She gives me a watery smile that trips right off her lips and murmurs that she’s sorry. I imagine for my predicament, for she’s not at fault. Could this be my mother’s doing? Could she have broken out of her prison and gotten past Behati and the members of the Akwale who stayed behind to guard her and the Mahananda?
I croak out Meriam’s name, which makes Fallon’s eyebrows wing up. Didn’t she consider that this could be my mother’s doing?
“No, emMoti. It’s not Meriam’s fault. Not this time.” Priya rinses her hands in a bowl that Abrax has just set beside her.
Though he straightens, my guard doesn’t move away. His soft-brown eyes shimmer with the same concern that warps Asha’s face, as well as Aoife’s, Sybille’s, and Phoebus’s. I squint into the bright sun, searching for my mate amongst the Two-legs ringing me, but he isn’t there. A few Crows are treading the sky above us. Could he be amongst them?
“Lore and Dádhi flew to Nebba,” Fallon says, guessing who I seek. The deep furrow that grooves my forehead leads her to add, “To have a word with Eponine since the toxin that poisoned you is produced—wasproduced there.”
Phoebus snorts, repeating, “Have a word.” Clearly, he doesn’t believe our mates’ plan is to speak.
I rub my aching neck as Fallon expounds on the subject of this toxin. She tells me that the reason I couldn’t breathe is because the Regios filled the Isolacuorin canals with it to keep serpents out.
“I’m sure it’s no longer being manufactured,” she says, her gaze flitting to the queen, who keeps rinsing her hands even though they’re no longer coated in my blood. “You don’t think Eponine lied to me yesterday, do you, imTaytah?”
My grandmother finally looks up from the basin and its soiled contents. “If she did, she better prepare for war.”
My pulse strikes my neck and the fingers I still have wrapped around it.
“Did she swear an oath that she was no longer producing it, or merely uttered a vapid promise?” my grandmother asks.
Fallon twists her lips. I’m guessing there was no oath swearing.
Sybille says something that includes her sister’s name, and then she addresses Aoife. After a rapid exchange in Lucin, the shifter grows out her feathers and crouches. Phoebus helps Sybille climb, muttering something that makes her swipe the back of his blond head.
As she and Aoife take off, he chortles, then ambles back toward us. The second his gaze touches my neck, though, his mirth wanes, and he grimaces. A glance at my filthy frock has my own lips coiling.
Asha crouches beside me. “You didn’t suffer when we swam yesterday, did you?”
I shake my head.
“Then the substance must be contained inside these canals.”
“How long have they been poisoning the water?” The queen’s lips barely flex as she speaks.
“I don’t know, imTaytah, but Eponine mentioned—the first time we spoke about it—that at the rate they were dumping it, Mareluce would be salt-free by Yuletide.”
The queen goes so quiet that I can hear the Glacins’ murmuring even though they stand at a distance from our little party.
“But they’ve stopped dumping it for at least a month, so?—”
“You do not know that, child!” Priya exclaims. “You and Lore have been in Shabbe. You weren’t here.”
Fallon stands, her expression tightening. “We might not have beenhere, but our people were. Justus was! Luce wasn’tunattended, imTaytah.”
My pulse harshens as the two females I love the most glower at one another. “No fight. Please. I alive.” With the help of Asha, I stand, shearing off Fallon’s line of sight to her great-grandmother. “Please.”
“Let’s go.” Priya winds her arm through mine. “And, Fallon, send news with the serpents as soon as you have some.” Her tone is so brittle, it scrapes through the air and chafes my wet skin.
She begins to tug me along but I plant my bare feet into the grass. “Where going?”
“Back home.”
“Wait, Taytah. Cathal.”
She whirls on me. “We are not waiting on that man.”
“But—”
