Morien tossed Rags a cloak, which he caught against his chest. “That won’t be necessary. All details of maintaining discretion have already been taken care of.”
He wasn’t lying on that point, either. Nobody looked Rags’s dirty-thief way when he entered: the barkeep polished the same spot on the bar top over and over, while the lone barmaid faced a far corner of the taproom and didn’t turn, didn’t seem to breathe.
The emptiness of the public house was odd enough, but this many royal horses being put to stable should have meant a taproom quivering for Hill gossip, especially with House Ever-Loyal’s treason and destruction last year still shadowing everyone’s thoughts. Soon the bones of that carcass would be picked clean, and scavenging Cheapsiders would have to turn their eyes upward again, waiting for the next House to fall.
So his city churned, grinding the poor under its wheels so roughly compared to the rest. Rags put his kicking pulse down to homesickness, not fear, and scurried up the dusty stairs.
24
Rags
Staying out of sight in the ramshackle inn meant Rags was alone in a small room under a low ceiling with only Shining Talon and One the lizard for company.
To keep himself occupied, he fished the lump out of his pocket, followed by the silver beetle. Excluding One, this was all the actual treasure he’d come back with out of the fathoms-deep fae ruin, submerged within the Lost-Lands.
No one would ever believe him.
The beetle would be his keepsake for this job, stored in the hidey-hole alongside a dull arrowhead from House Ever-Bold’s Heroes of the Fair Wars collection, Lady Blodwen Ever-Striving’s silver earwax cleaner, and three bent coins Rags had found after they’d buckled under carriage wheels.
He would have tried to sleep, but there was Shining Talon’s tendency to creep up noiselessly beside Rags to consider. Rags would never know if he was alone or if Shining Talon was standing obsessive vigil, eyes unblinking, staring at him.
He couldn’t deal with that.
Instead, he poked at the beetle. His fingers still stung from where its buggy brothers had bitten him, but the pain was definitely receding, thanks to Shining Talon’s magic dirt.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this thing.” He held the lump aloft. It was the size of an overripe apple, left to grow on its branch too long. The lamplight caught the lumpy, silver blobs twisted around its base like a gloppy coating of tar, making the object glow in Rags’s hand.
Even this, a thing that looked like ossified dung, was too beautiful a fae treasure for Rags to hold on to.
Shining Talon came to stand by the bed. He didn’t reach for the rock, which made Rags realize he’d been hoping he would relieve him of the important artifact.
But Shining Talon, irritatingly, merely gazed at it, leaving both of them staring like yokels.
“It was in your coffin,” Rags prompted, like Shining Talon was a watch that needed a wind to get going. “With you the whole time. You sure you don’t have any tips?”
Shining Talon shook his head. His hair moved like a black river, shimmering as it flowed down his back. Absurd, to see someone this elegant and noble in a cramped, backwater inn. Against the grim backdrop, Shining Talon was so beautiful, it hurt worse than any infected splinter under Rags’s skin. Comparing himself to the unearthly creature next to him ached like the shard in Rags’s heart.
“Forgive me,” Shining Talon explained. “I must have been unclear. The artifact was not placed into Sleep with me. Rather, it was . . . stored somewhere safe, until such a time as it was meant to be found.”
Rags didn’t need to see the uncertainty in the thoughtful set of Shining Talon’s lower lip to hear it in his words. Fae might not lie, but he knew when someone was loitering around the edges of untruth without crossing its threshold.
“Somewhere safe?”
Shining Talon blinked. The crossbones at the corners of his mouth twitched. “It is said that our queen placed the artifact among the stars. That she alone would know when it was time for it to fall.”
“Great,” Rags said. “I get a fragment that’s not going to lead us anywhere.”
Shining Talon nodded, halting. It was clear he didn’t want to admit it, but there was no other conclusion to be drawn. “It is said that one fragment must be led, not do the leading. That this is a test of its master’s