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The necklace fromFalcon.
Even as I ran barefooted through the camp, dodging dancers and merrymakers who juggled flashing pillows, I knew what had happened. I should never have used it. It had been a trap, with the trigger somehow pulled on Darling.
I had been tragically negligent.
The brown page halted our mad dash, pointing the way to a knot of nobles and pages—some still spattered with dried blood and gore. At Larch’s booming proclamation that I had arrived, they opened up, forming an aisle for me. In the center of the group, Darling lay stretched out on a high table, on top of a glowing dark blue pillow, silent musicians standing around him in a doleful huddle. A page was diligently festooning Darling’s body with ivory flowers. He still wore his armor, an unnaturally stiff structure standing out around his lax furry limbs.
I pushed the page aside and swept the flowers off, running my hands over Darling, ignoring the indignant cries around me. He was still warm, but oh so limp. I felt for the femoral pulse in his leg, difficult to find in cats anyway, impossible with my own heart thundering in my ears and my hands shaking. I turned him over so I could lay my ear against his little chest, his limbs still so pliant. Maybe I could hear something. Maybe I only wanted to too badly. Around me discussions flared over Darling’s death, his brave deeds on the battlefield, what sort of funeral would be most glorious.
Snarling at them all, I gathered Darling up in my arms. “Clear the way, Larch.”
They all stared at me, shocked, but also delighted with the unexpected turn of events.
“Make way for the Great and Powerful Lady Sorceress carrying the burden of her dead Familiar!” Larch thundered.
I clenched my teeth on a sob and plowed through the titillated sea. Falcon waited for me at the end of the aisle. He still wore his blinding armor, flame-gold now in the reflected light of the torches borne by the pages who flanked him.
“Lord Darling is dead, Lady Gwynn. Won’t you let him rest in peace?”
“Murderer,” I whispered. As if this said anything pertinent.
“Oh no, lady. It was not I who placed the collar around his neck. So pretty, such lovely stones.” He brushed his finger over one and raised the eyebrow on the patterned side of his face, his blazing eye the same color as the jewels.
I hugged Darling to my breast, feeling where Falcon’s teeth had sunk in, pinned beneath his sharp gaze. Anger and despair, two sides of the same coin, burned through the mental and emotional barriers instilled in me.
Marquise may have been right to question the tightness of my bonds.
“So sorry you took out the wrong target, but I have things to do.” I slipped around Falcon and he let me.
“Don’t fret, lady,” he called after me. “I can have the stones reset into a necklace for you. You won’t be without it long.”
I buried my face in Darling’s fur, blindly following Larch. Noticing his fur was wet, I realized I was crying. Crying silently and effortlessly, like I had when my old cat had died of cancer. All that winter afternoon and into the night I’d held her, thinking each ratcheting breath would be the last. Waiting for her to slip away. Until she began convulsing, crying in pain, and I called the emergency vet in the middle of the night, going to that cold sterile room to buy that final shot for her. I hadn’t been sure which of us was being put out of her misery.
There was no one for me to call now.
When I reached the tent, Larch held the flap open for me, while Dragonfly anxiously bounced up, a solicitous pillow in each hand. My bath still stood, waiting for me. Cold.
“Night off, Dragonfly,” I said.
I strode past her to my workbench, tenderly laying Darling on the surface. I ran my hands through his fur. Think.Think.Something rustled, distracting me.
“Everybody out,” I ordered. “I swear, if anyone disturbs me, I’ll strike them dead where they stand.”
“Good threat,” said a silky voice behind me, “but can you back it up?”
I spun around, my body coiling.
“Rogue.”
He sprawled across the pillows in the otherwise empty tent. Languid, even indolent, he poured like ink over the gaily covered cushions, blue-black against their soft glow.
“I like your pillows. Cute idea.” He smacked one, making it glow brighter. “Aren’t you going to strike me dead? I’m agog to see your technique.”
“I don’t have time for you and your games,” I snapped. “Go torment someone else.”
I turned my back on him and ran my hands over Darling again, feeling his muscle tone, feeling for life. Cooler than he had been, but still limp. No rigor mortis. How long did that take in a cat? I laid my ear on his chest again. Maybe I could hear for a heartbeat better without the armor. I reached for the buckles.
