to want her approval, but it was something Cab had yet to wrap his mind around. He’d been taught to think of the Resistance as dangerous agitators, less than human, if he thought of them at all.
Seems to me you’re feeling resistant, One replied.
“I won’t make myself unworthy of the sacrifices your people made to bring me here.” Cab hadn’t knelt for the Queen, but he bent his knee easily to the pale fae child in the sewer. Funny the way things worked out. “If I can serve you with my hands or heart, I’ll do it.”
Einan snorted. “Now I’ve seen gallantry.”
55
Rags
Rags hadn’t given much thought to the name Ever-Bright, but now that he’d met his first member of the royal family, he wondered if they were all as luminous as this one. Somhairle Ever-Bright’s hair was as curly as Inis’s, but short and pale as wheat. His sharp chin looked a mite off-kilter with the rest of his softer face, but he managed to give the impression of deliberate grace in his arthritic gait.
He couldn’t compare to Shining Talon’s fae glow, but he had the human companion of that quality. Goodness, Rags figured. Decency. The mother’s milk of kindness.
Rags didn’t miss the way Inis stood straighter with Prince Somhairle in the room. Gone were the sharp words and ready fists.
Rags was the only smudge on this courtly tableau now that Inis had made her transformation. Meanwhile, Somhairle’s attention had been wholly on Shining Talon since he’d laid eyes on the big fellow. He hid it badly, kept letting his glances slide into stares the way starving kids couldn’t help but follow the smell of bread.
“A prince of the Lost-Lands. In my home. Inis!” Prince Somhairle paced excitedly, hitching his way frenetically around the room.
“They were not lost when I knew them,” Shining Talon replied.
A prince, a fae prince, and an Ever-Loyal. Rags tried not to look at Shining Talon. Or, more accurately, tried not to look like he was hoping to catch Shining Talon’s eye, which was easier to do than to think about.
There was a time Rags hadn’t been able to turn around without tripping over his very own, very big, very shiny shadow.
Then he got too close.
Shining Talon hadn’t said anything about Rags falling asleep on him last night, almost like it’d never happened. He wasn’t thinking about it. Which made Rags feel rat-stupid for thinking about it, remembering it, expecting Shining Talon to talk about it because he talked about and to everything—including water and trees.
Somehow the sting cut deepest because Rags had known this would happen eventually. Expected it, deep down. Now that Shining Talon could be among finer folk with proper manners and real names, he didn’t need Rags for company.
Going unseen was Rags’s whole life, so why change now?
They’d let Inis handle the bulk of the explanations—what was going on and why they’d come. It seemed only right, and it gave Rags a chance to sit back and cover his hurt by appraising the room’s valuables. He glanced toward open glass doors that overlooked a balcony, let himself wander from the conversation toward the night sky.
A scattering of clouds overhead as he stepped onto the balcony. A shadow rippled over the paned glass, and Rags turned, flushed and ready with a quick comment about how Shining Talon couldn’t leave him alone.
But it wasn’t Shining Talon. Instead, Rags saw his own reflection, without the Ever-Land trees and twin moons behind him.
The Rags in the glass stood in a dark room, one lone window near the roof to let in light, fatty sides of meat hanging on hooks from the ceiling.
A butcher’s cool cellar.
Fuck no. Rags’s hand tingled. He made a fist, which heightened the pain enough to give him a focal point.
He’d already dealt with a mirror devil in the fae ruins. With Rags’s luck, why wouldn’t Morien be able to pull a similar trick?
Knowing it was only an illusion didn’t make it easier to look away. Rags’s reflection touched the hanging carcasses, setting them gently swaying.
“Stop it,” Rags muttered under his breath. He held his wrist to keep his injured hand from shaking.
Mirror-Rags grinned. Gestured to the last shadowy shape suspended from the ceiling. As it began to sway, it turned, and Rags saw that it had a face. Bloated, distended, his old friend Dane’s soft features were nearly unrecognizable.
Shh. Mirror-Rags pressed a finger to his mouth. Flesh grew over his lips, then sealed his eyes, his nose receding until the surface of