Page 46 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

With a soft smile, she passes me the pipe again.

Thistoke, I only cough a little.

By the time I’ve passed the pipe on to the next person, I can barely remember why I was angry. My head swims. My muscles turn to jelly. I try to peer through the branches toward the Aurora Tower, but the night is too dark. I lose my balance, falling to my back on the quilt to gaze up at the hemlock.

“We’ve lost her,” I hear Ghost tease Tati. “Wherever our little princess is going tonight, it will be quite a journey.”

As the herb fades me in and out of reality, time begins to move in strange ways?—

—Suddenly, I’m on all fours on the quilt, with Night’s dog’s breath in my face as the hound licks my ear, and I’m laughing and scratching the dog’s chin?—

—Whisper and a pretty-as-a-peach girl are dancing beneath the orb lanterns hanging from branches. Another woman joins them, who looks uncannily like the first. Twins? The trio’s steps are careless, their pupils blown from Wicked Weed?—

—The twins are now seated in Whisper’s lap, their bodices shoved down around their waists to expose heavy breasts as Whisper sticks his tongue down the closest one’s throat?—

—Tati, giggling, uses her godkiss to pause the other dancing couples in time as she counts down from ten on her fingers, and then their swaying movements restart?—

—Not to be outdone, I jump to my feet and lift my hands to the hemlock boughs, calling to the night owls.Come, friends!I command in my head?—

—The branches quake, and dozens of owls swoop through to peckat our leftover grapes and slices of cake, as the revelers gasp and clap?—

—“She likes you,” Night whispers in my ear. Somehow, I’m seated in his lap on the bench, with one of his powerful hands circling my waist from behind to keep me from drunkenly tumbling to the grass. His dog rests her head on his opposite knee, gazing up at me with her big, black eyes.

“Her name is Hawk,” Night whispers.

“I can’t speak to her,” I say, hiccupping. “For some reason, she doesn’t have a voice.”

—“No, no, no, little princess. Get your own.” Whisper is holding back his wine goblet, wagging a scolding finger at me for trying to steal it from him?—

—I’m dancing with Ghost now as he expertly guides me beneath the boughs, maneuvering our way between the roosting owls. His voice is breathy in my ear. “We’ve been waiting for you. Now that you’re here, everything can begin”—

—I’m standing with my arms around the hemlock trunk. I could swear that I can feel the tree breathing in and out, in and out, the bark expanding beneath my embrace.Go, the tree tells me, which makes me giggle because plants can’t speak.This place is not for you.

My senses snap back into place as I crash out of my Wicked Weed haze into the here and now.

Barefoot.

Wasted.

In a grass-stained dress as dawn rises on the horizon.

I look around. I’m not the only one hit hard by the Wicked Weed. The twins are trying to climb the tree. Iyre and Paz are half-naked on one of the quilts, splayed out as she kisses his neck. Two of the Blades are arm wrestling.

Oh—the cloudfox!

My legs are unsteady. I finally stagger to my feet, and once I’m outside of the hemlock tree, fresh dawn air douses me like a bucket of water.

I pause, blinking up at Aurora Tower.

“Highness, wait.” Tati is breathing hard, her braid falling loose as she runs to catch up with me. Her throat bobs in a swallow as her fingertips dig into my upper arm.

“I need to—to get to my room.”To check on the cloudfox.

She presses on, regardless. “I didn’t tell you something about my meeting with Rian Valvere.” She pauses, brow wrinkling. “He was distracted. Deeply bothered. When I asked why, he said that a man who was like a brother to him had betrayed him.”

The haze around my mind disappears, and I snap my attention to her. “What?”

“I mention this to show you what kind of man is about to sit on Astagnon’s throne. Why your father is so adamant about replacing him with someone loyal to us. I’ll never forget what Rian said or the ice in his eyes. ‘I considered him a brother. Now, I won’t stop until he’s muzzled. Chained. Broken as a hunting dog that bit its master and will never see sunlightagain.’ If he said that about someone so close to him, what would he do to common folk he owes nothing to?”

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