Page 71 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

I’m distracted from those thoughts when I realize each fae, not just Artain, is seated below their own towering effigies.

Iyre admires her long red nails beneath a statue of the Goddess of Virtue. Samaur picks at his teeth with a knife next to the God of Day’s statue. Woudix crouches beneath the God of Death’s statue, stroking Hawk along the sharp ridge of her spine.

By all appearances, she’s a living dog now. No exposed ribs. No rotted jaw. As glamoured as the rest of them.

My father turns to me. “Let us start by?—”

I cut him off by holding up my wrists, which still bear red marks from when Tati escorted me to Norhelm in chains. “Forgive me for doubting that I’m not a prisoner, given that your soldiers shackled me to a goldenclaw.”

Iyre smiles lazily as she plucks a fallen leaf from her statue’s toes. “Thatwasa good time.”

I stomp toward her with balled fists. “You’re fondly remembering my abduction? The worst day of my life? When you ripped me away from the one man I’ve ever loved?”

Woudix’s head tilts upward. A muscle jumps in his jaw. “She loved a human man?”

“Shethinksshe did.” Iyre flicks the leaf with her long nail.

“Oh, you fae bitch—” I hurtle toward her, but Vale snaps his fingers, and the stones under my feet begin to tremble. It’s a tiny earthquake, limited to only a three-foot span. I tip forward, barely catching myself before falling. As I scramble for balance, the ground calms, and the stones return to their positions.

I straighten my gown. “Message received—you can crush your daughter with a finger snap.”

“You need to listen to what we have to say.” Vale’s voice is hard-edged now. Impatient. “To understand our world—a world you’re now a part of.”

“Did my mother know?” I blurt out. “That you’re fae?”

He runs a hand down his long beard before rasping, “She suspected. It was part of why she ran away.”

I sink next to one of the unoccupied statue’s bases, pinching the bridge of my nose. Measuredly, I say, “If that is so, then clearly, she did not believe this castle to be safe. Why should I trust you when my mother did not?”

“Isabeau didn’t flee because she fearedme.” His boots plod on the marble stones at the base of the Immortal Vale statue. “What I told you before was the truth. She fled because she feared the war she suspected was coming. She wanted to hide you—shelter you—from that war. I wanted the opposite. To bring you into it like the powerful force of nature I knew you would become.”

Something preening flutters under my skin, responding to his praise like a flower to sunlight. They’re all so damnbeautiful. And this place? The fanciful topiaries. The midnight balls. The gatherings beneath the hemlock tree. It would be so tempting to fall into their mythical world, where time loses all meaning.

I shift my stance, and a twig cracks under my shoe, returning me to the present.

I point to the other five statues and say gravely, “Thracia. Popelin. Alessantha. Meric. Solene. Half the court is still asleep. What do you intend to do about them?”

“We will find their resting places,” Vale rasps confidently. “We always do, in each Return. Sometimes, it takes days. Sometimes, decades.”

Samaur examines a glittering agate crystal on his statue’s altar. “Thracia’s location is already secured. It’s just a matter of bringing her here and waking her.”

“Waking herhow?” I press.

Samaur nods toward Vale. “As King of Fae, your father has that power.”

“But how does it happen? What does it take to wake a fae?”

“Why do you ask?” Vale says.

I pick up a small bronze antler from the base of Immortal Solene’s statue, turning it over in my fingers. "I know how fae twist their words. I’ve read the stories. So, I want you to speak plainly. Truthfully. You owe me that.” I press my thumb against the antler’s sharp tip as my heart speeds. I’m not an idiot. I realize that a sharp bronze antler will not protect me from five fae gods. Still, I like the way it feels squeezed in my palm. Dangerous.Like claws. "Fae didn’t become gods until Vale drank the blood of a farmer’s sacrificed child. You could call that an awakening. Did you bring me to Volkany because waking a god requires a bloodline sacrifice?”

All five fae stare at me as though I’ve said the sea is made of the moon’s tears.

Artain is the first to laugh, doubling over against his statue’s knee to brace himself. “Now I understand why she was going to throw herself out the window! Vale, she thought you were going to gut her like a pig! Bleed her dry on Thracia’s altar like in that old damn tale! What’s it called?—”

“The Golden Child!” Samaur slaps Artain on the shoulder as he, too, doubles over in laughter.

Iyre gives an ugly snort before covering her mouth with an embarrassed hand.

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