But this time, Pa had given her a witch’s tooth.
Like all the Common Castes, Sparrows birthed scant few witches. Their teeth were good as gold but sore harder to come by. The refuge Birthright let any Sparrow turn unwanted gazes away as they pleased, softened their footfalls, let them slip away from a threat unnoticed. For Oleander raids, Pa burned two teeth at a time, sometimes three, a trick Fie had yet to learn.
But the sole Sparrow witch-tooth he’d handed her—that would wipe her and the lordlings clear out of sight.
“Get steady and keep your mouths shut, cousins,” she warned under her breath, working the tooth free from her sash. “I’m hiding us.”
It warmed against her fingers as she called its spark, eyes closed, searching for a song. Instead, the world went silent. Flickers of theSparrow witch’s life slipped through her: The Hawk who’d found the witchery in his blood as a boy, years bound to serve the Splendid Castes, solace in a loving husband. A thousand-thousand times he faded from the notice of a Peacock lord, a Dove craft-master, or a Swan courtesan, occasionally to gather secrets, but more often so they didn’t have to think on who served their tea. The thousand-thousand times they forgot he was there. The thousand-thousand times he couldn’t forget.
And at last: the noblewoman who paid the Sparrow witch for his secrets and service, and then one year, paid Fie’s pa with his teeth.
The Sparrow witch’s life passed in the beat of Fie’s heart. Then his Birthright woke in the hum of her bones.
When she opened her eyes again, the boys’ weight still pressed the branch, but they were nowhere to be seen. Her own hands looked solid enough, but she’d be as good as a ghost to the others.
Across the clearing, two more Sparrow sparks kindled in her senses. Pa had gone to work. Fie blinked, and her gaze skidded off the other Crow-laden trees. It’d take a fight to look at them head-on while those Sparrow teeth burned.
“Put out the fire,” Tavin said under his breath.
“And how do I do that from atree, pray?” she demanded.
“Use a Phoenix tooth.”
Her grip tightened on the branch. So far she’d only called a fire, not banished one. But it was worth the risk. Maybe if the Oleanders thought the camp was abandoned, they’d pass by.
The boys reappeared as Fie let the Sparrow witch-tooth stagnate. One of her three Phoenix teeth lit up, searing against the hollow of her throat. She found the spark of the owner—an old princess from centuries past—and tried to bend it to her will.
The bark under her fingers began to smoke.
No.Fie bit her lip.Take the fire. Take it away.
She tried to sense the campfire. It was wild and wicked, dancing from her mind’s grasp.Go, she willed.Go away.
The fire leaned and cowered—
“It’s not working,” said the prince. Her focus splintered.
The campfire spat a fountain of sparks, crackling higher than before, calling to the torches now strung along the road like a garland.
The bough trembled as Tavin shifted, uneasy.
Fie sucked in a breath and pushed at the campfire with every ounce of command the dead Phoenix princess had in her. For a moment it held, relentless, roaring its fury—and then collapsed. The flames huffed out, the logs cooling to black. Even the coals darkened to a sullen gray.
She let the breath go. The Phoenix tooth simmered yet, its spark far from expired.Be quiet, Fie ordered, smoke still threading her fingers as she returned to the Sparrow witch-tooth.
The boys began to vanish again. There was a scrape to her left as Jasimir adjusted his perch. Then a startled curse—a flash of steel—
The prince’s dagger slid free from its scabbard and landed on the branch below them, a swaying silhouette, ready to drop and betray them at the slightest breeze.
And as the camp flooded with mottled torchlight, Fie saw Jasimir hadn’t wrapped the gilded, jewel-scabbed, gods-damned hilt in rag after all.
“Can you make it disappear?” Tavin whispered.
Fie pushed the Sparrow tooth’s range beyond their branch, but near the dagger, her bones buzzed a warning. She wasn’t about to foul their cover by straining too far.
“No,” she wheezed. The dagger would have to stay as it was. And they’d have to pray the thousand dead gods would, for once, be kind.
The Oleander Gentry circled below, sending tremors up through the branches as they mangled the turf where she’d lain just momentsearlier. They were as the coils of an enormous, pale serpent, white sweat frothing from their horses’ flanks, white chalk dusting hands and manes and bridles, undyed veils and cloaks hiding their faces. Only the torch-flame burned hues into their edges.
