Page 148 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
“The rest of your weapons,” Wrenlock prompted, blatantly ignoring the threat.
Obeying with a poisonous expression, Lucais continued removing the last of his weapons, keeping his eyes on me as he bent to retrieve small blades from his boots, and then he flung his arms out to the sides to display that he was officially unarmed.
“This doesn’t have to go the way you think it does,” the traitor behind me insisted, his voice low but firm. “I need you to trust me.”
“Take your filthy fucking hands off her and we’ll talk.”
“Turn around.”
“The fuck I will.”
Wrenlock shoved me forward, aggression seizing his posture and his voice for the first time since he had turned on us. “Turn the fuck around.”
Lucais’s hands were trembling at his sides, but he gave me one last glance before he did as Wrenlock demanded and turnedhis back to us. His breathing became ragged, and I felt a sharp spike of panic in my mind that wasn’t solely my own.
Is he hurting you?
Not really.
I just need him to lower the blade for a second—
“Stop with the silent conversations,” Wrenlock snapped. “I can sense the way the bond flares up when you talk to each other through it, so cut it out. If you want to say something, say it out loud, or don’t say it at all.”
“I was just telling Aura about all the ways I’m going to make you scream when this is done,” Lucais replied pleasantly, though his voice shook with the same tremors of an earthquake.You have a blade, bookworm.
My eyes flared when I heard the thought and remembered that I did, in fact, have a dagger strapped to the belt at my waist. Fingers twitching towards it, I held my breath carefully as I calculated the distance and time it would take for me to reach it. Then again for what it would take to use it.
“What is this about, Wrenlock?” Lucais questioned, still standing with his back to us.
“Put your hands in the air.”
“What, are you going to shoot me?” He laughed once. “How human of you.”
The insult made Wrenlock stiffen, and I only understood it myself because of a book I’d read at the House. Faeries didn’t use guns. They were created during the Gift War by the faeries who relinquished their magic, and they were widely considered signs of significant weakness and cowardice by the High Fae.
“You’re not in a position to be making snark—”
I took advantage of the distraction and moved to yank the blade from my belt, twisting it with only a single moment of opportunity to lodge it straight into Wrenlock’s side. My wrist bent at the wrong angle, resulting in a slight shot of pain, butthe worst feeling was in my heart as I felt the blade sink into his flesh all the way down to the hilt. His shirt brushed the side of my little finger as I drove the dagger in as far as it would go, but the only sound he made was a deep sigh.
“Aura, you’re damn well lucky I didn’t just open your throat by accident.”
I stood there, holding my breath, paralysed when I realised that he hadn’t even flinched, and his own blade was still poised to slice open my neck. From experience executing my father and Hanson, I knew that I should have felt blood leaking from the injury, but I didn’t.
“Baby,” he crooned softly, “I am really sorry. I didn’t mention that the weapon I gave you only works on people who are not me.”
I pulled it away from him with no resistance, and would have dropped it if I didn’t want to check the blade for blood out of sheer, dumbfounded curiosity. It was clean. Wrenlock took it from me before it fell from my loosening grip and secured it back onto my belt.
“No matter,” Lucais said through his teeth. His head was turned as far to the side as possible in order to look back over his shoulder without technically turning his body around. “I have a whole arsenal of weapons over there that should work just fine. Be a good sport, Wrenlock, and let her have a second go with one of those.”
“You are failing to see the gravity of the situation once again, Lucais.”
“No, I’m not.” He straightened his head, shrugging his shoulders as if to loosen them. “I’m committing it to memory, actually, so that it doesn’t matter where you go or how long it takes before I get to enforce a punishment fit for your crimes.”
Wrenlock scoffed. “The three of us are going to walk into the Court of Fire. There are dozens of soldiers waiting for us insidethis forest, and they’re going to come out as soon as we’re in the open. They are armed with execution orders if you try to do anything risky, and it’s not placed on your head. Everything you do from this point on determines what happens to the girl in my arms, so for everyone’s sake, Lucais, please choose wisely.”
fifty-three
The Court of Fire
