Konstantin secures the last button on his stand-up collar. “Slipped in my steam bath.”
His answer startles me. Then again, feigning clumsiness lends him more gravitas than admitting he was struck by a girl. Faeries are proud like that. Crows, too, for that matter.
My father’s slow perusal of Konstantin’s various injuries leads me to think he has no delusion that the floor is to blame, but does he think I may be at fault? I hope not, for that would lead him to wonder what I was doing inside the king’s steam chamber, which isn’t a conversation I’d like to have.
Konstantin steps aside to let my father through. “After you.” When Dádhi doesn’t budge, the Glacin King tips his head to the side and prompts him, using his first name this time. “Lorcan?”
My father’s jaw shifts from side to side. “I’ve just receivedwonderfulnews from home.”
The snort that slots past my lips carries many stares in my direction. Where Konstantin doesn’t seem the slightest bit surprised by my enduring presence, his guards’ bearings run the gamut from disbelief to anxiety.
“My mother was feeling better, so my daughter has decided to join us. I hope that’s not a bother?” Dádhi sounds desperate for Konstantin to tell him that it very much is a bother.
“The more the merrier,” Konstantin replies with a smarmy smile. “Has she already arrived?”
Bastard knows full well that I have.
“She has.” After a beat, my name grinds past my father’s lips like chalk against slate. “Since you’re here, why don’t you show yourself to our host?”
If only I could access the pack link while in skin to inform my father that I’m not all that presentable at the moment. Alas, Crows, unlike Serpents, need to be in feathers to talk without sound to our leader.
I slip on my boots, then lift my palm to my sigil but hold still when a new voice cuts through the tense air.
“Pardon me. Coming through.” Did my mother pick up on the disturbance, or did my father beckon her?
I should be wholly focused on her expression—to gauge the level of trouble I’m in—but as the guards part around her like foam, it’s her dress that grabs my attention. It had seemed so bulky when Phoeppa had unveiled it, proclaiming it was his finest work yet, but worn, the black velvet shot through with gold sequins appears as weightless as the night sky over Luce.
“I heard Arin made a miraculous recovery,” she says, cutting in seamlessly.
I don’t reply that there was nothing miraculous about it since Shoshair wasn’t sick to begin with. I would never put my parents on the spot like that. Behind closed doors, though, I intend to bring up their little subterfuge.
“Yes. And guess who’s already arrived, mo khrá?” my father grumbles.
“Do try to contain your excitement, Dádhi,” I reply, finally dismissing my spell.
Though Shabbins aren’t strangers to Glace, considering the amount of bulging eyes, I fathom the Northerners aren’t all that used to our spellcasting.
A nerve tweaks Mádhi’s lids as I approach and slide my cheek against hers in greeting. After showing my father some love, his elbows finally unjam.
“Contrary to what you may think,” he murmurs in Crow, “I’m always glad to see you, ínon.”
The anxiety riding me since I carried Shoshair from Luce to Shabbe finally begins to disband.
That is, until my mother flicks a lock of my humid hair behind my shoulder. “What happened to your neck?”
Shit. Fuck. Shit.
I rub the purplish skin, keeping my eyes from straying to Konstantin. Funny how I’d wanted my parents to notice it before.
That was before, though. “I, um, was blinded by the snow and ran headfirst into a ship mast.”
“Poor ship. Did it sink?” My mother’s sprightly tone makes it clear that she did not buy my fib.
Unlike Mádhi, there’s nothing remotely spry about my father’s timbre when he growls,Your bruise wouldn’t have anything to do with the Faerie King’s various injuries, now, would it?
I pop out a hopefully very convincing, “Nope.”
The way my father’s lids squeeze has me thinking he isn’t convinced.If he touched a hair on your body, so help me, Mórrígan, I will?—
