Page 56 of With Wing And Claw

And she’d believed it. She’d shoved the memory of her father’s instructions far, far away with every other useless shard that was left of her childhood, and eventually she’d forgotten about it – not a white blob in her memory like her mother’s fate, but simply a time she had never wanted to think about again.

At once she was standing, tripping over her own feet in her hurry.

Boots. Coat. What more did she need to get out of here for a few short hours? The humans … well, surely the humans would survive for another day with Nicanor’s orders in place, and if Tared returned with replies to her letters, surely he wouldn’t do so before sunset. Naxi …

She faltered, one arm already in her coat-sleeve.

Naxi wouldn’t be able to enter these rooms in her absence.

But then again, the last four days had been blissfully quiet. What were the chances anyone would take up demon-hunting again thisafternoon? And even if they did, the Labyrinth made for a perfectly suitable hiding place – so surely Naxi would do just fine on her own, andsurelythere was absolutely no reason to feel guilty if she left here without warning.

They weren’tlovers. Just … accidental roommates. Temporary allies. Naxi would be leaving too, one day.

And she absolutely didnotfeel any dread at the prospect.

Biting out a curse, she unlocked the window, flung it open, and threw herself outside, careful not to make the mistake of looking back. The breeze carried her up before a single wingbeat. She swerved to the east easily, soaring past pointed towers and spires she could have navigated with her eyes closed; within moments she’d left the court behind, nothing but the wide-open sea stretching out before her.

Every slap of her wings took her farther away from the hornet’s nest below. Closer to a goal that was all her own, a quest that had not been bestowed upon her through threats and blackmail – and perhaps that made her a traitor, sneaking away from the people she was supposed to rule and protect …

But if she just flew fast enough, surely the guilt and responsibility wouldn’t catch up with her for a while.

Soon there were no sounds to be heard but the whistling wind, no movement to be seen but the gulls ahead. Small islets slid by beneath her, allowing her to orient herself as she flew; after decades of passing by these same craggy rocks and half-flooded reefs with every errand she ran, she knew their positions like the back of her hand.

She could have done this for the rest of her life, just flying and feeling the wind in her hair.

It was almost a disappointment to see the rugged shore of Ilithia loom up on the horizon – a brusque reminder that therewouldbe an end to this blissful escape. Slowing down didn’t save her from arriving. Mere minutes later, she was circling above the dry landscape; every inch of it still looked as dead and uninhabited as she remembered from her last and only visit, several centuries ago.

The island stretched barely a mile in every direction. At its heart stood what had once been the grand seat of its inhabitants, now fallenprey to the passage of time – a sprawling country home that the legendary Castor Thenes was said to have built with his own hands.

The house formed a large square around a shaded courtyard, in which nothing but a few hardy succulents had survived until the present day. Pillar galleries stretched out along walls that had once been white and now blended perfectly with the dusty beige of the surrounding soil; cracked windows and shattered roofing tiles evoked images of spring rains and autumn storms. A few birds had made their nests in empty niches and basins. Apart from their agitated squaws and flutters, nothing moved when she landed by the front gate of the house and carefully folded her wings against her shoulders.

It seemed thoroughly unlikely anyone had lived here for even a week, let alone decades.

All the same, Silas must have spent time here atsomepoint, and he might have left traces. A letter, perhaps, just in case she showed up later? A map? A handkerchief with phoenix embroidery, cleverly demonstrating his intention to hide himself on the isle of Phurys for the rest of his life?

She ignored her twinge of doubt as she nudged open the creaking wooden doors, glanced left and right through the sandy atrium, then slipped into the building. Doubt wasn’t useful to her right now. As hopeless as matters might seem, leaving without looking at all would just be a waste of time.

And as long as she was looking, at least she didn’t have to be at the court, wrangling human rights and foreign rulers.

She pushed open the next door, breathing in the smell of dust and stale neglect as she tiptoed through the empty corridors. Faded mosaics on the walls. Serene statues, covered in cobwebs. Hardly any trace of fae habitation at all. The family hadn’t moved out of here in a hurry, in fear of some attack or natural catastrophe. Their last lady must have cleaned up the place when she fell sick and realised she wouldn’t have an heir.

At first, she searched the house methodically, combing through even the smallest linen closet. In a handful of rooms, names had been scribbled on walls – fae youths probably, the result of bets and challengesat the court. One room showed traces of a party, the soot-stained floor used as a fireplace, the centuries-old bottles strewn around a clear sign there had been plenty of drink involved.

No Silas. No secret messages hidden beneath rugs or behind curtains. She couldn’t help but mutter a curse at herself as she left the large and disappointingly empty dining room behind – what had she expected, some cipher of the sort one only found in unlikely tales of adventure?

Thysandra, follow the northern sun and find me. The password is “blue tiger”.

Ridiculous. Silas would have been more sensible than that, and she should know better than to hope for impossible things.

By the time she’d worked through three quarters of the house, her search had grown sloppier and sloppier, the lack of results no longer worth the effort of meticulous precision. Another door, another empty bedroom. Another door, another bird-infested bathroom. Another—

She blinked, coming to a halt with the doorknob in her hand.

It was locked.

Or was it just stuck, perhaps? But even as she shouldered into it with all her weight, it didn’t yield an inch – a lock, then, and a decent one, too. Which was odd, wasn’t it? Nothing in the house had been locked so far. If the old thenessa had wanted to store her jewels somewhere, surely she would have chosen a safer place, and either way, what were the chances she would have left anything of value behind?

Thysandra took a step back and considered the layout of the house as she’d seen it so far. In all likelihood, the room behind that door was a reasonably large one – perhaps another bedroom with adjoining bathroom. In that case, it would probably have windows. She could step outside and try to catch a glimpse of—

---