Page 52 of The Blood Witch

Alice shrugged again. “Maybe that’s why they’re using your image? Youhaven’thad anything to do with it—but you were responsible for taking down the Queen. Maybe they see you as the solution. The one to bring down the council. I don’t know, babe, I’m just speculating here. We’re as in the dark as you are.”

“What did the council say when you talked about this?” Fey asked.

Alice took another drink of her coffee. Sip by sip, she was feeling more awake, more herself. “Nothing, really. We decided on a wait-and-see approach. The posters are concerning, but… so far, there haven’t been any real threats, no action taken against anyone. It’s all just talk. Let’s see if these people burn themselves out.”

Fey pulled a face. “‘Wait and see’? This is my face plastered all over the city, Alice. And you’re not going to do anything about it?”

“What do you want us to do?” Alice asked, exasperated. “Set up a stakeout? Bring in random citizens for interrogation? We barely have an army anymore. You realize that, right? Enrollment has never recovered after… after everything that happened. Do you want me to waste what few resources we do have trying to track down whoever this is? When they haven’t even done anything?”

“Do you have any idea who might be behind this?” Joy asked Fey, her voice soft.

Fey shook her head. “No,” she conceded. “I have no idea. None whatsoever.”

“No one has approached you about the council?” Joy pushed. “No one has tried to corner you and find out how you feel about any politics in the realm?”

Fey snorted a laugh. “When would anyone have the chance? I spend all of my time here, at home, or at work. I don’t see more than a handful of people a month. You two included.”

“Well, that’s concerning for completely different reasons,” Joy said, giving Fey an assessing look.

“What about your students?” Alice pressed. “I know you teachmore than just kids now. Have any of them tried to speak to you about this, any of the older Witches?”

Fey thought back, trying to remember anything unusual, but finally shook her head. “No,” she said. “Most of the work is group-focused, not individual. Leandra handles more of the one-on-one time with them. Most of our students are terrified of me, they don’t try to engage in casual conversation.”

Alice threw up her hands in exasperation. “You see? What are we supposed to do here, without any leads or any real threat? Where would we even begin?”

Fey scowled.

Setting her mug down, Alice gave Fey what she hoped was an understanding smile. “I get that you’re scared?—”

“I’m not scared,” Fey said. “I’mpissed. This is my face, staring at me from every place I look in this city. My face, posted on every damned building I see. I don’t appreciate the constant reminder of my public outing by the Queen. I don’t appreciate having one of the hardest times of my life shoved back into my face every time I leave my house.”

She snatched the poster from the counter, crumpling it in her hand.

“Tell me when you find something,” she demanded, glaring at Alice. “The moment you find something.”

Then without another word, without a goodbye, she stormed out, leaving Joy and Alice and a quickly cooling cup of coffee behind her.

Chapter 22

FEY

This time when she went to the gym to train, Fey made no attempt to smother her anger. She embraced it, letting it burn through her, letting it fuel her. And her body reveled in it.Thrilledin it.

She used that anger, that rage, to hone her training and push herself further than ever. She saw the faces of everyone who had called her queen, everyone who had knelt to her, everyone who had looked at her like she was something she wasn’t. She saw her own face, scowling out at her from those insidious posters. And she used those images to power her, filling every punch she threw, every hit she delivered, with red-hot fury.

She was no queen. She was no savior, no revolutionary.

She was… she was…

Vengeance. The word flowed through every fiber of her being. That's what she had been when she took down the Queen's consort, her once mentor, what she had been when she had stormed the palace looking for blood. That’s what she had been when she’d sent her own father to his death. The Goddess made her for violence, for war. She was no healer, no peacemaker. She was fury and rage, and she could bring this whole city to its knees using just a fraction of her power.

Alastair was right. No one should kneel before her.

They should cower.

Alastair. Just thinking of him soothed that roiling anger in her. The power inside her purred at the very thought of him.

Tonight, she would be meeting Alastair’s family for the first time. Tonight, she didn’t need to hide what she was, didn’t need to pretend. She would meet them as herself. Fey, the Queen’s Broken Blade. Fey, the warrior. Fey, the murderer.

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