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I let the silence draw out between us for too long, and he lofted his brows. “Yes. My heart and hand are promised to Cricket. Even if Grimhand had made overtures, which she did not, I would have declined. The only respectful way to do so was to yield.”

Liar. Silver-tongued liar, the dark sister hissed in my ear.

“You should get that checked by the drui, Captain. It’s been nearly a week, and even the edges are still ragged.” He remarked offhandedly as I began wrapping the long length of spider silk around my chest tight enough to keep the bandage in place.

“Did you come to critique my doctoring, or did you have some purpose?”

He snorted a laugh. “Though my favorite pastime is vexing you, a parcel was brought for you. It was left in the salons; one of the humans brought it to me to deliver.”

I looked up from my medicking and grunted, tying off the bandage. There was something wholly pleasant about the snug constriction around my chest. Silver tossed me the small fist-sized purse, and I caught it with one hand by the strings.

“Who is it from?”

Silver rolled his shoulders, picking at his nails with the end of a small twig he had found. “No idea. I couldn’t open the knots. Tried, even tried to cut it open. I imagine whoever is sending you magically protected parcels might have something important to share. Which is why I brought it instead of sending one of the others. That, and I’ve convinced the kennel master to give us access to the kennels while the dogs are all out on the hunt. He says there’s no pups right now, so as long as we don’t make more work for the humans to muck out, we are welcome to it.”

I listened to him ramble as I examined the purse. It was small, unassuming, with no marks or crests on the simply tanned brown leather satchel. Even the knot itself was just a square knot, with no hidden meanings or intricacies. By all measures, aside from the low-grade pulsing of magic, there was nothing remarkable about it. Not even my stomach reacted, neither hinting at potential danger nor at what could be inside.

I slipped a finger under the knot and pulled it free, inching open the mouth of the round purse as Silver entertained himself telling me about a drama between two squadrons.

The inside was just a black void, light from the open window unable to pierce it. The purse was too light to be a weapon of any sort, nor was it moving, so it could not contain a biological threat. I tipped it out onto my open palm.

Silver went silent.

I froze.

It was an eye. A single, milky white globe with a yellow film clinging to the red threads spooling in the palm of my hand. As I moved it slightly, the iris was too clouded by death to tell its color. It could be soft green. It could be turquoise blue. The dark pupil had grown too large in death to truly see what color it had been in life. Etched into the white were the words, Yours or hers. Life for life.

An owl feather tumbled free of the satchel.

I didn’t wait. I didn’t think. I had thought once, a thousand moments where thoughts had led me down a path of utter destruction. And no matter whose eye I was flinging across my room as I bolted for the door, they were suffering because of my thoughtlessness.

I snatched my sword from its place across a chair, but I didn’t wait for anything else. I didn’t wait for Silver, who was yelling behind me. Panic, fear, and the encouragement of the Siur Dobh drove me as fast as my feet could carry me through the palace and out into the bailey. I didn’t wait for pleasantries as I pushed and threw Fae out of my way as I made for the barbican.

Nothing but a blank purple fog filled my mind. Within it danced the figures of the little girl I remembered as my sister, and the shapely form of my beloved little bug. It could be either of them, now in the hands of the Banduic. It could be neither of them. Either way, I needed to find out.

The first saddled horse that looked even a little bit fast on their hooves was mine. The Fae who sat astride it was dealt with by simply pulling on her long skirts and hurling her across the stone courtyard. I didn’t care about her safety. I didn’t care about her at all. I needed to get to the Crossroads, and I needed to get there as fast as possible.

I ignored the yelling, screaming, and shouting of the Fae around me as I mounted the horse and kicked. Misery lanced through me as I poured an unsustainable amount of magic into the stallion to light his hooves on fire. I would ride him harder than I had ridden Venom the last time I traveled this path. There was more at stake this time. My foolishness on that venture was coming to collect, and it would collect from me and not from another innocent.

I ignored the ache in my body as we sped through forest and meadow. I ignored the way my thighs burned and the way my lungs felt like I had breathed in the shards of a broken shell. I tried everything I could to ignore the war drums in my chest that declared the battle ahead of me was already lost, and that whoever the eye had come from was already dead.

I was halfway across the Tears, not slowing or heeding the same cautions as I had the last time, before I was yanked from the horse.

My back slammed against the loamy, soft earth and knocked the wind from me. My ears rang, and my vision blurred into nothing more than the amaranthine fog that I dreamed of.

And yet whatever had knocked me from the stallion did not immediately attack me. I lay there, unmolested, until I rose of my own accord. Fear and panic still laced through my veins as I slowly turned to take in my surroundings.

There was nothing. Nothing but the dark mist that always hung low, thick, and heavy on the pockmarked marsh of the Tears. My steed had long since vanished into the mists, the sound of his steady gallops already having faded away. It was eerily quiet. Neither the ghosts that swam its waters nor the frogs that managed to live between the specters made a single sound. Not even the wind breathed a sigh.

Another blow, this one knocking me into the mud face-first, pounded into my back.

Once again, I was left alone after the singular blow. Anger joined fear and panic, and I pushed to my feet, unsheathing my sword with a vicious growl.

“Come out!” I bellowed into the mist.

There was no answer, and I slowly spun, ready to take on my attacker from any angle they would advance from.

But there was nothing.