The wind swirled over the trickster’s thudding pulse. There was something else Dainty Drink did. The wind remembered how much the girl and the solange-eyed one had kissed after a sip of Dainty Drink. It was a drink for love.
The girl hadn’t given Dainty Drink to the trickster. That wasn’t what was in the powder.
That meant the spider-minded one had done it.
The door swung open again.
The trickster’s hand curled, grasping the satin sheets. “I said leave. Go away. Begone. Get?—”
He stopped as he caught sight of the woman at the door.
“Cora?”
She held her pointer finger to her mouth, urging the trickster to be quiet.
He struggled to sit upright.
She walked to the bed, smoothly treading across the shadowed room. The trickster stared at her, his lips parted, eyelids heavy.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered, shaking his head. “It’s not safe. Cora. Love. You shouldn’t?—”
She pressed her fingers to the trickster’s mouth, and he fell silent.
The wind swirled around her legs, sniffing her skin, feeling the bite of illusion. She smelled of parchment, of cold catacombs, of cruelty that was always hungry and never satisfied. The illusion wasn’t perfect. Her hair was more red than auburn. Her eyes were a millimeter too close together. Her lips were not as soft, her smile not as warm. Her gaze wasn’t full of love. Instead, it was full of predatory hunger.
The trickster didn’t notice. He’d closed his eyes at her gentle touch.
“Cora,” he breathed, his body relaxing under her seeking hands.
The spider-minded one didn’t speak. She wasn’t a Bard; she couldn’t alter her voice to sound like another. Instead, she bent down and blew a soft breath into the trickster’s ear. She kissed the side of his jaw.
On the nightstand, the cricket began to chirp. The spider-minded one looked over her shoulder, directly at the cricket, and smiled.
At that, the cricket threw itself against the walls of its cage. It slammed itself against the wood, trying to break free. Its wings fluttered frantically.
The spider-minded one curled her pinkie and waved at the cricket. Then she turned back to the trickster, brushing her lips over his neck, tasting his dizzy pulse.
The cricket chirped frantically, filling the room with a loud, insistent, frightened drone. The wind raced around the room, swirling the curtains, knocking at the mirror, amplifying the cricket’s warning wail.
It was the loudest alarm a tiny insect could give.
The trickster opened his eyes, struggling upright. “What? What’s wrong with it?”
The spider-minded one gently pushed him back down. “Shh.”
He closed his eyes. “It’s probably alerting Last. It’s her creature after all.”
He gripped the sheets and groaned, tilting his head back. “Right. Right. Ignore it. Thank . . . Cora . . .”
The wind huddled in the bamboo cage, stroking the cricket’s wings, joining her mournful song. Petting her trembling form.
“I want you . . . I want you so much. We shouldn’t. I can’t?—"
The trickster sat up, shakily pulled a pillowcase from one of the pillows, and dropped it over the cage, encasing the cricket in darkness. Her song was muted. Her cries weren’t heard. The wind stayed with her in the suffocating stillness, wondering at the silence.
68
Midnight’s moon streamed over the wedding hall like a bolt of creamy silk unfurling. It glided over the crushed marble, twined past the poison vines, and settled in a pool around the fallen wedding arch.
