Page 44 of With Wing And Claw

Father.

And at once she was no longer there, bleeding and staggering back in some nameless map room at the heart of the Crimson Court. Instead she stood on the precipice above Faewood, the Mother’s hand on her shoulder as beneath her a hound’s jaws closed around her father’s leg. As bone snapped. As he cried her name again and again and she couldn’t move, couldn’t—

Her head was slammed back againsta wall.

She barely felt it.

Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.What was the use of fighting, if that was where she’d end up after all – cast out and torn apart by the court she’d tried to serve? Hands bound, wings bound. Running from her death the way Father had tried to run, not away from the hounds but towards her—

‘Thysandra!’ someone shouted in the distance.

Not Father’s voice.

The red magic dulled, then sizzled out around her.

Nicanor – that wasNicanorwho was dragging her accuser away from her, his pale face flushed with shock and effort. Only then did she recognise the young fae thrashing and writhing in his grip. Symeon. The same male she’d told to grab a mop and take care of the bloodstains yesterday – but surely that wasn’t why he’d attacked her, was it? That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

Although it was better than—

Traitor.

She couldn’t make herself move, thrown wing-first against the wall like a discarded ragdoll. Mere feet away, Nicanor dragged Symeon against the nearest cabinet, drawing a long dagger from his belt with the ease of a male who took lives like he took breaths.

No, she wanted to shout.Wait.

Nothing but a strangled sound escaped her. Neither male seemed to hear her.

‘No!’ Symeon choked, his eyes widening with terror as he caught sight of the blade. ‘Wait, no, Nicanor! I was just—’

Just joking?

Just messing around?

She’d never know. Sharp steel ripped through his bobbing throat before he could finish that wafer-thin excuse, and he collapsed with nothing but a last wet gurgle. Blood spattered the floor, Nicanor’s pristine black coat, as the twitching body sank to the ground and went utterly, lifelessly still.

For a moment, the room was so silent she could hear the blood dripping onto the floorboards.

Then Nicanor hoarsely said, ‘Fuck.’

She didn’t manage to respond to that. She barely even managed to move as he strode towards her and pulled her back to her feet, his left hand straying to his coat as his right pressed against her wound.Blue for healing. The black lace turned a tawny brown as he drew, and the stinging pain in her shoulder softened until nothing but the aching memory remained. That and—

Traitor.

It still seemed to echo around the room.

‘Fuck,’ Nicanor repeated, out of breath as he retreated and glanced back and forth between Symeon and her. His fingers twitched around the hilt of his knife. ‘You’re alright? Or, well …’

She was not alright.

She was farther from alright than she’d been in days.

‘He … he called me …’ Her hands clung to the wall behind her, as if her knees would buckle again without that minimal support. ‘He …’

‘Yes. Fuck.’ Nicanor drew in a deep breath, his eyes a little too wide as he threw yet another wary glance at Symeon’s corpse. ‘I was hoping— But clearly that was …’

He faltered. Panicked, perhaps, and still tense from the fight – but not, she realised with a sinking, sickening sensation in her guts, surprised.

She could barely breathe. In the back of her mind, the hounds were howling, snarling, louder than her own stifled voice.

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