Page 10 of Wilds of Wonder
He stroked his clean-shaven chin. “Oh. Right. She’s just generally a grumpy person.”
This time, it was a boot that she threw at his head. He ducked and sank down onto his bed.
I stepped further in, setting down the chest, which was growing heavy in my arms. The room was small with just two beds and a fire that made the space feel blazing hot. Two chairs sat in front of the hearth, but I scuttled to the opposite corner of the room, wishing I could open a window and let some of the frosty air in. Just moments ago I’d been freezing, but now that my body was balanced again, I craved the winter elements.
Driscoll gestured to the fire. “Don’t you want to sit down?” His gaze bounced between me and the flames. “Oh, right. You’re a frosty. Forgot. You all like it abnormally cold.” He shuddered.
“A frosty?” I asked.
Leoni finished putting on her other boot. “Ignore him. He likes his nicknames.” She looked closer at me, seeing my nightgown, then her gaze trailed up to my neck, where the scarf hid my bruises.
“Your husband let you leave your house?” Driscoll wrinkled his nose, staring at the low cut of my nightgown. “In that?”
“We came to an understanding.” I let out a nervous laugh. “Turns out he knew my identity all along, and I just couldn’t wait to come see you both.”
Driscoll scratched his head. “Huh. Didn’t really take your husband to be that understanding. Not after everything you told us about him when we first met.”
“Enough about my husband,” I said, voice sharper than I’d intended. “I’m here to learn about the bolt. You said the bone collector took it. I need more information if I’m going to track him and find it.”
Leoni and Driscoll shot each other looks, some silent conversation happening between them before Driscoll finally gave a nod, and Leoni turned to me. “We’re actually the ones who found the bolt. Hidden in Spirit Sky’s tower.”
I gasped. From all my research, I’d known the bolt had to be hidden somewhere sacred, and I’d even mused that it might be in his tower. The tower he often used to imprison and torture those who angered him. But no one knew the exact location of it. Records never indicated where the tower might be located in the sky court. So I’d never known where to look. But they’d actually found it. Unbelievable.
Leoni shifted on the bed. Sunlight shone through the little window of their room, full and bright and highlighting the gold shimmers in her red hair. “Right after we found it, he came. The bone collector. And then he mentioned a white rabbit who’d also been looking for it. We put the pieces together.”
She stared pointedly at the cloak wrapped around my shoulders, the same cloak I’d been wearing when I first met them over a month ago. That alone wouldn’t be enough to identify me. Many women wore fur cloaks. But this coupled with everything else I’d revealed about myself? Well, that was damning. Stupid bone collector. I wrung my hands together.
“Does the bone collector know you’re Lady Emory? Do you know who he is?”
“No and no,” I snapped. We’d always been careful to keep our identities secret from each other—and everyone else.
I swore.
I’d worn that white fur cloak on my outings as the white rabbit to keep myself hidden, but over the years I’d been spotted in it while in a few compromising positions where I’d taken—stolen—valuable items. Before I knew it, my reputation had spread to the frost queen—andshe’d dubbed me the white rabbit. I wasn’t famous or anything. Most people had no idea who I was. It was mainly the frost queen and anyone who worked for her or worked at the academy.
“We don’t want to reveal who you are.” Leoni held up her hands. “We just want you to get that bolt. If you do, Princess Poppy of the sky court will pardon you and your crimes as the white rabbit.”
I took a step back. That wasn’t something I ever expected. “So Princess Poppy is the one who sent you?” I asked, and they nodded.
I bit my lip. “Why does she want the bolt?”
“She doesn’t,” Leoni said. “She just doesn’t want it in the wrong hands.” She and Driscoll looked at each other. “Think of the power whoever has it could wield.”
I raised a brow. “And you trust me with that power?”
“More than the bone collector,” Driscoll muttered. “What do you know about him?”
Much more than I’d ever bargained for. I sighed and looked out the window at the sleepy royal city coming to life. Frost elementals made their way through the snowy streets; carriages with horses bumped along. Others pushed carts full of steaming hot coffee and egg buns, their breaths puffing into the air. Everyone wore boots and thick pants with jackets over their tunics.
I turned back to them. “I don’t know much,” I admitted, though it tasted like a lie. I didn’t know his name or what he looked like underneath that black hood that covered his face. But I knew his movements, knew that he was as passionate about history as me. I knew his best barbs, since he’d slung them at me time and time again. I knew his handwriting. I knew that he thought it was funny when I insulted him. That he was competitive. I felt like I knew his soul, yet I couldn’t name hardly any tangible facts about him. “He started appearing years ago in the same places I was. We’d go after the same objects.” He’d taken quite a few artifacts right from under my nose, which had infuriated me. “He was always cloaked like I was.”
I’d summarized our relationship so neatly, so easily, yet it felt far, far more complicated than I was letting on.
“I have seen him use fire,” I said cautiously after noticing the crestfallen looks on Driscoll’s and Leoni’s faces. “So he’s from the fire court,but he must live here because he’s always frequenting the same locations as me. He wouldn’t be able to do that if he were living in Gilraeth.”
The fire court would easily take a month by horseback to travel from Fyriad, and even longer from Valoris, the sky court, where I also had run into the bone collector on a few occasions.
Leoni bit her lip. “We already knew he had fire magic. That’s what he used to steal the bolt from us.”
