“That was hours ago!” I exclaim as my fiancée steps out of my clutch to become shadows and then feathers. I widen my flare of magic to keep the hail from harming her outstretched wings.
“Probably took refuge from the weather, Vizosh,” the same man replies, while his colleague cranes his neck to track Isla’s hovering body and gleaming talons.
Dread glows in his gray eyes and rumples the bridge of his stubby nose. Since I don’t care for bigots in my ranks, especially in such proximity to my home, I make a note of having Salom relieve him of his duties…whenever my general fucking returns.
Isla lands, passing a hand through her snarled locks. I don’t miss the tremors agitating her fingers. I hope the Serpent missesthem, though, considering how distended the tendons in his neck already are.
In Crow, she says, “Imogen’s inspecting cargo with Salom and Bohdan. He confessed to being the one peddling illegal weapons. Dádhi believes there must be too much obsidian around them. You know how that scrambles mind links?” Her voice judders like my pulse.
I now know my fiancée well enough to sense a lie, and she’s lying to the Serpent.
A wet cough rattles Mestyla’s slight body, barely audible over the howling wind.
With a deep swallow, Vance tows his worried gaze off Isla and onto the new Serpent. “We need to get her into the ocean.”
“I’ll take you there,” she offers, “and then I’ll drop you off at the train station to see Imogen.”
“Which station?” I ask, even though what I want to say is:tellmethe truth.
Isla’s stare locks with mine. “The capital’s. The main one.”
I try to read the rest of what she doesn’t say off her glittering irises. “I’ll go by sleigh.”
“No.” The wind amplifies the ripple in her pitch. “Go back to the castle. Please.”
And then she’s spearing her fingers through my locks and drawing my head low. I think she means to kiss me, but her target isn’t my mouth; it’s my ear.
“The teeth Ksenia spat out were stained at the roots,” she murmurs, making me recall how she’d observed them back at the castle. “I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard, but in Luce there’s this tribe of mountain Fae that have black teeth from ingesting iron. It doesn’t make them immune to it, but it does it make them resistant to the effect of salt.”
I draw in a brusque breath, not because it’s the first I’ve heard of them—it’s not—but because, if my sister has been dosing herself, then all her answers might have been lies.
“Be careful. And keep Aodhan close.” This time, she kisses me. Hard.
Before I can volunteer that he fly Vance, she’s back in feathers. Still, I want to shout for her to stay with me, but isn’t she safer up there with Vance?
As he scoops up the girl, I tell him, “Once my niece is lucid, ask her whether she came to steal my necklace and kill me, will you?”
The Serpent nods and climbs up my fiancée’s outstretched wing. So that Isla doesn’t risk brushing against me and shifting back to skin, I step back, then throw my magic as far as I can, but as far as I can isn’t far enough. I know the hail touches them because she dips and spasms more than once.
I hate my body’s limitations.
Hate that I cannot protect Isla from everything.
Nevertheless I’m reluctant to trade my sovereignty for additional power and truer immortality. Becoming a Serpent wouldn’t only tie me to my maker but also to their queen. Perhaps, in a few centuries from now—ifthe Cauldron grants me Isla as a mate—I’d consider handing my land of ice and woodlands to a sibling or an heir and asking Zendaya for immortality. But not yet.
As I stride back toward the sleigh, I squint at the white-capped swells over which Isla hovers. When she splashes into the chaotic surf and fails to resurface, I shout at Aodhan, “Go help Isla!”
He tears his gaze off the foot soldier, whose palm is still fused to his sword. “She’s a Shabbin Crow, Kostya.”
She hasn’t reappeared.
Why hasn’t she reappeared?
My lungs shrivel as though I were the one floundering in the icy sea. “Go bloody help her!”
My desperation must be etched into every line of my being, because Aodhan benches any further protest and launches himself into the air. I watch for a moment, the cold air gliding beneath my fur-lined collar painting my sweat-slicked skin with frost. And then I finally climb into the sleigh and take a seat across from Ksenia, who tracks Aodhan’s flight through slitted eyes.
“Remind me never to help you again,” she mutters.
