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“Yay!”
Talia raced around the carriage with a giddy smile on her face. My heart sank. She was definitely spelled. When her eyes drifted toward me, she paused, then skipped down the row of horses.
“Talia.” I cleared away the unexpected knot in my throat. “Talia, come with me.”
“Oh, but I’m going home now. He says you are quite dangerous. Isn’t this carriage lovely? It’ll be like riding inside a giant flower!”
She danced in a circle.
Sinsorias slipped around the carriage and froze momentarily before his hand jerked to the chain at his neck. Before he could draw out the whistle, I hurled my dagger. It sank through the back of his hand and pinned his palm to his chest.
Howling in pain, he dropped to his knees, still grabbing for the chain with his free hand. I took two long steps forward and kicked his hand away. He spun as he fell to the ground. The movement ripped the dagger tip from his clothes and slung his injured hand wide. Blood rushed from the flesh of his palm.
“Move and I will end you.”
He groaned, feeling the effects of the iron. Killing him now would only alert my brother’s crows. They smelled death across continents.
Talia watched with a vacant expression, her hands loosely holding the skirt of her yellow gown. I pinned one knee to the courtier’s chest and yanked on the golden chain. It sliced into his skin, leaving a thin red line. He tried to shove me off, but I slapped his hand down so hard that it hit his chin. He moaned.
My hand closed around the bone whistle. With a firm yank, I broke the chain and stuffed the whistle into my jacket pocket. Then I tore my dagger from his hand and pressed the tip under his chin.
“Try threatening me now.”
His eyes sharpened. Through gritted teeth, he growled, “Your brother expects to meet her at his coronation. If she isn’t there, he will never stop hunting her, even after your miserable flesh is past all hope of saving. The joy of knowing it brings you pain will be enough to satisfy him.” He flashed his eyes at Talia. “Marrying her was her death sentence, whether by your hand or his.”
My hand holding the dagger shook with rage. Sinsorias hissed as the blade nicked his soft skin and fresh blood trickled out. I jumped backward, before my anger won out and I harmed him further. Twice now, I’d almost killed for her. Killing a member of the Wild Hunt meant facing the wrath of the fully assembled Hunt. Killing my brother’s courtier meant facing his wrath. Face to face with him, I would lose, and I couldn’t protect her—not when his magic was so much stronger than my own.
I shook the blood from my dagger, then wiped it on the edge of my jacket and stuffed it back in its sheath at my waist. Talia’s eyes widened as I stepped toward her.
“You’re dangerous,” she said, parroting what she’d been told. Or maybe the blood on my jacket hem and the man squirming in the grass behind me elicited that comment.
“And you’re ensorcelled. I’m taking you with me.”
24
Talia
Rafael hefted me over his shoulder. I giggled as I bumped awkwardly against his back. He smelled like cloves and oranges, and I couldn’t exactly remember why he’d stabbed that other man. I thought the flower carriage was going to take me home. I wanted so badly to go home.
My husband crunched through a tangle of thin, thorny branches, then bumped up the front steps of his house. It was a mansion, and it was my home. I was home. The man with the flower carriage had brought me home. Or maybe I’d never left. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten outside in the first place.
Rafael set me down inside the shadowy archway, his hands sliding up my ribcage. Giggles burst from my mouth. He kicked the door open and slung me over his shoulder again.
“Wee!”
He snorted in annoyance.
“He said you were dangerous, but this is fun.” I was tired of holding my head up, so I let myself jangle uncomfortably against his back. I felt lightheaded.
We walked down a long, checkered hallway, up two steps and through a paneled drawing room, down two steps and back onto checkered tile until we crossed a familiar hallway that led to my quarters. As my eyes drifted closed, I focused more intently on his intoxicating smells, like fear. I smelled fear on him.
My head snapped up. Wait, how could I smell fear? What did fear even smell like?
He stopped at a lovely door painted with purple flowers. The carved trim looked like vines that had been painted to appear covered in frost. Holding my legs with one arm, he knocked with the other.
“Put me down,” I grumbled. His insistence on carrying me like a sack of potatoes was giving me a headache.
“Hmph.”
