Page 33 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

Sweat rises in an instant. But the harder I fight to tear the blankets off me, the more they tangle. A single pounding need drives me up and out of bed—

Run.

The door of my room opens with barely a creak, and my racing heart soars. Stone blurs into more stone. Cold air snaps at my bare feet. Not even the servants are up this late. Talon must trust me enough to let me sleep without waiting for me outside.

Or they know these castle walls are impossible to escape.

It’s not escape I crave now, though.

Violet night slashes in from the windows lining the hall at the bottom of the stairs, and I run until the tile turns to dirt beneath my feet. My muscles scream with the need to move and ache to burn away every single thought fizzing inside my skull until the panic releases me and I can justbreathe.

I don’t stop until the skies open up above me.

Clouds sweep savage streaks across the darkness. The castle glowers at my back, under starlight and mist. Massive stone walls ring the grounds and the sprawling gardens stretching between me and the towering stone.

Castle Mount is so high that from here, I can see for miles beyond the walls. At the top of the sloping hill of the grounds, I can make out the lights of the merchant district down the mountain, and far in the distance, curling around the seaside, the faint orange flickers of Quayside. Beyond, the sweeping hills past the city walls stretch out into endless darkness. To the south, jagged sea cliffs form a natural defense around the royal grounds.

I suck in the clean air, gasp after gasp, as if the crisp chill of the night can wash away every thought that churns in my head. All the unanswered questions, all the gut-wrenching doubt about whether I’m strong enough to do this, and the bitter sting of hurt running under it all.

I try to shove the hurt away. I try to rationalize it. And it’s not because I understand or accept what my sister did, getting involved with the Whisperers, but because keeping the hurt at a distance is easier than reckoning with the truth that maybe I don’t know my sister as well as I always thought I did.

Keeva’s words come barreling back to me.You don’t remember what it was like.

She isn’t wrong. I wasn’t there that day five years ago when the gardai took our mother to the Black Quay. Our father had somehow left me down the lane with a neighbor who needed help tending to her sick children, but I heard the screams.

Finn was there, though.

Finn watched.

Did witnessing our mother’s execution break something in my sister? Force her onto a path I never even thought to imagine, until the Whisperers crashed into my path too?

My eyes close against the fierce burn of hot tears.

I want to run, and to keep running. All the way out of here, to find my sister again. I need her now more than ever. I need to understand how we both got here, and how we getout.

But if I flee before I do what the Whisperers want—they’ll go after her.

My chest heaves, but the cold helps calm me. With each breath, my racing heart slows a little bit more.

There’s no one here.

There’s no one chasing after me. No sign of the Lady of Shadows coming to cart me down to the Black Quay. And as far as the High Queen knows, as far asanyof them know, I’m here to die. To die and to send a message.

That power is not for the likes of us.

Thathopeis not for people like me.

But maybe…

Again, that rustle of stubborn hope hardens my spine.

We might never be able to restore magic, not with the Seven Wells drained dry. But my mother was willing to die for the dream thatanymagic was worth fighting for. That maybe, a future without a ban on magic would mean the mages could bring it back to Eireann from other lands. From the Málmar Islands, if we could find a way to navigate the deadly sea between us, or from the lands breaking free from Cymrea’s empire to form their own small republics.

Finn must feel the same, to be working with the Whisperers. And that has to be what she’s doing, surely, if Keeva knew where to find the Whisperers and Wolf knew enough to threaten Finn by name that first time I found him in my room here.

Wolf might hold my life in his hands, because of our bargain. He might think I’m nothing but a coward. But he doesn’t know the first thing about me. And he has no idea what I’ll sacrifice to survive.

To keep the people I love safe.