Page 70 of The Shadow Wand

Fallon is magnificently terrifying, dressed in a gleaming black velvet tunic and long-skirt embroidered with a stylized onyx dragon that flows down her entire side. Black opal jewelry graces her neck and ears, and her hair is artfully pulled back with a gleaming, jewel-encrusted dragon’s talon, her wand sheathed at her side.

“Don’t I know you?” Fallon asks Sparrow with a cruel smile. “You’re supposed to be in the Fae Islands, isn’t that right?”

Sparrow has gone stock-still, her breathing tight and uneven.

“You’re dismissed,” Fallon blithely orders.

Outrage rears, overtaking my fear. Forcing my posture taller, I look Fallon straight in the eye. “She’s not yours to dismiss.”

Fallon’s eyes go incredulously wide as she lets out a throaty laugh and swivels her gaze back to me. “You have no allies here.” She glares back at Sparrow threateningly, losing the smile.“Leave.”

Sparrow shoots me a look of intense reluctance but I give her a quick nod, knowing it’s safer for her to be far away from here. The other Urisk maid steps into the room and unceremoniously ushers Sparrow out.

Leaving Fallon and me alone.

Fallon unsheathes her wand and taps it rhythmically onto her palm, her lips curling into a slow grin.

Frantic, my gaze darts toward a door at the back of the room.

Fallon glances that way, her eyes narrowing to mocking slits. “You think you can escapeme? And gowhere?” She spits out a derisive laugh. “You’reall alone. No friends. NoLukas.Everyonehas abandoned you.” A gleam of savage glee lights her eyes as she takes in my scandalously red-accented dress. “You look like a whore, which is exactly what you are.” She glances down at my fastmarked hands and her expression of triumph curdles.

I can practically feel the envy radiating from her in thick waves, and I’m suddenly acutely aware of the Ironwood lamppost beside me, magic firing through my lines, my wand hand clenching against the draw of the wood.

And the desire to send my fire straight through Fallon Bane.

Keep hold of yourself!I frantically caution.You wouldn’t just take her down. You’d kill everyone. Sparrow too.

“No one will care if I hurt you,” Fallon crows with vicious smugness, baring her teeth in an aggressive smile. “Lukas and I are with each other now. Did you know that? With his mother’sfullblessing.” Her smile turns openly hostile. “We’re meant for each other. He sees that now. He’s no longerblindedby how much you look like your grandmother. No one is.”

She’s posturing, one hand on her hip, her chin high, her foot thrust forward along with her wand. My gaze flits toward her delicately laced shoe, its slim heel so very poorly suited for running.

An idea lights.

Slowly...carefully...I slip my feet from my own pinching, elegant shoes, my heart hammering so hard that it’s dizzying. The moment the stockinged soles of my feet make contact with the Black Walnut flooring, my power gives a hard flare.

Perhaps sensing my inward flare of defiance, Fallon loses her smile, her gaze once again perusing the fastmarks on my hands. “Do you feel the fastlines tighten when Lukas and I embrace?” she taunts, stalking closer and keeping her wand pointed at me. “When he touches me?”

She’s becoming alarmingly aggressive, like a wolf defending its territory, ready to rip me to shreds over it.

Overhim.

Fallon springs forward, grabs hold of my arm, and jabs her wand against my throat. I flinch back and freeze, swallowing hard as the cold embrace of her magic pricks ice all over my skin, my stockinged feet tensing against the wooden floor, fire blazing through my lines.

Fallon’s lip curls down into a snarl. “I will not allow you to ruin his life.”

There’s a tussle in the hallway, two women arguing in the Uriskal language. Fallon’s wand is still at my throat as I turn my head a fraction and Sparrow sprints into view.

“Mage!” Sparrow calls out, her eyes wide.

Fallon turns toward Sparrow, her wand dropping down a fraction.

Seizing on Fallon’s split-second loss of focus, I smack her hands away from me, and her wand skitters across the floor.

Then I throw my fist forward and punch her in the face as hard as I can.

Fallon cries out and falls sideways.

Panic rearing, I turn and break into a run through the room, out its back door, and into another long hallway, my heart racing, pain knifing through my wand hand’s knuckles from the punch. I almost lose my footing on the lacquered flooring beneath me but find sudden purchase on a carpet. I hoist my skirts and sprint down the hallway.

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