Rhusana wiped the blood off in a slow, deliberate movement, leaving a trail of rusty stripes across her skirt.
“It already has red on it,” she said flatly.
Fie looked around the Midnight Pavilion, almost desperate. She found hesitation in the faces of the gentry. She found calculation. She found cold, quiet triumph.
She also found fear. Anger. Helplessness. Horror. This wasn’t the way it was done. This wasn’t how highborn were supposed to behave in the open.
But no one moved.
No one moved.
No one moved.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
REAL ENOUGH
“I’ll admit,” Tavin said, “that was not what I had planned for the evening.”
His tone was light, but there was a measured clip to his words, and Fie knew it was due to the Hawk guards who had joined him in escorting her back to the guest quarters. She’d held out for a few minutes after Khoda had been hauled away, but once it wouldn’t be terribly conspicuous, she’d claimed a “poor constitution” (Niemi’s words) and asked to retire.
Even now, for the life of her, she couldn’t manage to sort out how she should answer as the guest quarters drew nearer—was she supposed to flirt after that? Niemi’s spark surged at the opportunity, and for once Fie was grateful for it. “And what did you have in mind for the evening?”
Tavin let out a tense, short laugh. “Let’s just leave it at … not that.” They came to a halt outside the entrance to the guest quarters.
Don’t let him follow you in, Niemi warned. It would be unseemly if you were to take him to bed so soon—
Oh, been there, done that, Fie told the dead girl, tired. Repeatedly. Reckon it worked out real well.
“Perhaps tomorrow you’ll allow me to make it up to you.” Tavin slid his arm free of hers but let his fingers run along the inside of her arm, up her palm, lifting her knuckles to his lips. “Just the two of us. Wherever you’d like to go.”
Home. The thought was a dagger, sudden and sharp.
She’d learned better, though. There was no home for a girl like her.
“When?” Niemi asked for her, breathless.
“Midmorning. I’ll send a messenger.” He let go and spun on a heel, then threw a too-familiar grin over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you wait.”
Both their smiles faltered the slightest bit. Niemi kept Fie’s face iron-still, but inside, Fie was screaming. The last time he’d said those words, he’d called her the girl he loved, he’d sworn he would find her no matter how long it took. And from his flinch, he remembered.
It just didn’t matter anymore.
She waited until Tavin and his escorts were gone, then sank into the shadows, trying to swallow down the tears burning in her throat. Then she called a Vulture tooth, found Viimo’s charm-bead, and traced its path.
Viimo was still in her cell, pacing west, east, west, east. She stopped in the west. That meant Return to home base.
Fie switched to a Sparrow witch-tooth, the one near burned out from her trip to the royal quarters two nights earlier. Once it had wiped her from sight, she hiked up her skirts and sprinted across the palace grounds.
“I can’t believe,” Khoda was saying as Fie burst into the sick rooms, “that she named the damn—ah—tiger Ambra.”
“Sorry.” Jasimir paused from dabbing a sharp-smelling green paste onto the gashes on Khoda’s face. He looked up at Fie with a strained smile. “We have a code word for the door, you know.”
Yula closed the door behind Fie. “We’ve put out word that the people in here have a very contagious fungus. You won’t get many folks barging in.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t stop her,” Fie blurted out. “I didn’t—I couldn’t—”
“You shouldn’t,” Khoda said so sharply that Barf sat up from where she was curled in his lap, ears flattening until he gave her a pat. “You both did exactly what you needed to, which was to keep your cover. You”—he pointed at Fie—“have the ability to assume disguises at will and to memorize and reproduce so much information, it’s not even funny. If you ever get tired of working for the Crows you should talk to me about a career in espionage. And you—” He turned to Jasimir just as the prince was reaching to dab more paste on a scratch. Instead, it smudged over the tip of Khoda’s nose. “Er.”
“Sorry,” Jasimir mumbled, and handed him a rag.
Khoda waved it off, then wiped his nose. “As I was saying, you are literally the