And Reagan hadn’t come.
Marble lodged in the back of my throat.
Fabric brushed over my hair, my arms, my chest, still cold and slick.
“No one touches her,” Cahir said, his tone unbending. “Keep your dogs on a leash and bring me whoever compelled the human.”
My pulse kicked as I blinked into harsh light. Two shapes lurched into focus. One man loomed over me, his hand pressed to the side of my neck, pale light seeping from the veins beneath his skin.
Cahir’s dark eyes met mine.
A broken sound escaped my throat as I tried to speak, as if I couldn’t form words. His hand snapped up, fingers closing around my chin.
“Welcome back, milady,” Cahir said, shaping the words into a sneer as he turned my face. “Drink.”
He forced my mouth open.
“Hold her.”
The second man moved in, pinning my hands on my sides.
“What?” I managed barely a word.
“Something to help you mend,” Cahir said calmly, tipping a bitter liquid past my lips. “And to keep you quiet.”
He washealingme.
When he pinched my nose shut, I was forced to swallow. “Yes,” he murmured. “All of it.”
The world tilted almost instantly, my head swimming, limbs turning heavy.
Hands seized me, rolling my body in a sickening sweep.
“Put her in the bed,” Cahir said distantly as my gaze fixed on a single droplet of blood staining the white padding. “She’d better be conscious when—”
A lock clicked, and sleep claimed me again.
Chapter 57
Reagan
Reagan turned to monitor the flick of light at the mouth of a house. The entrance was empty. The only sounds were the restless wind and the rustle of leaves from the bordering woods. The last noises from the town’s residents had long since faded as the night deepened.
The weather had dropped to a harsh chill, the wind so cold it forced him to ward against it when his cloak was not enough. He slipped between the houses, checking every alley for the slightest disturbance, dropping the ward often to let the gelid wind soothe the itch from the scruffy beard he hadn’t bothered to shave.
Four days that he couldn’t get a breath down. Four days of vigilance in the human dwelling.
“Eat this,” Gwin murmured, placing something onto the iron gate beside him. He couldn’t see her, nor the food, but after she stepped back, the shape revealed the familiar crisp rice bar that offered a quick supply of energy.
She hadn’t left his side since their return from court the day before, where they’d asked to have Varian brought up from Pavilion for questioning.
After being escorted out of the Hall by battle mages, Varian was taken to court and finally granted a cell in Pavillion. His cousin would stay a good seven years in that sunken hole of a place for having committed another crime while still carrying a sentence for glamouring himself as Reagan.
The court scribe claimed it would take days to move a prisoner above shore for questioning or to grant Reagan permission to visit him. But Varian might know where Maden was hiding, and Reagan needed to get that information from his cousin. He would have compelled the scribe on the spot if Gwinifer hadn’t intervened. Now he was supposed to wait until he received permission to enter the prison.
He ate without tasting, his attention fixed on the shadow-thick alley leading towards the town square.
“From this street, Freddy and Heil will be watching,” Gwin whispered.
