Page 80 of Flame and Sparrow

They were clearly pleased I’d succeeded—so pleased that they hadn’t been able to resist following me and letting me know.

How strange.

Maybe the stardust had been more dangerous than I realized, and I was hallucinating all of this?

A chorus of raised voices began filtering in from the adjacent room. Dravyn’s gaze shot back to the door, his jaw clenching briefly with concern, and then to his other court members he said, “I need you to stay out there and keep them under control for a few minutes, please.”

Valas yawned, looking bored by the idea, but Mairu nodded and grabbed the Ice God by the sleeve of his colorful shirt, dragging him back through the door.

Once we were alone again, Dravyn turned to me and said, “You need to cleanse yourself.”

I took a step back. “What?”

“The stardust on your skin,” he explained. “The magic within it…it isn’t good to let it linger on you.”

I had a sudden urge to extend my claws and rake that dust from my body just at the mention of it. I’d been distracted enough to ignore it these past few minutes, but the second I started thinking about how badly it itched, I couldn’tstopthinking about how badly it itched.

“You felt the disorientation it caused when it showered over you during the trial, didn’t you?” he pressed.

“A little,” I admitted.

“If it sinks through and enters your bloodstream it will lead to far worse—and longer-lasting—effects in addition to the superficial damage it’s already doing to your skin.” He gestured toward the stairs. “You can use the bath connected to my room if you like, so you don’t have to walk back through the ones waiting on the other side of this door.”

The thought of entering his private room—of using his privatebath—unsettled me to my core.

I had no desire to walk back into that other room full of sneering deities, though. Not to mention my skin now felt like it was trying to crawl away from my bones, pulling and itching so badly that it was getting hard to think of anything other than finding some way to wash it off.

So I agreed, and I climbed the stairs alone while Dravyn went back to help placate the other Marr.

At the top of the short staircase, I found a heavy wooden door opened wide, as if the room had been waiting for me. I made certain to step inside left foot first; it seemed too important of a place—where too many things could go wrong—to not adhere to my comforting ritual.

It took me a few attempts—in and back out, in and back out—before I was finally satisfied with my left-footed entrance. Even then, I had to fight the urge to do it again. The stress of the last hours made my brain feel like it was looping endless, pointless thoughts, while my nerves were too aware of too many things that I couldn’t properly give order to.

Between this and my awful, itchy skin, it took a moment for the reality of my surroundings to register.

I was in the God of Fire’s bedroom.

I was staring at his actual bed, a massive four-poster centered between two tall, abstract paintings featuring a gold leafing technique. The bed was unmade, its piles of luxuriously soft looking blankets and sheets tempting my exhausted self to crawl inside.

There were balconies on both sides of the room, the curtains tied back from the glass double doors to reveal the sweeping landscape below. An open cage featuring a large perch and a cozy cushion stood beside one of the balcony entrances—Moth’s, I assumed, based on the feathers littering the cushion. There were several more of these feathers on Dravyn’s bed; I had a feeling the little troublemaker slept wherever he wanted to.

There were several high windows made of colorful glass, but no figures like the ones in the room attached to the atrium. Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded of those things he’d memorialized while he was trying to sleep?

Dark floors, soft, off-white walls, and lanterns with soft orange flames brought the space together. It was massive in size, yet cozier than I’d expected. The smoky, woodsy scent coupled with the flickering lanterns made me feel calmer, as if I was curled up beside a softly glowing fireplace, a book in one hand and a warm and steaming drink in the other.

It vaguely crossed my shaken and disoriented mind that this was not an opportunity to be wasted—there were so many pieces of him in this room, so many things that might prove useful for my upcoming battles with him.

Before I could work up the courage to start digging through these things, however, a familiar voice said, “We meet again.”

I turned to find myself looking down into a pair of rust-colored, careworn eyes.

Rieta.

My already overloaded nerves sparked violently to attention, numbing away my words, but I lifted my hand and bent my fingers as if preparing to unleash claws. There was no point in hiding them from any servant of the Shade Court, it seemed.

She held up her palms. “Relax. It’s truly me. Not a serpent in stolen skin, this time.”

The reminder of her betrayal stung, but it was exactly the reminder I needed in that moment—that no matter how relieved Mairu might have seemed at my successful trial, I still couldn’t trust her. I couldn’t trust Rieta either, for that matter; she almost certainly knew Mairu had masqueraded as her, yet she’d said nothing to me.

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