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He gives a curt nod, and I exhale. Even though Alfie and the Six were present at the same battle five years ago, I don’t think they recognize each other. Something tells me that Alfie wouldn’t be standing there if they did.
When he hands me my cape, his eyes catch on the bloody stains spotting my trousers. “Willow!”
He reaches for my thighs to inspect, but Fox’s snarled warning freezes him. “Donottouch what is ours.”
Alfie slowly draws his hand back. He looks at Fox with a ruthless confidence I’ve never seen before. Again, I mark his changes—the hardness—and wonder about the lived experience that must have shaped his new, stronger body.
Fox sees it, too. He pushes off the wall and comes to my side, where he flicks a charm on Alfie’s chain. “How quaint Puck thinks his trinkets will keep his secrets from me.”
Alfie reverently lowers his gaze. “I would never think to hide anything from you, Knight Spymaster.”
My brows raise.Interesting.
I chalk that tidbit up in the pros column regarding Fox retaining all his deadly Sluagh skills. The ability to ransack minds would be the perfect skill for a spymaster. Having an invisible wraith form to spy on conversations would be even better.
Fox asks, “Do you have something on your mind, Shadow?”
“I simply wish to tend to her injuries.”
A film of darkness swims across Fox’s expression. It’s so brief I think it’s imagined. He deadpans when he glances down at my legs. “You are wounded.”
“You afraid of blood or something?” I return.
Fox’s gaze lifts to mine, holds, and his wicked gleam returns. “Or something.”
The Keep is the smaller,black-stoned castle in the shadows of the grand Ivory Palace. It sits about half a mile from the Nexus,and the journey through the woods will be cold. The chill drills down to my bones.
When I stop in the middle of the woods to put my cape on, Fox irritably stands to the side with his arms folded. He glares at the leaves swaying in the trees as if they hold the world’s secrets. While he’s distracted, I deftly search my rucksack and locate my dagger.
Two things in Avorlorna I prize more than my life: Tinger’s pendant and Rory’s dagger.
She shoved this blade into the Guardian Cloud’s hand as he fought us on the airship, trying to stop us from escaping. Rory and I accidentally tumbled overboard. Cloud was torn over who to save—me, his friend’s daughter or the ex-lover he’d plotted vengeance on for decades. He wanted Rory dead, but he wanted to make her suffer first. She knew anyone filled with that much hate would let me go first. So she stabbed him. She chose me. Then she fell.
I learned two valuable lessons that day.
Love sucks. And once metal pierces a Guardian’s skin, they’re cut from the Well just like everyone else.
Done with my adjustments, I refit my rucksack and continue down the forest path. Dream catcher webs glimmer between the trees. While Fox is distracted by his thoughts, I secretly squirrel away another gemstone without breaking my step.
Eventually, we arrive at a rickety rope bridge crossing a ravine. On the other side, the Keep looms behind a black stone wall overgrown with briars and vines. In the silence after a raven’s caw, the unmistakable sound of trickling water instills fear into my mind.
The ravine is a moat.
I could drown in a moat.
My lungs seize. My steps falter.
Already halfway across the swaying bridge, Fox turns back. I pretend to be in awe of the Ivory Palace brightening the night sky, but really, I’m calculating how to escape without him hunting me.
When they chose me as their Shadow, I was shocked. Afterward, I thoughtgreat. They’ve invited a wolf into the sheep’s pen. Killing them will be so much easier. The instant he called me his queen, I knew their obsession still rang true. They’ll underestimate me at every turn.
But now, as the rushing water drowns out the rapid pulsing of my heart, I’m not thinking at all.
I’m terrified.
“What’s the holdup?” Fox stalks back to me.
Does he not see the bridge swinging in the breeze? Hear those creaking ropes? The wooden slats click like decking on the airship.
