Page 18 of Mated to the Mad Marquess

Her injuries had healed poorly because of the soap, and it would take some time for her feathers to grow back in. The missing patches embarrassed her. Her wings were her pride.

Ezra glided through the bars, landing on her knee. Because of the link they shared, they didn’t like to be apart for very long. Even though his claws pinched through the leather of her trousers, she welcomed his touch.

They sat in worried silence, feeling the cage sway and bump and catch in every rut.

“If they were going to hang me,” Hrafn said, needing to voice her fears aloud, “they would have done it already in the city.”

Humans are bloodthirsty creatures. I don’t know what will become of us.

Us. Because if she died, he did too.

Then Ezra’s wings fluttered, and he cawed at the air.Intruder, he warned.

A fairy child appeared in the space beside Hrafn on the bench seat. She grew to the size of Hrafn’s hand, dressed in clothing made of flower petals with a button knotted in her blue-black hair like a bonnet made of brass.

“What have we here?” Hrafn felt her lips curve into a rare smile. Fairy children were so blessedly uncommon. It was an honor to happen upon one. “Hecit sapael,” she greeted, not knowing what language the fairy spoke.

“Attaway,” the fairy chanted—apparently the language she spoke was one of her own invention.

Feral little beast,Ezra grumbled.

Hrafn opened her hand to the child, and the fairy clambered onto it. The talons of her feet scraped gently against the calluses of Hrafn’s palm.

The fairy chattered and chirped her invented words.

She just informed me that she was given a button in exchange for stabbing us,Ezra said flatly. Demons were gifted in all languages, even made-up ones.But she’s going to cheer us now instead, she says. Clearly, she’s just waiting for a chance to eat us.

“Well, I think she’s charming.”

The fairy jabbered exuberantly at the compliment.

She’s violent,Ezra fretted.She just proudly informed me she was born on a battlefield. You know what that means, don’t you?

“That she’s destined to be a warrior like us,” Hrafn insisted. “People have thought far worse about me, you know.”

Don’t be naïve. The birthplace of a fairy is just as much a curse as it is a blessing.

“A blessing to a warrior. She is a gift from the gods for people who live by the sword and spear.”

Or a curse of destruction and bloodshed.

“A monster is on the loose,” Hrafn told the fairy, ignoring the worries of her anxious familiar. “We will likely soon be in need of your destruction and bloodshed.”

Clapa’s claws elongated to twice their size. “Stab?”

“Stab, stab,” Hrafn said.

The fairy showed off all of her needly teeth in the pearly, predatory smile of a shark that smelled chum.

* * *

The bounce and weave of the wagon lulled Hrafn to sleep several times, only to forcefully pull her awake again when a wheel hit a rut. Each time she slipped into slumber, she awoke feeling even more exhausted.

Jerked alert once more, she blinked out through the bars of the cage to find the sky the color of pitch, cloudless, and full of stars. Her stomach cramped.

“Madrat maek por min hlek,” she said to the moon. Prayers and curses always felt best to her in Olden.

Beside her, she found Ezra and the fairy child huddled together against the night’s chill.

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