graft themselves to a man who can transform into shadows?
My heart skips a beat as I realize that I, too, will soon be capable of shifting into smoke.
Possibly today.
Although the air is crisp and damp, instead of numbing, it electrifies my skin. The deeper down the tunnel we march, the more my eardrums throb and my blood thrums. Perhaps it’s my magic that’s making itself known, or perhaps it’s all nerves and anticipation.
What feels like an entire Tarecuorin island later, we finally reach a heavy door.
Justus knocks while I gaze around. Though faint, I think I detect the swoosh of water. Could we be near the beach? The Rossi property does boast its own private shore. I start to daydream that only a thin slab of obsidian rests between me and open air. That if I press my fingertips into the low ceiling and push, the stone will lift and—
The tunnel shivers.
“What the Cauldron was that?” Cato clasps his sword. Although he’s yet to drag it from its scabbard, his bicep is taut with anticipatory adrenaline.
Justus snatches my wrist and drags it back along my side. “That was nothing,” he grumbles, but his eyes tell a different story. “Keep your hands off the stone or your wrists will be bound. Understood?”
The only thing I understand is that someone is out there, on the other side of this wall.
Could my mate have found Dante’s hidey-hole?Lore?
I wait for a second tremor to shake the stone like the marsh dwellers wait for summer to dry up their land and warm their derelict cottages, but no other comes, which scrunches up my brow. Assuming it was my touch that spurred the answering bang, why would the Crows only attack once? The answer pricks a hole in the inflatable buoy that is my hope, because whatever struck the ceiling isn’t a Crow.
What could it be? I suck in a breath as a thought pops into my brain: what if Meriam or Justus painted a sigil on the ceiling that my touch can activate? I’m trying to figure out the mechanics of this theory when Justus sweeps open the door, revealing an octagonal room paved in black stone with a round bed fitted with silken gold sheets.
I take in the gaudy headboard made of elaborately carved wood plated in gold and the matching frame that sits inclined on the wide mantel of the headboard. The light dripping from the suspended candelabrum is so thin that I find myself squinting at the canvas it encloses—a portrait of a pointy-eared black male in gold military regalia, wearing the crown that now sits on Dante’s head.
Although Costa is centuries younger in this painting than in the ones hanging in every temple and school, he is unmistakable with his icy stare and quiet sneer. I used to think Dante and Costa had little in common besides strong jawbones, jeweled box braids, and blue eyes, but their rotted hearts have given them the air of conjoined twins.
“My grandfather sat for this painting the day after he took over Luce.”
I turn my gaze toward the table at which both Dante and Antoni sit—Dante with both forearms on the table, Antoni with his arms tied behind his back and his mouth gagged with a vine. No place setting or plate or even goblet graces the glass surface. The only object on that table is a nondescript, palm-sized wooden box outlined in candlelight.
Both the Faerie King and the sea captain are staring at my revealing attire with varying degrees of surprise. Where Antoni’s nostrils flare and his lips tremble around his gag, Dante seems to grow a little stiller, a little taller. As he rolls his shoulders, his long braids clink against the golden armor he forever sports.
To think that soon, he will be buried in it . . .
“What is she wearing, Rossi?” Dante sneers at my dress.
“Apologies, Maezza, but Domitina packed up most of her wardrobe before departing.”
Departing? Where did his daughter go? And has his horrid mother also departed?
Since it’s of little import at the moment, I file the question away for later and smooth my hands down the silk that’s only a shade darker than my skin.
“It’s way more dress than Beryl wore the day Tavo sailed her over to Barrack Island to tend to his needs. Wait, was it his needs? I can’t quite recall what Catriona told me . . .” I tuck my tongue into the corner of my mouth and tap my lips, making a great show of dwelling on this, even though I don’t give a flying fuck about Dante’s tryst with Beryl. The only reason I even bring it up is to show him that the wool he pulled over my eyes has been sheared off.
Justus tenses beside me, his desire to yell at me so strong that it makes his jaw shiver like the flames atop the candelabrum.
