Where was the ex-Queensguard, for that matter, presumably trained to defend and attack?
Rags wriggled out from under Shining Talon’s weight. Opened his mouth to shout for Cabhan. Found he’d lost his voice.
Dane had always wondered what it would take to shut Rags up.
Shining Talon lunged away to meet the enemy, muscles coiled, an arc of pure grace and power.
“Cabhan!” Rags finally croaked, flipping onto his belly and digging his nails into the grass, heaving himself to his feet. The wall of the cottage at his back, protecting him, also made him an obvious target. “Cabhan of Kerry’s-End, you’d better get your well-trained, well-muscled Queensguard ass back here, or I swear on Lady Winter’s tits—”
A window squealed open from above. Bossy Brown-Curls stuck her head out. “My sister is still a . . . ,” Inis began, then trailed off, noticing the assault on her home.
Two. Her mouth formed the word, and the silver cat appeared at her side.
Both disappeared from the window frame. Rags swiveled in time to witness Shining Talon catch the haft of an ax and wrench it away from his assailant.
Heavy, blocky, pulp-paper masks, painted deep gold with black markings. Like the ones from the theater costumes human actors wore to transform into fae. Beneath the colorful masks, the figures were dressed in black.
It must’ve been wild for Shining Talon to be fighting himself. Or for him to see what humans thought of his kind. So much gaudier than the real thing, the difference between paste jewels and precious stones. Even their motions were jerky, clumsy, compared to Shining Talon’s speed and sinuous movement.
He caught one by the head and slammed them to the ground.
Unlike Rags, they stayed down.
Where was everyone else? Shining Talon was amazing and all, but he was one against too many.
Rags grimaced, pushed away from the house, and rushed down the green toward the fighting, cringing the entire time. He’d seen too many decent thieves ruin their livelihoods by throwing a bad punch and breaking their fingers.
But Shining Talon was badly outnumbered. If anything happened to him, Rags was as good as dead.
Anyway, if harm came to the last of the fae, it wasn’t going to be because Rags had stood back to watch him die alone.
Their attackers were shouting wildly. Shining Talon was silent. Small relief. Rags didn’t think he could handle a fae battle cry. If he had to bet, they’d be epic poems.
“Pissing balls of fucking fire!” As he charged the line, Rags failed to convince himself that he wasn’t as small as a shed feather tossed on the wind.
He tackled a masked attacker around the waist, headbutting them in the stomach for good measure. They fell to the ground but kicked as they went, hard-toed boots winding Rags as he scrambled to pry his fingers under the edges of the heavy mask.
It was stuck. Rags fumbled. The slice-song of a knife being drawn, slashing a violent arc toward Rags’s throat.
Stopped by Shining Talon’s hand, palm to sharp edge.
“This is not inside the house!” Shining Talon bellowed at Rags as he grabbed the mask with his other hand, slamming it down to the earth, knocking its wearer out cold. He tossed the blade away as though it were a splinter. The skin of his palm was split, dripping more silver blood.
Like he’d forgotten the shit they were in, Shining Talon touched Rags’s throat, painfully merciful, to satisfy himself that it was unharmed. Left a streak of cool fae blood on Rags’s pulse.
Rags swallowed, shivered. Sensed Morien’s arrival like river-flu season.
That prick must have been waiting for the most dramatic moment to show up.
“Oh dear.” Though Morien’s voice snapped in the air with the charged promise of lightning, boredom dripped from his syllables. “If it isn’t the Resistance. Come to defend their beloved Ever-Loyals? Or to steal more of the Queen’s royal assets?”
A black-swathed body fell boneless at Rags’s feet, its arms and legs twisted at limp angles. Rags looked away from it, but that meant he was looking at Morien. He wished he wasn’t. Couldn’t look away now.
Arms lifted, thumbs drawing sharp geometric patterns, Morien turned his palms to the sky.
A foreboding in the act made Rags’s heart shudder.
Morien flicked his forefingers. Rags shouted. A fine diamond spray exploded outward toward the dozen or so black-clad attackers. Shining Talon dove to the earth atop Rags, chest on chest, chill blood splashing Rags’s cheek. The mirror-dust cloud enveloped the Resistance fighters like a swarm of angry