I suddenly wonder if the whole world stood still, or if I just filtered it out when Agrippina was in scales.
She touches her ears, rubbing their rounded shell, and curses under her breath before cursing once again when she carries a lock of hair in front of her eyes.My hair isblue?
I don’t bother nodding since the hue is evident, even in the faint light afforded by the lantern jutting from the wall at her back.
Agrippina’s hand moves off her hair and up to her forehead. When her nails graze her retracted tusk, she shudders, but then she pops her hand off her forehead and holds it in front of her face.I can’t call on my Faerie magic…
Just like my blood magic.
“Are you all right, Mádhi? You’re looking awfully pale.”
I nod to reassure Fallon, even though I don’t feel all that grand. “Just a little drained, abi.”
Cathal helps me to my feet, locking his arm around my waist. My vision swims and my temples scud.
“Agrippina has no memory of the last two decades,” I add quietly to redirect their concern off my sudden feebleness.
Fallon bites her lip. “So she doesn’t remember me.” With a deep swallow, she’s sidestepping us and walking over to Agrippina, squeezing past her Faerie grandparents.
“Two mothers, and both forgot about her,” I murmur, pained for Fallon.
“Can you hear her?” Cathal asks.
I want Enzo to hear it from me first.Enzo?
Day…Enzo’s voice is no more than araucous whisper. One that makes my hand crawl up to my breastbone to try and keep my heart from beating out of my chest.I think I’m dying.
Chapter 39
Cathal
Zendaya has been worryingly quiet since she sobbed out Enzo’s name, followed by a hoarse entreaty for me to carry her back to Shabbe immediately.
She was so distraught that when I asked what was wrong, all she could do was tremble. Tremble and snap, “Canyou carry me home or should I ask Erwin?”
Obviously, I obliged, preferring she stop riding other Crows. I’d already made my feelings abundantly clear to Erwin, whose muttered excuse of a bargain hadn’t stopped my fist from sailing into his jaw while Zendaya healed Agrippina.
I’d asked him how he’d like it if someone had struck a bargain withhismate. He’d blinked. Before he could remind me that Daya wasn’t my mate, I’d turned back toward the pink-haired woman I couldn’t fucking get out of my mind. However many missions Lorcan sent me on, Zendaya was always there, shimmering on the edge of my thoughts, just out of reach.
Daya’s hand suddenly squeezes the feathers at my neck so hard that my wings hold still. “There,” I hear her say.
I glance at her, find her gaze riveted to a part of the Sahklare that is as dark at night as it is during the daytime.
“Carry me down.”
I scoff. Does she seriously expect me to drop her off in the middle of the Chayagali?
“Cathal, Enzo’s here! I can feel him.”
Fucking Enzo.
Even though my rider rages at me to turn back, I flap my wings harder, arrowing toward the palace where Erwin and Fallon are just landing with their riders. The second I clear the trees, I dissolve into smoke to buffet Daya’s fall, then morph right back into my Crow and sail off. Her shouts resonate through the Cauldron-shaped queendom, banging against my ribs as I drift up the Sahklare, peering into the algae-bright water for green scales. I fly over the narrow stretch of water twice. Zendaya must’ve been wrong about her shifter’s location because the Green One’s nowhere in that water. I wouldn’t miss a Serpent of his stature.
I’m about to ask another Crow to check with Daya about where she felt him when branches bristle followed by deep snarls. I drift lower and glimpse a tendu crouched over coils of green, warning off another.Fucking tendus.
I tilt my body, part my beak, and bullet down. A moment later the famished feline’s blood warms my beak. I toss away his body just as another tendu leaps and lands on me. Before I can shift to smoke, its claws sink past my feathers. Little does he know that he’s fucked with the wrong Crow.
He paws at the limp Serpent with a triumphant roar, one that I cut short when I cinch his scrawny ribcage with my talons, squeezing until his ribs have all splintered. I toss him aside, then land and shift. Though I don’t particularly care to linger in the Shadow Forest, especially in skin, I want to see if a pulse of life remains in Zendaya’s mate before carrying him home.
