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“I made a mistake,” Fitz rasped. “But I swear I didn’t hurt her. Not physically. But I…triggered her.”
Numair didn’t release him. He understood, now, why she’d said nothing. He could guess well enough the types of things that lay in her past. Knew that, for her, having such a thing exposed would be worse than any physical harm.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” he said evenly. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t touch her. You don’t look at her.”
“I promised Verol I’d keep her safe.”
“Then you already fucked that up, didn’t you?”
Fitz swallowed. “Would you just…tell her I want to talk to her? On her terms. Wherever she wants, whenever. I’ll be there.”
The part of Numair that hadn’t been allowed to feel protective of another person in over a decade wanted to refuse. But that same part whispered that Fitz had once been Verol’s apprentice, and the record showed that none of Verol’s were ever harmless. If he’d left Fitz to protect Clare, then he must have had some reason to think him capable of doing so.
“I’ll tell her.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The Practical Benefits
Clare jolted awake to a thunderous banging on the front door. Trepidation skimmed phantom fingers up her spine. No one should be knocking on the Arrendons’ door for her. Numair would have come in through the window. Alys or Fitz would have simply come in.
Someone could be looking for the Arrendons, but?—
The knocking sounded again, more insistently. “Miss Brighton!”
She gained her feet, grateful she hadn’t shed the habit of sleeping fully clothed, and padded to the front door. A glance through the peephole showed two members of the royal guard. For a heart-stuttering moment she wondered if this had something to do with last night, and Alys—or with her activities with the Fools. But if that were the case, it would have been the city guard, not the royal.
She felt for that connection to the Song, feeling, for the first time in her life, reassured by its presence. She opened the door.
The guard’s gaze flicked to the black diamond in her ear rather than asking confirmation of her name, then held out a white envelope. Message delivered, he snapped a short bow and then he and his companion remounted their horses, leaving her behind.
She stared at the envelope, knew the Song had done even more to speed the progression of her reading, because she had no trouble making out the two words written in thick black ink: Little Songbird.
It felt as if all the blood in her body chilled. Her fingers trembled slightly as she broke the wax seal and pulled the letter out. And when she gave a growl of frustration as the letters jumbled together in her sight, a flash of searing heat from the Song coursed through her mind and reading suddenly wasn’t any difficulty anymore.
It seems our conversation the other day has driven you from the palace, and I find I miss your presence. Since you so kindly reminded me that kings demand rather than ask, here is one such a demand for you—return to my court, little songbird. You will spend Verol’s days here, while he is away.
Dinner is held at the nineteenth bell in the dining hall. Be there. Amuse my court with your presence. Amuse me. Or I might decide to find out if you truly do prefer death to going back.
The paper crumpled in her fist. There was no outlet, this time, for the rage that pulsed and turned on itself within her. No bag to punch until the pain of damaged knuckles and the exhaustion of muscles wore her down. No Numair to make her laugh. No immediate threat, as there had always been an immediate threat in Renault County, to eliminate and release the tension.
There was only her, and the endless power that looked out from her eyes, that had read the words of Alaric’s letter with her. That was a thousand times more terrified than she and filling her with the cloying, panicking feel of that terror.
It swelled within her. That thin tendril of escape she’d allowed it in their bargain thickened and intensified, straining against its bonds. She gritted her teeth and clamped it tight.
I can stop this, the Song whispered. I showed you long ago that I could stop this. Let me.
No. Because the “this” they referred to had not been then, and was not now, Alaric. Was not only Alaric. The Song’s price for what it called protection, for what it called deliverance, was too high. She had refused to pay it in her childhood. She had refused to pay it with Simian. She would not pay it for Alaric.
But her rage was a storm inside her, growing as the Song fought her for control as it had not fought her in years, and they both fed off that rage. It swirled and howled, whipping itself into a tempest and crashing against the vessel that was Clare.
Numair was turning Hellack off the road, onto the Arrendons’ estate to deliver Fitz’s damn request, when he felt the storm of magic. It was that same signature he’d felt when Clare had spoken to the innkeeper at the Hawk and Scepter, when she’d placed her palm upon a stone dragon and told him it was lonely.
Hellack balked, every muscle in the horse’s body going tense. He half-reared, pivoting, and only a spear of Deirdren Blessed magic kept him from bolting. Numair dismounted, removing Hellack’s bridle and murmuring to the horse with another whisper of magic. “Go home, boy.”
Both of them bolted—the stallion for the safety of home, the man for the source of the storm. He shoved the front door open and almost tripped over himself, having expected resistance and found none. The energy of magic was thick around him, heavier and more potent than any he’d ever felt save Alaric’s.
It spilled from Clare, who sat on the foyer floor, her legs crossed, her eyes closed, a crumpled paper clutched tight in her fist. An envelope lay beside her, two words written on the white paper in an all-too-familiar script: Little Songbird.
