As we stood at the bottom of the long drive waiting for our carriage, I studied him. I had removed my mask, and he met my eyes only once. I held his gaze, forming my face into what I hoped was a perfect representation of what I would do to him if given half the chance.
I wanted to kill him. That was too mild a word for it really. I wanted to rip him apart with my fingernails.
As we climbed into the carriage and Io loosened his hold on the man's tongue to ask him questions, it became obvious that there would be no need for me to try to get to him at all.
The Lord of Darkwatch radiated raw, unchecked anger, all of it directed at the worm seated across from us.
"Do you know anyone in the city who is buying Withian children?" Io asked.
"Of course not," Elias spat, feigning indignance. His jaw quivered, though, and his eyes stayed glued to the man before him.
I glanced at Io, trying to discern what it was that Elias saw—or what Merrik had seen in his face that frightened him so much. All I saw were thenow familiar lines and angles of the most terrifyingly beautiful man imaginable.
Io leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Youwilltell me the names of every single person in this city who either buys or sells children."
"There is not enough time in a day!" Elias whined.
Io smiled, a menacing, merciless smile. "Oh, don't worry, Elias. You'll have many, many days to tell us all your secrets."
Elias paled even further than his sickly, pallid complexion and swallowed hard. "Why do you even care? They're serfs, beggars, little better than street rats."
Those were the wrong words, the last thing that pathetic, disgusting man should have said in the face of so much wrath from the fae man seated across from him. I felt the carriage vibrate under me—maybe even the ground vibrated as cold, striking power filled the air around us.
Shadows leaked from Io, seeming to bleed out from his skin like smoke, gliding and tumbling down to fill the floor of the carriage. They lingered, sliding and rolling around our feet before they began to climb up and over Elias Addison.
The man’s face contorted in terror, but I had caught sight of Io’s face, and I was wholly transfixed by it. The familiar one I knew was gone—or it was there, but it lay on the surface, concealed by the darkness that was bleeding through.
It was as if his skin had thinned and allowed some dark thing of shadows to rise. It was dreadful—so dreadful that I knew it should have made me shrink away. It should have left me as terrified as the man who sat open-mouthed, but silently, screaming across from us.
Instead, it sent a wicked thrill through me. It was beautiful, primal, and fierce. Instead of fear, all I could manage was some wild, exhilarating pride when I looked at the face of death that sat beside me.
That had been the thing that made Merrik scream. It had been enough to make him piss himself with fear.
The face turned to me. Eyes, still the same black pits of inky night, widened in some alarm, and then the specter faded from his features. The shadows dissipated, leaving Io's stricken face before me.
He stared at me for a few heartbeats, searching my face for something. "You...," he began, his voice raw and somehow dark, as though some of that mask was still in place. "You are not afraid."
"Should I be?"
His lips curved, imperceptibly upwards at my response. "No, Sera. Never."
And I knew it was true. Perhaps it was, again, naive of me. Perhaps I was the stupidest girl in the world, but I knew it in my bones, in my soul, that he would never hurt me.
I had the strangest sense that I was one of very few people who need never fear that monster I had glimpsed just beneath the skin of the Lord of Darkwatch.
I left Io in the carriage with the creature Elias Addison, to do whatever manner of torture he and his people would do to get the answers they needed. And I felt no guilt for the fact that it made me glad to know how he would suffer.
As I walked up the cathedral steps, I didn't need to look behind me to know Io's eyes followed me every step of the way.
Nine
Sleep after that came swiftly. I expected to be plagued with dreams of those pulsing drums, or the horror of learning what that creature Elias had done, or even that spectral skull on Io's face. Instead, I woke up rested after a night of dreamless sleep.
After scrubbing the dark wash from my hair, a feat that took well over an hour of washing and re-washing, I found Tatana in the dressing room.
She was sullen, listless, and complained of a headache, so I promised her I would send breakfast to our chambers and left her to head to the gold room to eat.
Halfway down the corridor, I noticed a guard trailing me. I rolled my eyes at Markus feeling the need to guard my chambers while the fae from Nightfall were in residence.
