Page 143 of The Mirror of Beasts

But the seneschal—the hound—had always been the one with bigger teeth.

He let his fangs lengthen, cutting into his lips until blood spilled over his chin and dripped to the floor between them. Primm’s confident sneer faded.

“Let’s go,” he barked at the others. “There are far more impressive things to kill than this pup.”

The seneschal snapped his teeth at Primm, watching in satisfaction as the hunters hurried down the stairs.

At every turn, the hunters had scorned him, ignoring his presence one moment, then howling at him, mocking him, the next. He, who was supposed to command their respect—to run his lord’s household and servants.

None of them were worthy of serving their master. When he and Lord Death had stepped out of the ruins of Avalon, the way ahead had seemed noble, a reckoning.

But as the Wild Hunt grew, and the stone at his master’s neck glowed with the souls of the newly dead, it no longer seemed as straightforward as it once did. In seeking his righteous victory, his master had enlisted the most corrupt souls to serve him. The end would ultimately justify the immoral means, but he wished Lord Death hadn’t sullied himself with those who made him seem like a villain when he was the hero of this story.

The seneschal sank to the floor. He swiped a hand over his mouth, smearing the blood there.

“Cabell?” came Olwen’s soft voice through the door. “Is that you?”

That’s not my name, he thought. He leaned his head against the wall. Wishing he could drive his skull through it and stop the pounding that was building at his temples once and for all.

“Answer her, ye swine,” came Flea’s voice. He didn’t even bother to search for her among the ruined paintings and shredded tapestries.

“Cabell, I can hear you breathing,” Olwen said. “After everything, you can’t even speak to me?”

That’s not my name.

“Answer her!” Flea demanded, white and furious and dead.

“No,” he snapped back.

“But why?” Olwen rasped out. “We were friends once, weren’t we? Before everything turned?”

“We were never friends,” he told her.

“I don’t believe you,” she said sharply. “If that’s what you want to believe because it’s easier, then so be it. But you don’t get to decide that for both of us, do you hear me?”

“I’m not letting you out,” he told her. “You might as well just save your breath.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” she said.

He shot the door a look of disbelief. “You’ve been shouting about it for hours.”

“Because I didn’t know it was you,” she said.

“There’s nothing to say,” he snapped at her. “If you’re hoping for an apology—”

“Did you hear me ask for one?”

The conversation kept tilting on him. He was struggling to grasp the thread of it.

“I don’t know what your reasons are,” Olwen told him. “But I cannot live with hate in my heart. I’ve never been able to, hard as I try. My sister, she’s borne the weight of it for both of us, and it’s shattering her.”

He looked at Flea again, as if she would have the answer to the question circling his thoughts.

“It came over her so quickly—the need to avenge the people of Avalon,” Olwen continued. The door shifted and he imagined her leaning against it too. “All of her pain and grief fed into it, and I fear for her, I really do.”

“And I’m supposed to care?” the seneschal asked.

“I understand why she feels that way,” Olwen said. “Just as I understand why Lord Death is scouring the world, searching for the soul of the woman he loved. I can’t accept it, not ever, but I know his reason for destroying Avalon. But what I can’t understand, no matter how hard I try, is why you helped him.”

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