His body spasms once. Twice.
Then Colonel Marcus Graves, the man who stole me from the earth and forged me into a weapon, goes still.
I look down at his corpse.
I should feel something. Triumph. Horror. Grief. Something.
Instead there’s just...quiet. Like the static in my head finally stopped.
Fucking finally.
“Ash.”
Kieran’s voice. Close. I didn’t hear him approach.
I don’t turn around. Don’t want to see his face. Don’t want to know what he thinks of the woman standing over a corpse she killed slowly.
His hand settles on the back of my neck. Cold and steady.
He doesn’t say anything.
Neither do I.
42
Finnian
Tiana watchesme across the fire. My secrets spilled in a rush of breath between crackles.
I don’t like being solved, and this woman, this queen who abdicated before I ever met her, sees through all of them in the time it takes to chew a piece of jerky.
The Will-o’-Wisp hovering above her shoulder doesn’t help.
Whispen pulses a sullen violet, his needle-teeth catching the firelight. The little bastard is enjoying this. Of course Ash’s soul-bound guide ended up with the one person in all of Faerie who might actually know what’s happening.
“Little scholar, little sword,” he sing-songs, his glow shifting to accusatory blue. “Left the queen, left the hoard. Followed the leash, answered the call. Tell me, Finnian—was it worth the fall?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Didn’t you?” His needle-teeth gleam. “Didn’t you, didn’t you, didn’t you.”
I ignore him. It’s the only way to survive conversations with Whispen. Treat him like weather. Unpleasant, unavoidable, not worth arguing with.
“You’re not going to kill me,” Tiana says. Not a question.
The binding pulses in my chest. Kill all the secrets.
Tiana is a secret. The biggest secret the Seelie Court has. The former queen’s maid who vanished, who everyone assumed was dead, sits across from me with firelight dancing in her violet eyes.
The binding should be screaming. Should be clawing at my ribs, demanding I complete the command.
It’s silent.
“The binding isn’t activating,” I say slowly, testing the words. “Why?”
“Because I’m not Amarantha’s secret to kill.” Tiana sets down her jerky. “I’m my mother’s. Tatiana’s daughter, hidden before Amarantha ever took the throne. The command was to eliminate the secrets of the Seelie Court, meaning Amarantha’s Seelie Court. I predate her claim.”
“Loopholes,” Whispen croons, drifting between us. “Lawyers and loopholes and little locked doors. The scholar found one. The scholar found more.”
