Inis had lighter hair and a different mouth. The bridge of her nose was shorter, its end tilted up. No one would recognize her, but she couldn’t do a damned thing about her insides. The only change Morien had made there was the shard in her heart.
Then there was Somhairle, so good-natured about everything it was impossible to imagine him feeling bad about anything. Still, he’d called the Hill his home once.
Topping it off was Shining Talon. A member of the conquered race upon whose bones the first Ever-Bright queen had built her castle.
Yeah. It was a good thing Rags didn’t worry about anyone but himself. He would’ve been in too deep with this group.
The carriage ride passed all too quickly after that, in a blur of jostles and bumps. Somhairle tried hard to distract them, but his chosen topic of conversation—fae battle poetry, of course—was so boring, only Shiny was still paying attention.
As they passed through the courtyard, Shining Talon shuddered.
Rags didn’t ask him what was wrong this time. But he looked over. Big mistake. Shining Talon opened his eyes, bare slivers of silver peering out at Rags from behind their glamour of simple blue.
“There are shanks of iron buried beneath the crossroads here.”
“That’s worse than a spoon, innit, Shiny?” Rags replied.
Without warning, the carriage rocked to a halt. Rags nearly fell forward into Somhairle’s lap. Shining Talon, of course, remained statue still.
They should’ve spent more of the ride teaching him how to be clumsy like a human.
A rapping on the door, followed by “Out,” in the official voice of the Queensguard. The kind of voice Rags used to have nightmares about before his nightmares turned fae and feral. He almost relished the icy slide of regular fight-or-flight fear, a welcome change from the new instincts he was being forced to learn to face terrors he still wasn’t prepared to deal with.
Somhairle leaned over to the carriage window and cracked it open. “Perhaps you weren’t aware, but I’m Prince—”
“Out of the carriage, Prince,” the Queensguard insisted. “Her Majesty’s orders. For anyone who passes through, no matter their bloodline.”
“Yes. Of course. One moment.” Somhairle shut the window again, patted Three nervously.
Rags didn’t have to ask where that nervousness came from. “If Morien’s sent us here to get ourselves arrested for being the shadiest group of bastards ever to approach the castle . . .”
“Say it louder, Rags.” Despite her sharp tone, Inis stroked Two uncertainly. “We are here because the Queen commands it. Aren’t we?”
“According to Morien,” Rags muttered.
“Then we’ll have nothing to worry about,” Somhairle said.
“Except that we’re glamoured in a fuck-ton of sorcery, and have a fae prince and two big-ass silver beasts of unknown power and origin with us,” Rags replied. “Other than that, we’re not suspicious in the slightest.”
“Best get on with it.” Somhairle opened the carriage door, raised his voice. “My apologies. My condition makes it difficult for me to move quickly, hence the delay.”
With an exaggerated wince, he levered his bad leg out of the carriage and braced himself on the doorframe so as not to stumble.
The Queensguard, being gracious, good-hearted, law-keeping servants of the crown, didn’t offer him one whit of assistance. Inis was behind him in a flash, taking his good arm, leaving Two behind with Three on the plush carriage seat. If Rags looked at them cross-eyed, he was almost able to convince himself they were a pair of regular Ever-Noble pets. Then he blinked, caught the silver sheen, and scowled at his own headache.
Shining Talon’s face was gray-pale. Was that a side effect of the sorcery, a mixture of his golden skin with the image Morien would have the world see when the fae stood before strangers?
Rags blinked. No, definitely gray.
“You’re not freaking out about the iron, are you? ’Cause you’ll blow our cover if you can’t keep it together.”
“I am together,” Shining Talon replied. “But I do feel as though I am being pulled apart.”
Rags sighed and grabbed Shining Talon’s arm. “You were asleep for a thousand years in an abandoned tunnel and you came out ten times better than anything else alive today. You can handle a little pat-down by a couple of clank-headed humans.”
“I believe you,” Shining Talon said, so fervently Rags had to make it true.
In the quiet, with Somhairle and Inis outside handling the Queensguard, Shining Talon found Rags’s hand with his.
Rags laid his head on Shining Talon’s big shoulder in return. Despite the privacy of the carriage, he couldn’t help his awareness that Morien