Viimo didn’t fight those questions at all. Instead she grinned up at them, a little spit dribbling over her split lip. “You’ll see soon enough.”
To that, the Crane witch-tooth gave not a single hitch.
The lordlings looked to Fie. She shook her head. A queasy pinch gnawed at her gut, like she was back in Dumosa, staring at a gilded door. “She’s telling the truth.”
“Splendid,” Tavin sighed. “Anything else?”
Jasimir fidgeted. “Has there… Have you seen a cat?”
Viimo squinted at him.
“She was in the Crows’ wagon,” he mumbled. “Her name is Barf.”
“No, Highness,” Viimo said in the slow, strung-out way of one scenting a joke they weren’t in on, “I ain’t seen a cat.”
Maybe Barf had got lucky again. Fie wouldn’t roll shells on those odds, though. “We done?” At the lordlings’ nods, she let the Crane tooth fade.
“Last chance, chiefling.” Viimo stuck her chin out. “Swear on my pappy’s skin. You want your kin back? Covenant knows you’re toting enough teeth to take these boys to Tatterhelm. Easy as that. Don’t even have to turn traitor like your dead lad.”
“Enough,” Prince Jasimir snapped, arms folded. “What do we do with her?”
An awkward silence followed. Then Tavin drew a short sword. “I’ll handle it.”
Viimo’s eyes flashed. “All right, Hawkling, let’s get it over with.”
Fie thought of Wretch, draining away under Tatterhelm’s watch.
And then she thought of hostages.
“Wait,” she said.
“Now here’s a twist.” Viimo grinned up at her. “Fancy a trade, chiefling?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Jasimir’s voice faltered the tiniest bit.
Fie worked a tooth from her string, stone-faced. “Five skinwitches on the queen’s hire, six more by commission, aye?”
“Aye.”
“Eleven’s enough to bring the lordlings in?”
“Aye.”
Fie worked a tooth from her string, stone-faced, and dropped to a knee before the skinwitch. “See this? It’s a Hawk tooth. You hold this, and I’ll heal you. You’ll stay bound, mind. I won’t deal with Vultures without my own hostage.”
Viimo rolled her eyes. “Aye, I suppose that’s fair.”
“Fie.” Tavin sounded as stranded as the prince.
Fie pushed the tooth between the skinwitch’s bound palms. “There. Don’t drop it.”
“You’re turning on us, too?” the prince demanded.
Fie stood and stepped back. “No.”
Pa had had her wake up Hawk teeth before, but never a witch-tooth. Blood was a fearsome Birthright; he’d told her Hawks took years to master it, that even one slip could burst a vein she’d meant to mend. A handful of older chiefs like him could call on those teeth to heal, but only with enough practice to know what they were doing.
Fie did not know what she was doing. But she knew what she wanted: a Vulture’s blood.
