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Scarface started patting himself down, but his trophy got in the way. So he tied it to what remained of the banister by the hair while he searched around in his pockets. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, and by the look on his face, neither could Louis-Cesare.
Eventually, Scarface located a pen and, after a moment, ripped down a hanging shred of wallpaper. He presented them to Louis-Cesare with a strange look on his face, half-hopeful, half-embarrassed. “You know, in case I don’t catch up with you at the Challenge.”
Oh, my God, I thought blankly.
Louis-Cesare gave me a fierce look, and I bit my lip while he hastily scribbled his name. I doubt it was very legible due to the nature of the paper, but Scarface seemed pleased. He folded it carefully and put it in his back pocket.
“You’re challenging?” I asked, as Scarface reclaimed his trophy.
“Damn right, I’m challenging. You’re looking at a future senator.” And the scary thing was, he wouldn’t be the strangest one I knew.
He eyed the remains of the fey. “You wouldn’t happen to know anybody who could get this shrunk by tonight, would you?”
“I think it takes a while. You have to remove the skull and then boil it…” I trailed off, because Louis-Cesare was looking at me funny.
“Damn.” Scarface cocked his head. “Then again, I could take it like this. Think I’ll intimidate an opponent?”
“You scare the hell out of me,” I told him truthfully.
That seemed to have been the right answer. Scarface laughed, clapped Louis-Cesare on the shoulder and somersaulted off the balcony, his grisly trophy bouncing against his thigh. I waited until he’d passed through the front door and went to retrieve my own.
Ray had ended up wedged in a corner by the back door. He had a muddy boot print across his face and one of his fangs had broken off. But other than that, he seemed okay.
“We got a bond now?” he demanded.
“Getting there.”
I tucked his head under my arm and went hunting for the rest of him. I was trying to haul his body out of a heap of broken furniture when Louis-Cesare came back. “They are not there,” he told me. “The rooms are disturbed, as if they were awakened abruptly, but there is no one anywhere a
bove us.”
My breath came out in a sigh of relief. There was a huge hole in the floor, another in the wall where the pantry had been, and then there were the missing stairs. No way had anyone slept through that. If he’d found anything, it wouldn’t have been good news.
“I also cannot sense them,” he said, listening.
Neither could I, now that I concentrated. There were no shuffling footsteps, no telltale heartbeats, no frightened breathing. Just the ancient fridge dumping some ice cubes, the soft sounds of tea being brewed and the pounding of the rain.
“Perhaps they returned to Faerie,” Louis-Cesare said.
“Maybe.” But that didn’t sound right. Claire had been pretty adamant about not returning without that damned stone, and anyway, she’d have just been stepping right back into the mess she’d fled.
Of course, betweensubrand and a palace full of assassins, I knew which one I’d choose.
There was probably another explanation, but I couldn’t think of it just then. I was feeling a little dizzy now that the adrenaline had bled away, and the lack of a meal in something like fourteen hours had given me the shakes. And Ray was caught on something, and one-handed I couldn’t seem to—
Louis-Cesare tugged him out and set him on his feet, and accidentally bumped my injured wrist. I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “What is it?”
“My wrist.”
“You never told me what was wrong with it,” he said, cradling it in one large hand.
“subrand,” I said simply. “He broke it last night, too.”
Louis-Cesare paused, but he didn’t say anything. And after a moment, I felt warmth slide through the damaged tissue, wrapping the bones in a web of power that, whether it helped the healing process or not, felt damned good. I could still feel the throb in the injury with every heartbeat, but it was distant, manageable. I’d get it bound up in a few minutes, but for right now, this would work.
“Thanks.”
He didn’t reply, just pulled me against him. His hand was in my hair, his heartbeat under my ear, and it was oddly soothing. What was even more so was the fact that he was still in one piece. I wasn’t sure how, but I’d take it.
