a knife in your guts around every corner, while the Queensguard, running marching drills in the courtyard, didn’t give a fuck.
The rules were simple. Look out for yourself.
Rags rubbed his chest. Caught Shining Talon watching him. Stuck out his tongue.
“In my time,” Shining Talon said, “we did not allow our tongues to be free of our mouths so carelessly. Often the windlings would snatch them for their private collection.”
“Don’t know what a windling is.”
“Yes. I slew the last of them.”
Rags replied with a groan, pacing the length of the gold-threaded carpet while the fork and knife he’d stolen poked his thigh. Inis and Somhairle had passed off the servant story, then shut them away, the better to keep them from getting into trouble. Arrest in a fancier cell, as far as Rags was concerned.
It gave him too much time to think, for starters. Was Shining Talon teasing him? Was he finally learning from Rags how to be a sarcastic ass?
Without looking down, Rags reached for the fragment in his pocket. He felt his way along the etched curves of the thing, fitting his fingernails into each groove he came across.
There was a crease in the casing that seemed to run the length of the fragment. Like a seam, a catch. Did that mean it opened?
Rags faced the window again. Felt Shining Talon at his back, touching his hip. Reaching for the blindfold, Rags understood, though not before he sucked in a breath, fought the inclination to arch back against the fae. He closed his eyes, guiding Shining Talon’s hand into his pocket and up to his chest with the cloth in tow. He drew it over his heart and darkness settled over the mirrorglass shard; he was safe from Morien, if only for a few stolen moments.
“What is it?” Rags allowed himself to lean back against Shining Talon’s chest. His voice sounded so serious when the blindfold was in play.
“I sense something here,” Shining Talon replied. “Something terrible.”
Oh. Rags straightened, eyes snapping open. This was about more than Shining Talon wanting to get close. Of course it was. Rags bit the inside of his lip, lingering pain from Morien’s torture flaring through his knuckles. Sending him back into the hard, real edges of his world. “Sounds like the whole damn place to me.”
“No. It is more than that.” Something in Shining Talon’s voice made Rags turn to face the fae. Found his eyes had darkened and his golden face had paled. “When I stray too close, I . . . hurt.”
Rags felt an emotion unnamed brewing in the distance like clouds rolling in. From the city rooftops, you could see a storm coming from miles away, from out over the countryside or the ocean.
Was there still time for him to outrun the downpour?
Shining Talon looked different with his hair tied up. Sharper. Harsher and less fluid. Rags’s fingers twitched. Before he could command them to stop, he’d reached out to touch the braided white streak in Shining Talon’s hair. Had to practically go up on tiptoes to reach, which was a blow to his ego and then some.
Shining Talon’s throat bobbed. “I should not command your attention in such a way. Not when your fragment remains unsolved.”
He looked like he might be sick at any second. Did fae get sick?
“Stuff it,” Rags said helpfully. “Maybe you should sit down. Try and tell me more than ‘it hurts.’ Listen, I’ve been there.”
Shining Talon shook his head. Or was he tilting it, trying to listen to things Rags couldn’t hear?
It was weird, not in the usual weird way that Shining Talon had, and that had Rags shaken. Worse, it didn’t seem like they were going to get anywhere by talking it out. They didn’t have enough time, could only steal a couple of moments before they had to remove the blindfold. Unless . . .
“Listen,” Rags said, “I’m gonna take this thing off and leave it over there. Then I’m gonna lie down and close my eyes, pretend to sleep. After that, you’re gonna take the blindfold back out and put it on my chest again, so quietly that I don’t hear you do it. And then I’m gonna do some snooping.”
Shining Talon’s face regained its faintly quizzical blankness. “What is ‘snooping’?”
“Investigating. I’ll try to find this ‘something terrible’ you’ve mentioned, ’cause what the fuck, why not, this is my year of bad decisions.” Rags forced a grin, then wheeled away to follow his own idiot plan.
“For one who doubts his own