couldn’t see his hands when he raised them in front of his face.
However, the horses knew where to go. When the darkness finally broke with the sound of a slamming door, Rags found himself inside a stable with the others, Shining Talon standing too close for comfort.
“I could barely see you in the aberrant dark.”
“I’m fine,” Rags muttered. “I don’t disappear when the lights go out.”
“You are no Lying One,” Shining Talon agreed. “But a thief may vanish when it suits him.”
“Nothing about this suits me,” Rags growled. Then, because he got the sense that Shining Talon wouldn’t leave him alone unless he offered more, he added more affably, “I’m not going anywhere.”
It was true. Not merely because he didn’t know where the fuck they were and didn’t relish wandering through open dales and rambling fields alone, unsheltered, and on foot, but because he was necessary the same way their new pal Cabhan was necessary. Another silver animal waited for Rags, according to Shining Talon’s account, and if Shining Talon had lied about that, Rags would be the one to pay the price.
He wondered what his piece would look like. Were they all lizards?
He was getting ahead of himself.
One and Cabhan made a perfect pair. She’d reacted so strongly to Cab that it was hard to ignore the silence of Rags’s lump. Logic would naturally conclude that the thing wasn’t meant for him after all. A mistake had been made. Rags was stuck with it only until they found the right poor bastard to be its proper master.
Why couldn’t you have been a diamond? he thought in the direction of the lump in his pocket. A really big, expensive one?
Anyway, Morien hadn’t killed the ex-Queensguard for defecting—a crime punishable by slow, public, excruciating death. He wouldn’t kill Rags for the same reason. Morien needed them alive to form the Great Paragon.
Rags was tired and shivery and about to sneeze again. He didn’t expect to get the rest he needed tonight, and Morien confirmed his suspicions when he dismissed only the Queensguard.
Morien didn’t instruct them to follow. He turned and exited through a different door than the one the Queensguard had taken, leaving Rags and the rest to trundle after him.
31
Cab
Cabhan knew where they were when he saw the crest above the stable door. The book and the pen meant this place belonged to House Ever-Learning.
The architecture of the place was much like that of House Ever-Loyal. Cab couldn’t help but remember his last sight of those halls, also in the dead of night.
A piercing scream that lanced through him with equal parts horror and determination. The distant shatter of glass. The crunch of smashed bone—
What an ugly home. One’s voice sliced through the memory, dispersed its fragments like a cloud of dust. Has too many doors. Its walls are too narrow. And it’s far too high above the ground for decent company.
Thanks, One.
One sniffed, said nothing more.
Cab’s shoulders ached from riding cuffed. He was wet and tired, but his mind was just beginning to stir itself from restless slumber. Waking from the stupor he’d induced deliberately at Kerry’s-End, choosing not to think or feel.
Ever-Learning had lost its Head of House some years back when Judge Ever-Learning died of fever, followed only days later by his wife. Their young son had risen to take the reins of the House and had done well, a savvy political player by the young age of twelve. Owned one home in the city and another in the countryside, if Cab remembered right.
With a rush of relief, he realized they weren’t going to be presented at court. This place reeked of the artifice of simplicity, an Ever-Noble simulacrum of humble country life.
They’d dismounted and entered through another door, another Ever-Learning crest above the lintel. Too small to open onto a great room. More like a private study.
Much of his training for the Queensguard had been learning about the Silver Court. The Houses, their crests, their hobbies. Cab had been a dutiful and dedicated pupil.
Lots of recruits were like him. Village folk, with no ties to the nobility. Being forced to learn everything about the Ever-Nobles made devotees of soldiers. You fought harder to protect what you knew. Simple.
The door opened onto cases of books, a low desk, and two wirey-furred wolfhounds. The Ever-Learning family dogs were a lean-faced hunting breed. Cab had seen Lord Faolan walking his more than once when they were pups.
They’d grown.
Dogs. How bothersome, One said. They’re always barking about something.
True. After they