his eye.
Living on the streets, Rags had learned young how to read people, and everything about Shining Talon screamed danger. Not a matter of if, but when.
Sorcerers had defeated—destroyed—his people. And now, because of Rags, he was being forced to lead one through a place the fae had once called home. Forced to guide him to the fae’s greatest treasure.
Rags didn’t think a quick thanks would do it.
“This your home?” His mouth ran out from under him as usual, driven to distract by the spike of tension in the air.
Remnants of pennants tangled with overgrown roots. Carvings on the walls and floors flashed blue light in acknowledgment of Shining Talon’s presence.
Shining Talon seemed surprised Rags was talking to him. Rags was a housefly starting a conversation with a human about the furniture.
“No.” Shining Talon’s hair shimmered like black rain, hid half his face as he shook his head. “My brothers, my sisters, and I were raised in the Bone Court. The days were warm and the nights lasted twice as long for festivities.”
The words seemed to cast a spell. Rags felt sunlight on his face, heard laughter and footsteps clattering down the hall.
Morien grunted and the spell was broken. Rags couldn’t tell if he’d done it on purpose.
Decided he had.
“Uh, sounds great,” Rags offered. Couldn’t stand the silence, though it would’ve served him better. His words were dust motes settling in the ancient ruin. He turned to Morien and offered his biggest shit-eating grin. “You’re not impressed, obviously. Just another day in the Queen’s service, twice-long nights and a living fae to tell you about them.”
“As a sorcerer to the Queen, I have witnessed many miracles,” Morien replied. “When Lord Faolan presented his plans for the expedition, I knew it was only right that I should be the one to see them through.”
They passed an otherwise empty chamber holding only a toppled tall chair in the center, and door after door after door, all the same shape, with an onion-top peak and no knob or handle.
Shining Talon merely had to approach one and it opened.
He strode onward without looking back at his companions. Rags got the impression he was trying to pretend Morien didn’t exist.
So Rags trudged along in silence again, grudgingly respecting the flourishes and details around him being eaten away by dirt. No loose trinkets or half-buried jewelry boxes he could nab to sell. His fingers stung, the air wasn’t stale enough for how deep in the earth they were, and the guy who’d hired him was pissed.
All in all, a bad job.
“Leading us to the execution chamber?” Rags asked. His voice echoed over the bare walls.
Shining Talon paused in his self-assured stride and turned with a question shadowing his face. “For what reason would I do that? I cannot kill the Lying One as long as he has contract with your heart. He will destroy you, and I cannot allow that to happen.”
Haha. Power fit Rags like a shirt borrowed from a man twice as big as him. A shame. From everything he’d imagined, pulling the strings was supposed to be magnificent, a thrill to kill for.
Rags forced himself to shrug. “Just making conversation. So there is an execution chamber in this place, huh?”
“Five of them,” Shining Talon replied.
Rags should have stopped asking questions. Didn’t. “What kind of a place needs five execution chambers?”
It was near impossible to catch Shining Talon’s gaze when it shifted, light reflecting off milky silver. But Rags got the sense Shining Talon had looked at him. Rags always knew when he was being watched.
“This, the Lone Tower, was one of the Bone Court’s great military strongholds.” Shining Talon’s explanation was mild, like it didn’t cost him anything to offer. “Even in defeat, it was safeguarded against invasion.”
Right.
Except Rags had broken through all those safeguards.
All those Lone Tower safeguards.
Rags was almost too numb to the impossible to feel the confirmation of where they were hit, settle, sink in deep.
You don’t belong, the door had shouted at him. Maybe it hadn’t been a threat. Maybe it’d been a different kind of warning.
Rags truly stopped asking questions after that.
He counted another room with a lone tall chair, this one upright, and noted the scorched marks—shit, handprints—stamped on the arms. Then they passed through another room with an empty bed, preserved like a held breath, in perfect condition. A third room with a dining table set, plates and goblets and chairs and untouched food that hadn’t rotted, waiting for its diners to return. Rags’s fingers itched