But the rebels outside my door must have an idea.
“Get the bullet out. Get it out!” Sofiya is now hysterical. “Please,” she sobs.
As Elio asks for permission to rip open her stocking, I sprint back down the short corridor toward my bedchamber. Lo and behold, one of the men who opened fire smudges my doorstep. Did the other run to get help? Is he standing off to the side, ready to assault me with his human weapon?
I morph into shadow and streak through my visitor’s wrists, severing them from the rest of his body. His howl splinters my invisible eardrums and livens up the hallway with shouts and footfalls.
I press my mouth to my squealing visitor’s ear—whose name has just come back to me—and murmur, “We meet again,Ivan.”
A brusque inhale cuts through his sniveling, and his bloodshot eyes bulge.
I grab his jacket and haul him across the threshold—the non-verbal way to grant passage through Taytah’s wards—then I shove him forward and slam the door shut just as iron pellets make a mess of the wood.
I drag my stunned detainee down my corridor. Once I reach the closet, I ram him into my shoe wall. He reappears as he collapses, eliciting a screech from Sofiya.
“You have one second to tell me where Ksenia has taken Konstantin,” I growl at Ivan.
The asshole narrows his gaze and squints at the patch of air from which my threat emerged. “You gonna kill me anyhow, you damn whore,” he ends up saying.
“I hear waterboarding’s a horrid way to go,” Elio drops in, almost conversationally.
“I’m happy to”—Sofiya gulps in air—“pop his ugly head off with a vine.” Her wan, perspiring face is lustrous in the light of the glass wall sconces.
The man smirks. “’Xcept you ain’t gonna be long for this world, Miss Patchenkov. Not with an iron bullet swimmin’ in yer veins. Soon, the metal’s gonna poison that oh-so-superior pureling heart of yers.”
Sofiya’s mouth crooks into a smirk. “The bullet’s out, so think again, prick.”
Ivan snickers. “You mighta yanked the bullet out, but it was packed full o’ powder—an obsidian and iron mix. Bad forCrows; worse for Fae. Good luck scrapin’ that out. Oh, and Miss Patchenkov…if you get to the underworld before me, give my regards to yer dear ole daddy, will ya?”
A bladed breath stabs her throat. “Excuse me?”
“We got rid of our enemies tonight, and yer daddy was one of ’em.”
“You’re lying! Atsa was alive when I left my house.”
A slow, merciless smile unfurls on Ivan’s lips. “Not all of us traveled to the capital.”
“You’relying!” she repeats, attempting to sit up but failing.
“He is,” Elio says, tone so firm I assume he caught something off the sigils. “I heard your parents arguing just before you got here.”
Ivan frowns, clearly confused as to how Elio would have traveled from Voshna to the capital this quickly.
She sucks in air. “What? How?”
My friend bobs his chin toward the safe.
“You bugged my home, Isla?” A bead of sweat rolls over her scarred cheek.
The scar I gave her… “Aren’t you glad I did, right now?”
“Which room?” she asks.
I crouch in front of the odious revolutionary, relishing the brisk lift of his brows when I blow on him—just to let him know how close I am.
“Rooms,” I tell Sofiya. “I’ll give you a full list later. Let me finish with the human turd first.”
“Not my bathing chamber, I hope,” she murmurs. “I’ve been having unusual digestive issues…”
