grow ever bolder. We race against them. Let us harbor no illusions of what terrible chaos will reign should we lose that race.”
Rags could see Inis’s jaw harden at the mention of their missing Queensguard, but she didn’t say anything, and left without protest when Lord Faolan dismissed them.
Again, a massive, cozy bed awaited Rags for the night.
Again, he couldn’t enjoy it because Shining Talon was dogging his every step.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” Rags snapped, throwing his boots across the room.
They narrowly missed the drink cart, setting the crystal glasses shivering. Rags descended on it and snatched up a bottle of something tawny and expensive-looking by its neck. Out of habit, he tried to pocket a silver stirring tool, but his hand twitched so badly between the grab and the drop that it slipped free, fell to the rug.
Not that it mattered.
Faolan could have Morien tear him to pieces if he caught Rags stealing his precious hospitalities. The risk outweighed the reward.
“Forgive me,” Shining Talon said—forgive me, like everything was his fault and not Rags’s. “I thought I had explained. My people do not require rest as you do.”
It took Rags a blink to remember what Shining Talon was even responding to. The not-sleeping thing: one in a long list of circumstances that had seemingly aligned themselves against Rags, ensuring he never got a second free from Shining Talon’s golden supervision.
“Right, and you’ve been sleeping for a thousand years already, so.” Rags threw himself on the bed, closed his eyes, and flung his arm over them for good measure. It took some doing to pry the stopper free from the bottle with only one good hand, but he finessed it, finally, with his shuddering thumb. The first swig he took burned down his throat into his belly, filling him with a sickly heat.
Either it took a better tongue than his to taste the difference, or the expensive stuff was as tough to swallow as the cheap swill Minty brewed under his Clave bunk.
Rags forced down the sudden longing he felt at the memories of his piss-stinking, never-warm-enough childhood. Nights spent sleeping with one eye open, expecting Mountain to wallop him and steal his last coins, or Sidle to pickpocket him the instant Rags lowered his guard.
Another swallow of Faolan’s spirits. Rags didn’t know the name for what he was drinking, didn’t care. He was after the comforting numbness that billowed through his mind like hot steam from the city streets.
He’d felt too much in recent hours. His whole hand pulsed like a raw nerve, sensitive to every dust mote in the air. He imagined it hurt worse than when Lady Winter, an old Clave folk hero, had sewn diamonds into her palms to escape with her stolen goods.
His drinking filled the silence, though he could feel Shining Talon watching and judging him.
Finding Rags obviously unworthy. Even now, Rags was in bed trying to black out peacefully, instead of working with the thing that fell from the stars in his pocket.
There was no peace to be had in the dark of the crook of his elbow. Rags’s pain and his cure for that pain had him feeling light-headed, and when he sat up in one smooth motion, he only made it worse. As expected, he met the silver sheen of Shining Talon’s eyes.
“You might as well take your chance and get lost now.” Rags gestured shakily with the bottle in his hand. He stared at the other hand, the one Morien had cursed. His palm didn’t look different, but he kept expecting a shard to surge from beneath the skin like a shark’s fin, betraying hidden danger. “I’m as good as dead on the streets without my hands. Pretend he’s killed me, and you’re free.”
Shining Talon moved, was seated on the edge of the bed with both hands around Rags’s damaged one before Rags could slip away.
For a moment, Rags was merely impressed. Even through his discomfort at being reminded again that he was hopelessly outmatched, Shining Talon had a presence, a gravity, that glowed with trustworthy brightness.
Rags didn’t trust it, or he couldn’t. Safer to burn out the part of him that wanted to than to let it take root and flourish.
He stayed where he was. He thought he was holding still, though it was impossible to be certain with the sway of the bed. He’d never been on a ship, but he could guess it felt like this.
Then Shining Talon pressed his thumbs into key points along the back