I narrow my eyes. ‘I’m guessing you watched my trial?’
He nods, chewing thoughtfully. ‘I confess I did. It was … interesting.’
‘Interesting,’ I repeat. ‘In what way?’
‘Watching you make a decision like that.’
‘Likewhat?’
‘You had all but decided to give up,’ he says. ‘But then you didn’t. You decided towin. The others, they fought againsttheir beasts, butyou, you fought it by turning it against itself. All that anger, all that pain it inflicted, you used it as a weapon.’
I stare at him, unsettled by the shrewdness of his observation. Fox smiles, twisting a gold signet ring round his finger. He has two, I notice. One engraved with the Castellion raven, the other with the Calloway falcon. Traditionally, Etheri adopt the surname of the more powerful House. Fox’s father is the emperor, the Castellions are the Imperial family, and yet he chose to take his mother’s name as well. He makes no attempt to deflect from his unconventional parentage, nor from his illegitimacy, but rather he flaunts it. Heownsit.
Fox leans back in his chair. ‘Any more questions?’
‘Why were you so late to the Choosing?’ I ask. ‘Or was the dramatic entrance all part of the plan?’
He grins. ‘I’m not the only one with a flair for the theatrics, it seems. Been smashing many glasses lately, Storm Weaver?’
I scowl. ‘That was an accident.’
He waves my words away. ‘Sometimes we must claim our accidents. Intention can define you. And better to appear wilful than witless, wouldn’t you say?’
He stretches, cracking his neck, the sound of it so loud in the silent library that it makes me jump, which makes him smile.
‘When the eclipse happened, I was in the middle of the Serolian rainforest,’ he says. ‘The timing was really most inconvenient.’
Serolia. That’s one of the Otherlands, an isle consisting mostly of jungle, once home to Magi with the ability toshape-shift, sprout wings, and even communicate with animals. Part of me longs to ask him what it was like. The other part is telling me to run.
I clear my throat, hoping the harshness in my tone disguises the fear. ‘So now that you’re here, what is it that you intend to do?’
He considers this for a moment. ‘I’m looking for something.’
I swallow. ‘And what’s that?’
Fox tilts his head to the side, sizing me up. ‘Oh, Storm Weaver,’ he says. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’
Everything about him – his soft voice, his piercing gaze, even the way he’s positioned, casually, lazily, but really lying in wait, poised to strike – all speaks of a distrustful and dangerous threat. A predator. And if he’s the predator …
Suddenly I want to put as much distance between myself and the Earth Cleaver as possible. I take an unsteady step backwards.
Fox rises from his chair. ‘Going so soon?’
‘As delightful as it’s been, yes.’
He smirks. ‘Scared, Storm Weaver?’
Yes.
‘No,’ I say tersely, turning away from him, wincing as my bad ankle protests.
‘Need any help storming out?’
I grit my teeth as I walk away, and I just know he’s grinning.
23
Iweave through a field of wildflowers. The air is sweet, the sky a brilliant blue. Rays of sunlight reflect off something gold up ahead.
