character at each turn, you act with bravery at every chance presented.”
Rags pretended not to hear him. He couldn’t let that kind of distraction in, not now. The blindfold would slow his heart, but he was ready for that. If he didn’t overextend himself, it would be fine.
Shining Talon had never asked Rags for anything before. Rags was giving this to him.
It went smoothly. He only knew Shining Talon had draped the cloth over his heart a second time because he felt it, not because he heard it or saw it. Morien wouldn’t know anything was amiss, would think Rags was lazy or beat down or both.
As long as nobody saw him knocking around.
But nobody would see him. He was made for this.
It was what had landed him in all this trouble in the first place.
70
Rags
Out in the hall, Rags was back to his old life: lingering around a corner or behind a column to avoid servants in a house too fine and too big to be his, sticking to the shadows, casing the joint for a wicked heist.
Only this time, the house in question was a castle. The castle.
Well, he’d bested fae ruins, so the home of Her Majesty should be a breeze by comparison.
Never mind that he had someone with him, because Shining Talon could be quiet as a cat after the cream and ten times as graceful.
No poisoned arrows. No doors whispering Rags’s darkest secrets back to him. They left their room behind, no note for Inis in case she read it with Morien over her shoulder.
Shining Talon could sense when they were about to pass by a mirror, and that was a handy talent. Couldn’t be too sure which mirrors were Morien’s and which weren’t. Maybe they all were.
The two of them worked well together. Better than if Rags had been on this job alone.
Twice the fae heard someone coming when Rags didn’t, gripped him by the shirt and pulled him backward to avoid being caught. Rags chalked it up to his instincts being off, to having too much on his mind. Too much in his heart. He couldn’t blame himself for not having the same eagle-sharp reflexes as a fae prince, so he nodded shaky thanks, told himself he didn’t have the words because he was conserving energy for sneaking around.
With both of them huddled together in an alcove or behind a corner, Shining Talon holding him by his shirt until it was safe to proceed, Rags kept his mind on the mission.
He couldn’t afford to let his breath run ragged or his pulse quicken in the shelter of Shining Talon’s tattooed arms.
After they’d taken three sets of servants’ staircases, all of them down, it was Rags’s turn to return the favor, gripping Shining Talon by the shirt and dragging him into a dark alcove so he wouldn’t barge into a fancy footman wearing silver gloves.
The guy passed them. Rags bent into a crouch, willing the dizzy spell—it had cropped up after winding down, down, down all those stairs—to pass. His heart had to labor twice as hard against the silencing effect of the blindfold.
“Just gotta catch my breath,” he wheezed.
Shining Talon didn’t answer him, mouth drawn, eyes dull.
Rags gripped the fae’s elbow, pulling himself straight. “Whoa, hey. Snap out of it.”
“We are closer,” Shining Talon explained. “I hear sorrowful voices.”
While Rags could’ve turned back, or asked for more time, the suddenly ashen color of Shining Talon’s silver eyes told him what he already knew.
No chance of that.
His chest felt tight, like he’d been running in a dead sprint with the Queensguard on his heels. If he left the blindfold on too long, would it kill him? Probably not, since the magic was Morien’s, and Morien needed him alive.
Then again, Morien didn’t know he was using the blindfolds for this. There went that theory.
Onward, looking after Shining Talon to make sure there were no more missteps, no more too-close calls. Another flight of stairs down, three more footmen, a butler, two cooks, five maids. None of them gossiped, Rags noted, or laughed or smiled or wasted time. Most of them were a step short of running. Wherever they were headed, they were taking their duties seriously. Too damn seriously.
Whenever there was a mirror nearby, Shining Talon would flinch, hiss. So he was still useful for that, although each time, Rags found himself gripping Shining Talon’s hand, squeezing it to bring him back to the present.
Rags had to take another break eventually, leaning back against the