Page 5 of Blood On His Lips

My instincts pinged. I hadn’t survived this feud by ignoring them.

Juliette glanced at me, gaze sharpening on my face. “They’d be stupid to attack us now. You’re under Renaud’s protection.”

My shoulders crawled with invisible spiders. Even now, I felt eyes on us.Clop clop clop, here we were, happily traveling through an enemy District because the fucking Montagues built this city. Of course the only way to the palace was to go through them.

Gatekeeping megalomaniacs.

I remained on the edge of my seat. “How much is Renaud’s protection worth this soon? We have to assume it will take a few deaths to get the point across, and not necessarily theirs.”

They looked sour because I was right, of course. Juliette sat up. Numair was already on my page.

One of these days, I’d learn not to tempt fate and other monsters more powerful than I.

“Well, at least—” she began.

A telltale whistle warned us just as a blast rammed the back of the carriage.

“Brace!” I yelled before we crashed.

Chaos ensued. The horses’ high-pitched neighs mingled with shouts from the driver and armed footman. We grabbed handholds, but none of us had the power to cushion the impact.

Stunned from the impact, it took several precious seconds before we moved.

“I’m retrofitting our carriages with seatbelts if we survive this, damn it.” It was cheaper than replacing Faronne’s fleet with the steam powered ones.

“Focus, Aerinne,” Numair said, soft eyes going lethal.

Juliette wiped blood from her busted lip. “Cover her, I’ll go first.”

“Don’t worry about covering me,” I snapped. Yes, it was their “job,” but really?

“All right then.” Juliette kicked open the door.

We scrambled out. It wasn’t blades or arrows or bombs we met, but all three: airless blasts of energy and whirling micro-storms of condensed wind, followed by an archer posted somewhere on a rooftop firing at us, and a dozen black-clad fighters skulking forward.

An all-out, coordinated attack. There were five of us—and they had a Windwarder, the mage’s training mid-level from what I could rapidly calculate.

FuckingFae. I should have brought more warriors with me. I was going to have a nice chat with the Prince about the value of his personal protection—again, if we survived.

The enemy crept forward.

“Se Eld ni etlehar!” Juliette cursed, kicking a warrior in the head after using the carriage for momentum to take a savage leap.

Numair shoved me to the ground as three arrows embedded in rapid succession in the ruined vehicle. He hauled me to my feet, and we darted around the carriage, crouching between the four wheels, the black undercarriage wide enough for three people to squeeze behind. Juliette followed a moment later, still cursing in fragments of the old tongue.

I had the one blade I’d re-strapped to my thigh when entering the carriage, and nothing else. Juliette popped up and introduced herself to a trio of masked enemies with a shower of throwing stars, then dropped back down.

Tension thrummed through my muscles. “Where’s Martine and Yusef?”

“They took cover.” Numair grabbed my arm to keep me still, pointing his chin to a stone retaining wall about two feet high. More elegant white flowers, petals closed, were planted in precise rows.

I glimpsed Faronne livery, and hand-signed to them. Martine would stay put. The footman would wait for a distraction then take off. We needed to get word to the nearest scout to signal for backup.

“I should have known Montague didn’t have control over all their soldiers,” Numair growled.

“I need weapons,” I said. “Give me two of your blades.”

He yanked the daggers from his chest harness, handing them to me.

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