Page 72 of With Wing And Claw

‘Oh,thatsounds promising.’ She gave a sharp chuckle. ‘To see how I do without any High Ladies holding my hand?’

‘No.’ His face looked tired again in the flickering light. ‘Just … just to do better.’

It took several moments for that to land.

Do better.

Better than Old Thysandra, who hadn’t asked questions, who had refused over and over to see what was right in front of her. Who had been so desperate to reach the top that she hadn’t cared who she might be trampling on her way up – who had dragged a crying child back into the hands of his tormenters and felt like the sensible one in the situation, too.

Better.

The world fractured. Shifted. Glued itself together into a picture so different it was practically unrecognisable.

‘Wait.’ It came out breathless. ‘You’re saying … you didn’t put me there for the sake of the court at all? For the fae? You—’

His scarred eyebrow arched up. ‘Oh, no. Not in the slightest.’

‘It’s … it’s thehumansI’m supposed to protect?’

‘And the rest of the world. Yes.’ He took a sip of tea, then sent her a mirthless grin. ‘Well done. I expected that to take you a few more months, to tell you the truth.’

‘A few— Youbastard!’ Her voice hitched. ‘You could have fucking told me that! You—’

‘Could have,’ he wryly admitted, ‘but would you have understood?’

Before the attempt on her life.

Before Bereas’s cocky cruelty. Before Inga’s weary rage. Before thefae encounters, before the mystery of her father’s death, before those unforgivable words –they die anyway.

‘No,’ shesaid, dazed.

Creon merely shrugged.

‘All the same …’ A desperate laugh fell from her lips. ‘What if I don’twantto save the world? Or the bloody humans? Did you even consider that possibility at all?’

‘Well,’ he said, face deadpan, ‘you could quit, of course.’

‘Except that your bloody threats—’

‘Oh, those.’ He threw her another joyless smile. ‘Just a little nudge to motivate you. I suppose we could take them back if you really wanted out of there.’

‘If I— Have you even beenlistening, Hytherion?’ It was a feat of monumental self-restraint, really, that she managed not to fling her half-boiling tea into his smirking face. ‘Of course I want out! I never wanted that crown in the first place! In how many different ways do I need to spell it out for you before you understand I don’t wish to lay eyes on the entire cursed place for the rest of my life?’

He nodded slowly, looking suspiciously unaffected by the declaration. ‘And then?’

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Then what will you do once you’re out?’ The look of guileless interest on his face was about as convincing as a bargain-less promise. ‘Live a peaceful life on some backwater island and try to forget?’

She had already parted her lips for a retort before she realised she didn’t have one.

Forget.

While the humans were still suffering and dying. While the rest of the court no doubt happily resumed the war that had cost so many lives already, throwing the rest of the archipelago back into years of carnage, spilling gallons of blood for nothing but the sake of pride and arrogance.

Old Thysandra wouldn’t have cared. Wouldn’t even have realised. But now that she knew, now that she’d opened her eyes …

What would be the sense of fleeing?

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