Page 35 of With Wing And Claw

‘Well, the Labyrinth is a natural phenomenon. With feelings.’ Naxi beamed at her, as if her magic wasn’t picking up on every tendril of escalating panic. ‘Nymph and demon magic seem rather well-suited to the task, wouldn’t you say, Your Majesty?’

Your Majesty.

NotSashka, at least. She was almost grateful.

‘Do you have anything to do with this?’ she bit out, her tight voice the only shield between the outside world and the utter collapse of her composure. That little giggle, a moment before. Those knowing smiles –as if the demon hadknown, last night, that they’d wake up to this particular alarm. ‘Did you expect—’

‘I didn’texpectanything,’ Naxi protested, that plump bottom lip falling into a pout again. A few of the other fae shuffled hastily backwards. ‘But it was clear enough that the poor thing was still rather grumpy yesterday, wasn’t it? So I’m not entirelysurprisedit’s acting up. Honestly, I would be lashing out too if someone locked me down for eight centuries – it might just be getting started, for all we know.’

The disconcerted glances among the gathered fae were unmistakable now.

‘Alright,’ Thysandra said, making her decision in a heartbeat – becauseshesure as hell wasn’t descending into the eerie-lit bowels of the mountain beneath the castle, and she doubted many other volunteers for rescue missions would be available. There would be plenty of time to kick the bloody menace off the island after this had been resolved. ‘Do what you can, but if even a single fae dies on your way through the castle, you’ll feel the consequences. Clear?’

For a single moment she thought Naxi would object.

Worse, that the demon might laugh in her face and remind her she was in no position to make demands, not unless she wished for some particularly interesting rumours to spread – traitor’s daughter, counterfeit queen, and who was she to think she could make the rules after a handful of vines had been enough to reduce her to a pleading mess?

But Naxi merely considered her for three thundering heartbeats. Her smile dwindled. Her blue eyes grew thoughtful – no,calculating.

Then she nodded, so deeply it was almost a bow, and said, ‘As you wish.’

She flitted off before Thysandra could recover from the shock. The ranks of fae parted wide around her slight form, then turned to gape at Thysandra again – not in outrage, as she’d feared, but rather with something like … baffled respect?

Awe?

Only then did she realise what the exchange must have looked like to the rest of the world – to those who had not witnessed the events in her rooms last night. Thysandra Demonbane, valiantlythreatening the monster who’d single-handedly slaughtered all surviving members of a regiment the day before. More unexpectedly, the same uncontrollable demonbowingto that authority.

Reinforcing, deliberately or accidentally, Thysandra’s illusion of power over the court.

Gods have mercy. Who’d have thought any political savvy was hiding behind that carefree façade?

‘Anything else?’ she said out loud, using the silence to her advantage while it lasted. ‘Because if that was all, I suggest you spread the warning to stay away from the entrances and wait until our demon guest returns with news.’

She expected more objections, pleas, lamenting over children and lovers lost to the wiles of the mountain. But the purple-winged female at her feet scrambled up without another word. The rest of the company was already turning around, gathering robes and skirts, casting cautious glances at the stairs Naxi had just descended. Within a minute they were gone, murmuring quietly among themselves as they hurried out of her reach.

Were they too stunned to cause trouble, or were they tooafraidof her to do so?

Perhaps it was a coincidence that no one accosted her on her way to the archives this morning, but Thysandra didn’t think it was.

The narrow aisles of the archive hall were no longer so hauntingly quiet as they had been the previous day, fae and a handful of humans hurrying between the cabinets against a background of constant murmurs. Somewhere in a far corner of the first hall, someone was slowly reading a list of names out loud. Elsewhere, the dull thuds of books against tables rhythmically broke through the hushed atmosphere. If the news of the Labyrinth’s antics had reached these dusky roomsalready, no one seemed to be terribly bothered by it; more likely, the clerks had simply been too busy to hear about it.

Thysandra sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to tell them.

She returned all greetings she received on her way to Gadyon’s new office, but never paused to engage in any further conversation. The lack of familiar faces was disconcerting. Even though sheknew, rationally, about the slaughter at the White City, her heart still clung to the odd illusion that all absent fae were simply off on a lengthy vacation; that any moment Anysia could sweep from behind the bookcases and crack some deadpan joke about illiteracy and the army.

Perhaps it would have been easier to wrap her head around it if she’dbeenthere. If she’d seen the blood soaking the grass, heard the screams of the dying.

Perhaps she would have felt less like a traitor, too.

She pressed that thought away as she finally reached the office that had been Anysia’s, the nameplate that had adorned the door for over a century gone.

The head of the archives worked from a spacious, octagonal room, sparsely decorated but for the broad desk and the carved bookcases along the walls. A single arched window looked out over the olive-covered hills and the azure sea beyond. At first, scanning the office for would-be murderers, she thought the place was empty; only as she stepped inside did she notice the small shape huddled in the corner behind the desk, a messy grey blanket from which only a blonde head and an arm emerged.

The pointy tip of a fae ear unmistakably stuck out from between those pale blonde locks.

Frowning, Thysandra came to a standstill in the middle of the room, throwing another quick glance around to make sure she hadn’t somehow overlooked Gadyon as well. But the brown-haired fae really was nowhere to be seen, and here was a half human clerk taking a nap in his office – did he have any idea?

Why hadn’t the bloody woman just gone home to sleep?

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