Page 14 of Silver in the Bone

“What an absolute pleasure to see you, too, Tamsin,” Emrys said, reaching out to clutch the neck of a nearby bottle of champagne. His earlier shock had evaporated, leaving only his usual smooth tone. “Back from another thrilling adventure to recover lost junk? I imagine whatever Mistress Madrigal had you find was a lovely break from your usual dreck.”

“Back from another quest to bolster your fragile male pride?” I returned sweetly. No wonder he hadn’t been at the library.

Emrys laughed as he filled his champagne glass to the brim. “Well, you’ve got me there, Bird.”

I wanted to snarl. If anyone was a bird, it was him. The way he fluttered around, making a nuisance of himself and leaving a mess for someone else to pick up.

“You seem to be laboring under the delusion that your predictability is charming and not, in fact, supremely boring,” I told him.

“Boring?” His grin widened. “Not sure I’ve ever been called that before.”

“Ah-hem.” A sharp noise from the sorceress’s throat brought me crashing back to the present.

Madrigal reached over to a platter of food at the table’s center and speared cuts of meat and cheese onto her long nails. Her fingers moved like knives, scraping against one another to drop the food onto her plate. I cast a quick look, searching for rings that bore sigils.

“He, Miss Lark,” Madrigal said, “is my guest.”

And I, my mind hissed in reminder, am not.

“I would ask you to stay, but there’s barely enough food for the two of us, as you can see,” the sorceress continued, a note of false contrition in her voice as she stroked the roasted pig’s nose.

“Of course—” I jerked my head in some approximation of a bow. “Of course, Mistress Crone. I’ve completed your request and have come to deliver the brooch to you.”

I fought to keep still as I waited, but the sorceress said nothing. I risked a look up through my lashes. The sorceress merely returned to the food in front of her, spearing several pieces of fruit from a nearby platter. For several agonizing moments, the only sound between us was the scrape of her fingernails and the gnashing of teeth.

Emrys absently bit his lower lip as he looked to the sorceress. His other hand curled against the glossy table.

I forced myself to look away.

“I didn’t realize the two of you were acquainted,” I heard myself say.

God’s teeth, I thought, shut up, Tamsin!

“And I did not realize you kept a tally of my acquaintances, Miss Lark,” Madrigal said. “Dearie?”

The air whirled blisteringly hot at my back. Dearie’s enormous body began to twist around itself. Pressure built like a looming storm, electrifying even the air in my lungs until I couldn’t breathe at all. Light twined around him as his massive body shifted into a new form.

Pooka, my mind supplied through my slow-dawning awe. The shapeshifters of the Fair Folk, able to take whatever form they desired for their tricks and travels. I didn’t possess the One Vision. I could only see him because he willed it.

The hawk flew forward, perching on the high back of the sorceress’s obsidian chair, watching me with unnerving stillness. Madrigal reached up, feeding her companion a strip of rare meat from her plate.

“Where’s Cabell?” Emrys asked, startling me from my thoughts.

“What do you care?” I asked, tugging my jacket sleeve down.

“I didn’t realize I was forbidden to give a damn about a member of my guild.”

“Your guild?” I said. “Try our guild—”

“Children,” the sorceress interrupted. “What, in the entirety of our short acquaintance, has made you believe I’d countenance a petty fight I cannot even participate in?” She turned toward me. I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted blood to keep from reacting. “I don’t recall you being so surly at our last meeting, nor that you were uncivilized.”

The air seethed with unspent magic, forceful enough for a mere mortal like me to register it stinging my skin. I chewed my lip.

Her power felt different than the other sorceresses I’d dealt with—heavy and edged with lightning. Ancient. It had to be because she was a crone, the highest status a sorceress could attain. Her mastery of magic spoke to a vast knowledge of spell and curse sigils. So vast, I thought grimly, that I might not even recognize the one she’d use to kill me.

“I’m afraid she has a natural predisposition toward surliness,” Emrys said, his tone suddenly as warm and smooth as bourbon, “but it’s all part of her unique charm. And, really, what’s the point of being civilized when you could be interesting instead?”

Madrigal let out a thoughtful hum, considering this. The pressure gathering around us released, as if it had been exhaled.

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