She tries to think, to breathe. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re not Blooded. So what are you?”
You are not Blooded, Skylar.
She stares at him. It’s what she’s been told, her whole life. But this man—he can’t know, can he?
There is the sound of running, someone coming back their way. The stranger glances over her shoulder. Skylar turns—and she never thought she’d feelreliefat the sight of Axel coming into view.
The shadows lift as Axel runs toward her, almost like they were never there. And when Skylar turns back, it’s like the stranger was never there, either. Only the Levitator is left, curled up on the red clay ground.
Axel looks at the Levitator. “What did you do to him?”
Skylar’s breath comes out on a whoosh. She’s okay. Somehow, she is okay. “I didn’t do anything,” she says. “Some guy appeared out of nowhere and decided to give me a hand.” Her heart is still racing, adrenaline still coursing. When she lifts her hand to push back her hair, it’s shaking.
“Some guy? Who?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” He has to be someone powerfully Blooded, to disappear like that. A Reader and a Shadow Wielder—is that even possible?
Axel is staring at her. At his sides, his hands flex into fists. “Are you… alright?”
“Yes.” She thinks she is, anyway. She has no idea what happened—but she isn’t dead, and that’s a start. Axel glances to the Levitator, still curled into a ball, then back to her. He’s reluctant to move away from her, she realizes. Is he…worriedabout her?
“I’m fine,” she says. “Honestly.”
He gives a curt nod and crosses to the assassin, who looks up. He opens his mouth, but words don’t come out. Instead, his jaw goes slack, a lazy smile replacing the panic. Fucking Vaar, that is creepy. She knows what Axel is doing—messing with his emotions, making him think everything is fine when it’s definitely not. Making it so he doesn’t resist at all.
Skylar represses the shudder.
“Come on,” Axel says. “We’d better get him to the castle.”
Where he’ll be executed, no doubt. She wonders if they’ll bother to try him first. She wonders why she cares.
Axel bends down to haul the Levitator to his feet. Then he hesitates, glancing back at her. He reaches for his pocket, draws something out. “Here.” He holds it out to her. Her pin.
She takes it slowly, feeling something settle, at being reunited with it. Alarmingly, she feels her throat close, though she swallows the emotion down. “What’s this for?” Her voice is huskier than she’d like.
She thinks she sees a brief softening in his gaze, before it’s chased away by the night. “For proving you’re not such a liability.”
21Astrid
It’s a rare gray day in Vatra. Astrid suspects Mjolnir—sitting atop one of the battlement perches in the distance—may be the reason for the pewter clouds blocking the sun. They feel apt, given what they’ve all gathered before Arach’s Temple to witness: an execution.
The anxious nickering of horses from the stables punctuates the silence, like the animals can sense what’s about to happen. Her mother taps her fingers against her crossed arms, the only sign of her impatience as they wait for the prisoner to arrive. Astrid hasn’t seen him yet to know if it’s the same man who attacked her, but her mother, who had been present for the interrogations last night, assured her it was. “He couldn’t find a Curer powerful enough to grow back his eye. It’s him,” she told Astrid, with a note of pride in her voice. “Not that he’ll need it, where he’s going.”
WHAT IS TAKING THEM SO LONG?Bastet complains, lounging between Quincy and Bjorn. Now that the Vatrans know about him, Bastet insisted he not be kept cooped up in her room, though Astrid in turn insisted they wait, at least until he was fully recovered after the assassination attempt. It took longer than she’d expected for him to heal—not so much in terms of the injuries, but because he’d felt drained, like the magic had been bled out of him. ICANNOT ABIDE ALL THIS POMP AND CEREMONY, NOT WHEN THE KING HAS ALREADY CONDEMNED HIM.
“I think the display is for us more than anything,” her mother answers. “To show they’re taking it seriously.”
“That and the king’s ego,” Jessa says, fingers idly stroking her golden whip.
IAM LOATH TO ADMIT I AGREE WITH THE KITTEN. I’M HUNGRY,says Quincy. Bastet swipes for him; Quincy bats him off.
“You’re always bloody hungry,” Jessa says, wrinkling her nose as she pulls out a piece of dried sausage and throws it to the fox.
A few feet away Skylar stands with Axel. She looks around as if bored, and Astrid, before she can think better of it, walks over to her. Skylar adjusts the pin in her hair. Axel ignores Astrid completely.
“You had the pleasure of meeting the assassin, too, then. How’re you doing?” Astrid says.
