Rags was busy pressing his hand into Shining Talon’s shoulder to stanch the sudden flow of slippery, shiny, cold fae blood.
Not Rags’s best play.
But it had worked. Shining Talon hadn’t done something stupid like get himself killed sparring with Morien for Rags’s sake.
“Everyone here has respect for the gravity of the situation except you, thief.” The scarves over Morien’s mouth never moved when he spoke. “I’ve left you a reminder. A few needles of mirrorglass in the appropriate joints—they’ll cause you significant pain, but nothing more. Now we can avoid misunderstandings in the future.”
Rags’s vision tunneled, black at the edges, with a center of pure white.
Morien hadn’t taken Rags’s hand, merely crippled its motion. This had once been Rags’s greatest fear.
In recent days, his perspective had shifted to welcome a host of new, even greater fears. He was going to pass out. Good. He welcomed not having to think about what had just happened.
“I don’t need you whole to find the rest of the Great Paragon.” Morien straightened, looked around at his captive audience. “You won’t lose track of anyone else?”
The sun dipped low on Rags’s consciousness. He jolted awake to find Morien gone, then again as Inis helped him into Shining Talon’s arms so Shiny could put him, little more than a collection of shivering bones, into bed. He clung to the gossamer of Shining Talon’s fancy shirt, the fae fabric cool and slippery, bunched in his hot palm. The wound in Shining Talon’s back was already healing. Maybe already healed.
Rags wasn’t so lucky.
“You should have let me kill him,” Shining Talon said, low enough that only Rags could hear. Could’ve imagined it. Rags was feverish, fever being the true mother of all Cheapsiders.
He shook his head again and again. Shining Talon pressed it to his chest to still him. Rags had spent so much of his life in motion that it felt good to lie still for a change. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d let anyone this close. Such carelessness in the Clave got you pickpocketed. Or stabbed, then pickpocketed. Shining Talon’s arms around Rags felt sturdy the same way a taut rope felt in his palms after he’d managed to hook a grapple on the first try: safe to rest his weight upon, while the rest of the world threatened to crumble.
Though Shining Talon made for a silent companion, no throat-clearing or irritating mouth-breathing, Rags knew he was there.
He listened to the steady lift and fall of Shining Talon’s breaths. The heat rolling off Rags’s skin smelled scorched, like woodburning, or the forge in a smithy. Charcoal and steel. Because he was too tired and sore to stop himself, he thought about the fae prince’s silver eyes, the black bones underneath his skin, and shivered.
This ancient, powerful creature answered only to Rags’s command.
Why did it feel like he’d swallowed hawkshade?
Too tired to ponder it further, Rags told himself that if Shining Talon was going to stick close, at least this time it meant the fae would get some rest, instead of staring at Rags in the dark.
So Rags couldn’t bring himself to protest.
Only this once.
45
Cab
Cabhan woke to blindfolded darkness. Excruciating echoes of pain in his chest. Before the first flash of panic set in, he learned he wasn’t alone.
Shh. One’s voice settled alongside the pain. Soothing it, icy-cold. Wasn’t enough to take it all away, but it dulled the agony. You are in a good place where they have taken the Lying One’s black mirror from your heart. It hurts but is already beginning to heal.
“They”? Cab asked.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, One replied.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
It is supposed to hurt more. I am doing what I can to help. One’s voice sounded faint. Separated from Cab by a great distance, or focused on more important work than conversation. In the same way that Cab had trusted her from the start, he trusted her now. If she said he was safe, he was safe.
Although he couldn’t imagine feeling worse than this.
One of the initial qualities stamped out of trainees in the Queensguard was imagination. It only got in the way of duty and obedience, of action and reaction, of drawing a blade without thought spared for defeat.
Cab focused on his breathing. Another Queensguard training technique that still served a purpose, however little he liked to admit it. A captain’s voice barking, If you can breathe, you can take stock of your situation.
He was lying on his back in something wet. His throat