Inis repeated. Einan kept trying to shake the noise away, to shake the truth away, but Inis gripped Einan’s wrist and squeezed. Hard.
It broke the spell.
Einan whirled on her, then softened when she saw the tension in Inis’s jaw, the blank, glassy sheen over her eyes. “What?”
“If we’re going to escape, it can only be now.” Inis gestured to the carnage. “They won’t be able to follow us—the Queensguard—and the Last is gone—we have to escape.”
She was right. There might be Queensguard yet capable of giving chase. And the Queen had more sorcerers than Morien at her command. They would follow the Queen’s enemies in Morien’s stead, now that he had disappeared. Einan sucked in a breath between her clenched teeth, shook off Inis’s grip, and rolled up her sleeves. (What the director used to do at the Gilded Lily when the actors were messing around during practice.) She raised herself to her full, short height.
When she called for the rest to follow her, Cab was the first to fall in line.
87
Somhairle
With the sound of Laisrean’s ragged breath roaring in his ears, Somhairle did his best to keep the story going.
He didn’t know where they were headed. It didn’t seem to matter.
Don’t think I’d let you stumble into anything dangerous. Three’s voice, deep and musical, high above. She was surveying their path from beyond the tree line, looking ahead with her bird’s-eye view.
Like a rebellion against a remorseless sorcerer and a mother too proud to die? Never, Somhairle agreed.
Properly chastised.
Let’s never be apart again. There was a hint of no-nonsense in Three’s tone that reminded Somhairle of Inis, but that was the only overlap between his silver fragment and his strongest friend. Inis was more serious than fae silver, glittering and clever and laughing not at pain, but at death itself.
Thank you for coming back, Somhairle replied.
Thank you for letting me go.
It had to be done.
It had to be us, Three agreed. Because you have lived with pain every day of your life, like me. Like our Creators. Your shape is different, but no matter. We do not fear pain, not like those who haven’t lived inside it. We are pain.
Somhairle let his eyes close for a breath. The broad beat of Three’s wings, the warmth of an undercurrent in the air keeping her aloft. Was Three right? (I’m always right, she reassured him.) Was it possible he’d found the one, the only thing that might be easy for him?
Strength in a role other than the kindly, suffering cripple. To be Somhairle first, not Somhairle’s weakness.
They were soaking wet from their escape. A dead sprint through the courtyard had ended in a dip in “Old Drowner,” as Rags had called it. They had floated down to a more secluded spot to avoid the main roads, then swum to the desolate shores of the bank, where only blind beggars and starving urchins marked their passing. From there, they clambered out of the dirty water and into a scrubby forest too bare for the Queen’s men to bother hunting in.
Somhairle stuck to his brother’s side. Laisrean was heavy, and Somhairle couldn’t let Shining Talon bear his weight alone.
He had finally come off the shelf, to live as he wished. Or not at all.
His stiff right leg ached all the way up to his hip, where bright-hot pain lanced in rhythm to his steps. Somhairle longed for a soft bed, a place to sit. Neither awaited him. No matter where they were headed. With every sag of his eyelids, damp golden hair trickling water into his eyes, Somhairle recalled the crack of lightning through the sky.
He saw it strike Inis, again and again.
At the time, he’d cried out, electric heat scorching his throat bone-dry. He’d imagined he was looking at a dead woman, the statue erected in a martyr’s honor, the silver and human shape of the only best friend he’d ever known.
But Inis lived. Two and Three lived. Somhairle lived.
And what of Faolan? He shouldn’t have, but Somhairle wondered.
Limping along, he took stock of the group. The fae girl who had freed Rags and Inis from the mirrorcraft had stopped breathing back in the courtyard, but the fae named Hope still bore her in his arms. He wouldn’t release her, or allow anyone close enough to suggest it.
They were a sorry, sorrowful group.
Somhairle’s fine boots were soggy; everything was sore. Stray branches slapped and stung his face as their path cut deeper through the wood. He watched Laisrean out of the corner