Huh.Would that work? Besides the fact that the thought is utterly sickeningandhis chest is currently cloaked in armor, if I had direct access to skin, could I breach his flesh with a spell, or is he fully immune to my Shabbin magic?
“Back to the tunnels. One of you go check that Justus is dead. His body was at the bottom of the stairwell.” Dante strides forward, dragging me toward the gaping doorway.
I will not go back down there. I will not!
I’m almost there, Little Bird. Almost.
I want to tell Lore to beat a hasty retreat, but I sense I’d be wasting my breath. So I warn him instead.There are soldiers in the Rossi garden, Lore. I didn’t have time to count how many, but . . . but please be careful. I cannot lose you. Not before—I sob.Justbe careful.
I look back over my shoulder at Cato’s sprawled form, at the snow-pale skin and plaited hair absorbing the sticky crimson leaking from his mangled throat.
“We cannot just—just leave him there.” My voice is thready with such debilitating grief and guilt that I’m not even certain Dante, who’s glued to my side, hears me.
But apparently, he does. “We’ll give him a proper burial once the Crows fall.”
“The Crows will never fall,” I hiss as Dante yanks me out of the room and rushes us down a hallway that ends in a mirror framed with gilt seashells.
“But they will. Tonight.” He watches me through the silvered glass, and although my swollen eyes make his face appear like a patchwork of blots, I don’t miss the haughty smile tugging at his mouth. “Now that you’ve called to him. We’ve been trying to coax his remaining crows out of that rock he calls a kingdom for a while now.”
“You haven’t injured a single one of his crows,” I snap, tired of his lies.
“Is that what the vulture king told you through your little mind link? How sweet that he doesn’t care to worry you.”
Lore, have any of your crows been hit?
His answer feels as though it takes forever to reach me.One. But there was no blood on the obsidian arrow.
The floor dips and I stumble. Dante tightens his grip, keeping me upright.I cannot believe he was speaking the truth.
Are you certain?
Yes.
My mind buzzes with anguish.You said you wouldn’t leave the Sky Kingdom!
So did you.
I only did it because Bronwen—Bronwen tricked me, Lore.
I know, mo khrà. I know all that happened.
I lower my inflamed gaze to the hem of my pink slip that is red with blood. Mine. Justus’s. Cato’s.
How I loathe myself.
Lore sighs.He was your warden.
He was also my friend.
Dante hooks a sharp turn, bypassing the stairs that had epitomized freedom only a moment earlier. I stare down at where I emerged from the prison, at the bloodied smear left behind by Justus’s body and the crown tangled with hair sitting askew in the crimson slick. “Your crown, Maezza.”
“I’ll fetch it later.”
“Why not now? Isn’t it on the way?” In a falsely sweet voice, I add, “You’ve access to my blood. Oh, wait, your sigils aren’t working, are they?”
His hands dig so hard into my bicep that he almost shatters the bone. Wincing, I writhe to break his grip but all that wins me is a trip on his shoulder.
“Put me down!” I ball my bloodied hands into fists and bang them against his armor, but all I manage is to bruise my knuckles. When I try to roll off, putting all my weight into my side, the arm wedged around the backs of my thighs becomes steel.
