Page 8 of With Wing And Claw

Two winged silhouettes launched themselves from a lower terrace, soaring her way.

Fuck. Perhaps she’d been too quick to celebrate.

She slapped her wings against the air currents with a desperate effort, cursing at the agonised cramping of her muscles but unwilling to slow down and find out what the two fast-approaching fae thought of her recent rise in the ranks. Never mind about the short route, then. If people were looking for her, she was too visible flying. Better to make it to the nearest floor of her tower, take a sprint up the stairs, and hope she didn’t run into anyone else before she reached the safe haven of her rooms – assuming, of course, that no one was unhappy enough to break through her defences to have a word with her…

Worries for later. Her assailants were close enough to be recognised now – gods-damned Orthea and some fae girl whose name she didn’t know – shouting about traitors and urgent strategies to deal with them.

Not the moment to find out if it was herself they were talking about.

Her landing on the nearest balcony was more of a crash, clumsy to the point of humiliation. She refused to care. A flicker of red into the lock and she swung the double doors open, bursting into the space behind without spending a moment’s thought on whoever’s private quarters she was entering. She realised her mistake only three steps into the room, as the stark white walls and the stark white floor finally registered themselves in her conscious mind.

She’d stepped into the nursery.

The fuckingnursery.

The place where her life had fallen apart a second time, forty years after her traitor father’s death – where she’d stood beside that stark white cot and stared at the uncannily powerful child sleeping in it, with his rumpled little wings and soft white gloves to prevent him from drawing colour and blowing up the whole damn tower. Cooing courtiers around her. Gifts piling up on the shelves. And no one, not even the people she’d thought her friends, had given her so much as a glance now that the Mother’s favour had moved elsewhere …

It was here, in this very room, that she had wondered whether perhaps the High Lady would notice her again, show her even a fraction of the praise and attention she’d been given before, if someone were to smother her gods-damned son in his cradle and feed his little body to the hounds down the hill.

It didn’t matter how swiftly she fled the room. There was no escaping the memories the sight of it brought along, so laughably skewed after all she’d learned in the past few days. She’d been so sure – so unerringly sure – thatCreonwas to blame for her downfall, thatCreonhad cut off her way to the top and stolen the love that was rightfully hers … And so it was Creon she’d hated. She’d worked harder, sacrificed her sleep and her scruples and her sanity, all in the stubborn hope the Mother would one day realise that her son was a spoiledlittle arsehole, and that Thysandra was the only person she would always be able to depend upon.

Except it turned out that there had been no love to steal in the first place.

Worse, that the Mother had never really loved Creon, either.

Of course she knew, Naxi had said sweetly as Thysandra sat shaking and crying in that underground cell, the words from the letter echoing through her mind.Of course she saw exactly how desperate you were to regain her favour. But why would she save you when ignoring your pain was only motivating you to work harder for her? Why would she tell youshewas the one to blame when you were happy to loathe Creon instead and continue to be her useful doormat?

And why was she thinking of gods-damned Naxi again?

The twisting staircase and mosaic walls blurred to smudges of black and red and gold around her, tears stinging in the corners of her eyes as she forced herself to keep climbing. Naxi, who had noticed her when no one else had. Naxi, who had understood her pain so impossibly well. Naxi, who had soothed and coaxed and tempted, until at long last Thysandra had talked and told the little vixen exactly what she needed to know …

And then she’d vanished.

Like demons did.

It was a miracle she didn’t stumble as she floundered up the last stairs, hands slipping on the cold golden railing, knees shaking with exhaustion. The voices crying out her name downstairs had gone quiet. Perhaps they had realised she might very well slit their throats if they made the mistake of coming too close now; perhaps they had realised she was a traitor after all, and had tiptoed off to make their plans for violent rebellion elsewhere.

She would find out tomorrow, presumably.

If she even survived the night.

There it was, finally, the door to her rooms – its red wood and carved frame looking no different from any of the other doors in this tower, and yet she almost sobbed with relief at the sight. Finally,finally, she could at least get out of this fucking dress. Take a nap. Think thingsthrough. Sleep some more and then consider her options without any so-called allies attempting to use her for their own ends …

High Lady of the Crimson Court.

The idea still sounded like a joke.

Casting a last cautious look over her shoulder, she pressed her left fingers to her dress and drew a spark of red, aiming the magic at the secret spot between door and frame. Three soft clicks from beneath the wood told her the lock mechanism had survived the weeks of her absence, that unique piece of fae craftmanship the Mother had commissioned for her when the nightmares wouldn’t fade in the months after her father’s death.

A single nudge was enough. The door swept open as if she’d never been gone.

It was as unchanged as anything else about the castle, the safe haven of the room waiting for her beyond. Her plants still stood rustling in the high-arched windows. The sunlight still glinted off her green quartz wall. Her half-read books on the table, her slippers on the plush white rug, and—

Her gaze hit the worn velvet couch.

Her feet froze mid-step.

For one last fraction of a moment she could still tell herself it was the tiredness, the shock, her wrung-out mind playing tricks on her. Of course there was no little half demon sitting curled up on her very own couch. That was patently impossible. The door had been locked, and the windows had not been tampered with, either. She must be seeing things, already half in a dream, and if she just pinched herself—

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