Convenient bit of camouflage, that.
The small door leading into the bell chamber bursts open, and a girl barrels through it. Panting from the effort, she slams the door shut behind her and leans back against it, eyes wide with fright.
Westlyn. The scent of her raw terror is unmistakable.
Whoever she’s running from isn’t far behind. I hear their arguments below.
“Where the fuck did she run off to?” an angry male booms.
“Don’t let her escape!” another demands—sounds like the Archmage. “The blood binding must be completed!”
“I would ratherdiethan bind myself to that monster,” she whispers, and all at once, my earlier vision crashes through my mind again in full, technicolor detail.
Westlyn, hiking up her lace dress and climbing out onto the balustrade. A lone shoe tumbling to the ground. A deep, shaky breath drawn and held tight. And then…
She pushes off the door and crosses the chamber, then climbs out onto the narrow balcony.
Trembling beside me, she grabs my stone arm, steadying herself as she peers down at the street.
“Damn it,” she hisses. Tears streak her delicate face. “Damn it!”
Down below, guests continue to pour out of the cathedral in droves, desperately swatting the air as the birds swoop and dive.
A gust of wind buffets us, and the clouds creep back over the moon, throwing us into shadow. Still gripping my arm, the girl takes a step backward, her head swiveling from the chamber door to the street, then back again, uncertainty tightening her face.
Bits and pieces of panicked conversation reach my ears from the crowd below.
Westlyn! Westlyn Patricia Avery!
She can’t have just vanished!
Where did these dreadful birds come from?
Find her, or it’s your ass on the line…
Heavy footfalls on the tower stairs. More bickering. More demands.
Westlyn releases my arm and takes a deep breath. “Fuck this.”
And then, without another word, she’s hiking up her dress and throwing a leg over the rail, a shoe slipping off her foot.
A precursor of what’s to come.
“I wouldn’t,” I say softly.
She gasps and whips around to face me.
I shift into my human glamour before her eyes. “In case your undoubtedly mad dash up the stairs didn’t give it away, we’re a good ways up. Not even a witch as clever as you could survive that jump.”
She backs away from the edge, her eyes wide as she takes me in—fully clothed, smiling—and I wait for the barrage of questions.
But all she says is, “It’s you. You’re… you’re real.”
“I am,” I admit.
And then, wonder of wonders, a smile graces her lips, and in the depths of those bright turquoise eyes, shock and terror mingle with relief.
“I wished for you,” she says softly, the earnestness in her voice calling to some innate protective instinct inside me.
