split town without telling anyone where they were going. Locals waited the respectful amount of time before they started looting, and meat spoils something awful. Nobody thought much of the stink. Took a while before they found Dane’s body in the cold room, stacked between sides of beef.” Rags coughed a nervous laugh, though the story wasn’t funny. “They had to stop and call in the Queensguard after that. Law said his head was knocked in. Could’ve fallen. Always was a clumsy kid.”
Dane had been running from something, from someone hurting him, and Rags had been too caught up in his own worries to notice. He wasn’t anybody’s savior.
He didn’t want to fail Shining Talon the way he’d failed Dane.
“What I’m saying is”—Rags stared burning holes into the canopy over the bed, unblinking, until his vision blurred—“we don’t have to take off. Who said anything about leaving?”
“You have been moving.” Shining Talon spoke at last. “You have not stopped moving. I assumed this implied more travel was imminent.”
Rags groaned.
“And there are orders from the Lying One to find Four, Five, and Six,” Shining Talon continued. “When those orders change, they may require a new journey—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Prince Sweetheart hasn’t figured out where he’s supposed to go next. We’re stuck here until he does. I guess we’re gonna have to use the opportunity to bust your buddies out.”
“They are children.” Shining Talon released a long breath that sounded like he’d been holding it since their discovery of the mirror chamber.
“Shit,” Rags said.
“Yes, it is shit,” Shining Talon agreed. Rags didn’t laugh at the curse on his perfect fae tongue. “I know I am young. I am a warrior who has not proven himself. I was unable to protect you from the Lying One. Neither am I able to protect them. They are dying.”
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself, Tal.” Rags tried out the new nickname, let it roll around behind his teeth. Couldn’t call him Shiny after they’d found that glittering torture chamber, all silver blood and polished glass. “Clouds the mind. Gotta keep that clear for working out how to pull off the craziest jailbreak in . . . well, ever. Thriftlamb the Unstoppable wouldn’t even try this. But we’re gonna save those kids.”
For Dane, and all the others like him ground up by the city.
Rags felt something tug at his wrist. Tal’s fingers hooked under his sleeve, drawing him close. Their fingers interlaced like a key turning in its lock, the bolts sliding seamlessly into place. Rags stared at the ceiling, aware of his palm pressed to Tal’s as they lay side by side. The fragment in Rags’s pocket warmed with approval.
“You are exactly who I knew you would be,” Tal said, “from the moment I opened my eyes.”
“You like the nickname, then?” Rags asked, because his throat was tight again, his cheeks hot.
He half turned on the bed, aware of the hard, bony press of Tal’s hip against his own. Did fae have bones of iron? No, it was iron they despised. The Ancient Ones, giant beasts, had skeletons of stone, which Oberon Black-Boned had used to build his court.
Their palaces were the bodies of age-old creatures. And here was Tal, a prince of his people.
Rags’s head swam with possibility, with the desire to climb on top of Tal and try to wrestle some of the impossible grief out of him. But there was a shadow in the beat of his heart. Pain like a splinter deeply embedded.
This wasn’t the time. Daring as ravens, Rags reminded himself. He’d found something more important than snatching what he wanted.
“You can stay, if you want,” he said, “while I sleep.”
Slowly, carefully, he settled into Tal’s side. He set the palm of his free hand on Tal’s shoulder. Then he closed his eyes, because looking at Tal while he suffered was too much from up close.
“I would like that,” Tal agreed.
Never a moment of stillness until this. Rags knew it couldn’t last. But for a few deep breaths, he let peace wash over him, holding the warmth of Tal’s body against his.
77
Cab
Cab told Sil everything he’d learned from her contact while, a flight of stairs down in the Gilded Lily, Einan died onstage.
She returned covered in a paste that smelled suspiciously like red wine and didn’t bother going behind the screen to change out of her soiled costume. Cab accidentally saw a flash of her slim, flat chest before scrambling to look away.