Page 45 of Claws of Death

The estate isquiet when we sneak up from the back where the hedge has grown high enough toshield even the tall Crow males. After hours of watching the coming and going of Flames, spying no longer seems like enough to find out whether the missing fairies are locked up somewhere in a dungeon. I hope Herinor’s torture chamber isn’t where they are holding them; the memory of my first encounter with the male is enough to make my hair stand on my neck and an onslaught of nausea to assault my stomach.

Instinctively, I reach for my shoulder where Herinor sliced my skin to send a message to Myron that I was alive and where tofind me.

When I glance to the side, Herinor’s eyes are on me, conflict muddying their otherwise light green. He inclines his head, and so do I. It’s not like we’ve become real friends—the deal he made with Ephegos won’t allow that—but we’ve gotten closer. I no longer fear him the way I did when I first fled Erina’s palace, but I know I can’t rely on him for help, even when he wants to help me.

It’s fucked up that Ephegos managed to trap him like that. Fucked up and unfair.

“How do you think I’m feeling about that?”Kaira throws in, and I jerk up the shield I’ve been working on to keep my thoughts private—even from my sister.

“Like you can’t trust him?”I suggest through our mental connection.

Her dark laugh resonates in my head. “No, that comes with the territory of Crows in general. I hate that he could be turned against my sister at any moment.”

“He’s already been turned against me,”I remind her.

To my left, Clio and Myron are whispering with Royad while Herinor’s making space for Kaira to better see through the gap in the wall of leaves.

“He seems to likeyoua lot, though.”I imagine winking at her, and the feeling seems to come across because she glares at me for a brief moment before returning her attention to the massive male at her side.

We stay in our hideout a few moments longer before Myron and Clio deem itsafefor the Crows to shift and take a brief flight across the grounds, and when they turn into their feathery selves and take off, my heart doesn’t stopracing the entire time they are gone. Long minutes pass, my imagination supplying me with all sorts of horror scenarios of what could have gone wrong. Only when I spot four black birds descending from the roof once more do I take a full breath again.

Royad is the first to land—I’ve learned to distinguish the four Crows in their bird forms—but he doesn’t shift. Silas comes in next, hopping a few steps before he settles beneath the hedge right in front of my boot. Myron and Herinor are last, but only Myron shifts back into his fae form to explain what they’ve found.

“The hole in the roof is still there.” He means the one where they broke through old tiles when hunting down my scent months ago. His retelling of what happened here still haunts my nightmares. How they’d been trapped, captured, and their magic taken from them.

Swallowing the rising nausea, I focus on Myron’s report rather than on the ball of anxiety raging in my stomach.

“If we’re quick, we might make it in through there. We can start searching on the top floor and make our way down.”

Clio doesn’t have anything to say other than, “I’ll site-hop them to the roof.”

The glance Myron gives me as I reach for Clio’s outstretched hand is both warning and encouragement. My tattoo tingles and heats as he shifts so fast he’s nothing but a blur of feathers.

“If we measured the intervals correctly, we have about a half-hour window to do our search. Be thorough and don’t waste time. If you come across Crows or Flames, make surethey don’t raise an alarm. Do what you need to do.” Her instructions are cold and precise like a seasoned general, but her eyes dart to Kaira as if in apology for giving the order to hurt, potentially kill, her people.

Dismissing the gesture with a shake of her head, the part-Flame takes Clio’s other hand, and the world blurs before my eyes as Clio drags us through it on her magic.

We hit the roof half a breath later. A breath now lodged in my throat as I find myself at the edge of a massive crater gaping in the spread of age-worn tiles. Myron is standing on the opposite side, back in his fae form, Royad and Silas flanking him with tight expressions on their faces. This is madness. The chances we’ll find the fairies here are slight, but where else are we going to start searching? If they’re not here, someone will know where they are, and we’ll get the information out of them.

My magic is drawing taut in my body, readying for a fight, but if I haven’t learned full control over it while using it, I’ve made great progress at holding it in. It tosses like angry waves as I tell it to stay put. One of these days, I’llneedtraining, or I’ll keep stumbling through this war.

At least, I’m swift with my daggers and light on my feet, my new senses and strength granting me advantages in combat I didn’t have as a human.

My ears tell me there’s no one awaiting us below the open roof, so I don’t hesitate to followwhen Royad and Myron hop down, landing on their feet silent as cats. When I leap after them, Myron catches me around the waist, setting me down lightly, eyes serious and full of anticipation of an ambush.

Clio has Kaira by the hand, site-hopping the part-Flame down onto the weather-worn wooden floor. It must have recently rained; the streaks of old blood covering the patterned wood have been washed out to near-invisibility.

We step further into the large space, making sure not to stumble over heaps of debris as we make room for Herinor and Silas, both of them drawing their weapons as they seem to float from where the jagged tiles end. Herinor points toward the narrow wooden door at the far end of the room, gesturing for us to follow as he makes to open it.

Nobody speaks, our silence—despite the shields Silas and Herinor have thrown up around us—imperative to slipping in and out of this place undetected. In the hallway, we split into groups: Royad heads out to the left together with Kaira, who knows this estate like the back of her hand. Silas and Clio head off to the other side, leaving Myron, Herinor, and me. We’d debated leaving Herinor behind, just in case we’d be caught and he might fall back into Ephegos’s hands, but the mighty warrior declared that, if we were caught, he’d rather be at our side than sitting by in a treetop. But that’s not all; Myron wants to keep an eye on the Crow now that we’re entering enemy territory again.

We head down the staircase, listening hard for any sign of life along the hallway lined with carved doors. Faint voicessound from the end, near the window, but they are cheerful and frequently interrupted by the sound of something clacking over wood.

Herinor cups his hands together, shakes them, and mimics throwing something onto a surface. It takes me a moment to understand he’s telling us they’re rolling dice. One by one, Herinor opens the doors that don’t betray their interior with sound, shaking his head each time Myron and I stand ready to attack. Besides a simple bed, an armoire, a chest of drawers, and a wooden stand serving to hold armor, they’re all empty, the only sound remaining that from the room at the end of the hallway.

By the time we make it near that door, I can make out at least two distinct voices.

“Fifty coins,” a female voice declares, followed by the clinking of metal. Imagining a pouch of silver poured onto a table, I take one measured breath after the other, forcing my nerves to stay strong. I have Myron and Herinor with me, but if the wrong creature lurks behind the door we stop in front of, it won’t matter who fights at my side.

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