Page 16 of Silver in the Bone

Good. They deserve one another, a voice hissed in my ear. Let her eat him alive.

But the movement drew my attention to something else I’d missed before, equally curious. For the first time since the day I’d met him, Emrys Dye wasn’t wearing his family’s ruby signet ring.

“... And yet, I cannot resist a game, especially with such worthy opponents,” the sorceress continued. “Miss Lark, if you bring me the Servant’s Prize first, I will pay you a hundred times what you have received tonight.”

My heart lurched with embarrassing longing. “Then I’ll be the one to bring it to you.”

Whatever it was. No sense in revealing that bit of ignorance, especially when the name had already stirred something in my memory.

One of the other guests, the one wearing the bear’s head, shifted in his seat with a small, pleading moan. My stomach turned.

“Wonderful, Miss Lark,” Madrigal said. “I shall enjoy this competition more than you know. But the time has come for you to depart. Dearie, please escort her to the door—”

Emrys’s chair screeched back. His right hand clasped his left as if to fiddle with the ring no longer on his left pinky.

“Mistress,” he said, his smile practically fluorescent with charm, “please do me the honor of allowing me to escort Miss Lark out.”

“Well ... fine. I am always in favor of good manners,” Madrigal said, flicking her fingers at us. “Especially as they will lead you back to my table.”

Another spike of heat punctured my center.

“Thank you,” I said through gritted teeth, “for the opportunity to serve you—”

Emrys gripped my arm, keeping his gaze straight ahead and his expression cold as he hurried me out of the dining room and back through the atrium. It was only when we reached the foyer that he slowed enough for me to yank myself free.

“Touch me like that again and you’ll wake up one morning without hands,” I hissed.

I tried to grip the freezing door handle, but Emrys was there first. Using his height to his advantage, he reached over my shoulder to hold the door shut. I turned to punch him in the chest, but he caught my wrist with his other hand. This time, he released it the moment I tugged at it.

“Listen to me, Bird,” he said, voice low, “this is my job. You don’t want any part of it.”

The house’s biting cold only made his breath warmer as it fanned across my cheek. Emrys leaned down, bringing his stormy gaze level with mine until the sharp words evaporated from my tongue.

I had seen every shade of Emrys Dye over the years—the little princeling drunk on wine, the boisterous storyteller in the library’s firelight, the careless flirt, the reader absorbed in his quiet work, the dutiful and adoring son. But I had never seen him like this, his expression as bleak as frozen glass. If I had shoved him away just then, I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t shatter.

“I think you mean my job,” I said coldly. “Are we done here?”

“We’re not,” he said. “I saw your face when she offered. You have no idea what she’s talking about, let alone what you’re in for.”

I drew closer, but he still didn’t pull back. “If you don’t like what you see, stop watching me.”

“Tamsin,” he began, his voice softer now. “Please—”

A loud, metallic clatter drowned out his words. We both jumped at the noise, and as Emrys turned, I slipped out from under his arm and opened the door.

At the other end of the entryway, a small, hunched woman in a black maid’s uniform slowly dropped to her knees, moaning at the silver tray and broken glass at her feet.

I was forgotten in an instant. Emrys rushed toward her, his tone low and soothing. “It’s all right. It’s all right, I promise.”

The woman shook her head, incoherent with dismay. Emrys lifted her from the floor with infinite care, drawing her over to a nearby chair. My breath caught. Not even the stringy gray hair covering much of her face could disguise the deep-set lines of her sagging skin, the bulging veins, or the white of her one visible eye, where the iris and pupil should have been.

The maid’s hand strayed to hover over his wrist, his arm, just for a moment. Her eye welled with unshed tears, and the pain in her face was unbearable enough that I almost looked away. The cut of Emrys’s jaw became more pronounced as he clenched it, struggling to master whatever storm was building in him.

The muggy night air and stench of hawthorn berries beckoned, drawing me outside. But something made me look back just once more, to see Emrys on his hands and knees frantically picking up the shards of glass in the instant before the door shut.

My feet carried me swiftly down the path, seeking the safety of lights and milling crowds on Bourbon Street. Cabell looked up at the sound of my steps, alarmed. The gate swung open in front of me and I rushed through, hooking him by the arm and dragging him back up the alleyway.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

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