before having his heart sharded by the mirrorcraft he’d come to suspect, nearly too late, made every member of the Queensguard an unquestioning, murdering slave. Escape hadn’t been enough to make him feel like a free man.
I do not like to see you this way, One told Cab.
I don’t like to be this way. But we have to be smarter than the sorcerer.
Oh, if that’s all. One’s lips twisted in what Cab recognized as her smug smile. I think we can manage that.
Creeping dread didn’t consume Cab as he was led downstairs, noting the lack of an audience for his procession out of the public house and out of town. He was empty of emotion, just as the public house was empty of patrons. He should have been afraid of what was to come, desperately bargaining for control of his fate. But he didn’t feel anything. Except for resignation, and a soft glow beneath: the knowledge that One existed in this world, and they’d managed to find each other. A piece of himself he’d never known was missing.
Compared to that revelation, his newfound captivity seemed a small burden. There was an inevitability to it, like he’d have wound up on this path no matter which turns he took.
He didn’t examine the Queensguard’s faces too closely, hunched his shoulders, and hid his expression behind his too-long hair. He let a Queensguard strong-arm him onto the front of a nervous mount, then gave One the look again that meant she needed to stand down.
You’re accustomed to giving orders, she said.
I was a rising star on the Hill. No use for Cab to hide anything from her. In fact, he had the suspicion that she already knew everything, and he was surprised only by how much of a relief it was to share his experiences with someone, anyone else. Until the raid on House Ever-Loyal. After that, I ran.
Smart boy, One replied.
30
Rags
Four days of riding, two of those in sheeting rain. Morien had cast a spell to shroud them in fog that not only protected them from view but also kept the group uncertain of the scenery around them. Rags felt as though he hadn’t yet returned to his own world from the fae ruins.
When the fog cleared, Rags found that instead of arriving at the city, they were on the grounds of a fancy country house, where Morien had them stay on the border of the grounds until nightfall.
Rags sneezed for the fifth time that hour and wiped his nose savagely with the back of his still-damp sleeve.
If Shining Talon said anything about the human body, disease, and the simplest of weather conditions, Rags was going to . . .
Going to what? Sneeze in his eye?
Bitter helplessness flooded his belly. He glowered at the country house, waiting for them across a well-manicured lawn, entertaining himself by picking out all the ways he’d sneak in if this were a normal job. Where a window might be cracked open or a cellar door might be unlocked. He settled on climbing up a cypress tree to the second floor and in through a window left temptingly ajar.
Once he’d finished that, he listed off the shit he could have stolen from a fancy place like this one, full to the brim, if Rags knew the type, of pointless, expensive tripe nobody needed. Porcelain piss-pot, because Ever-Nobles wanted only the finest receptacle for their shit. Fancy candlesnuffers with gold-inlaid handles. Diamond candelabras. Pokers carved to look like wild animals of the hunt. Maybe a collection of polished spoons to spook Shining Talon with.
Rags grinned.
“It is good to see you smile,” Shining Talon murmured.
Rags stopped grinning immediately.
The twin moons had risen to a point directly overhead, flooding the grounds with gray-white light. They were nearly round, what some called full, on account of how a double moon could look like an Ever-Lady’s heavy silver bosom hanging in the sky.
He’d already stopped smiling, but now Rags was filled with new depths of irritation. They couldn’t cross to the house in the bright open, not after waiting through dank twilight for the sun to set. Night on this heath was cold and cruel as a gutterwench’s tongue. And who knew when a proper cloud cover would sweep in and end their—
An unnaturally quick grumbling of clouds appeared over the moons as Rags started thinking about them—Right, we’ve got a sorcerer with us, doing sorcerer shit. On Morien’s command, they made their way to the house in darkness so black, Rags