Page 34 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘Miss Woodrow is suffering from summoning sickness, caused by exposure at Fairfax Manor, as the Council is aware from my report,’ Gideon replied, a hard edge to the authority in his voice. ‘She is under my care; therefore, I’ll be accompanying her.’
That thankfully gave the hunter pause as I climbed the stairs, and I was almost to the top when Alma came charging around the corner, clawed fingers gripping onto the banister as she glared at me.
‘Where in this fucking cursed earth have you—’
‘Shh.’ I pressed my hand over her mouth, forcing her back against the wall. ‘Council hunters are here.’
She dragged my hand away but didn’t let it go. Those eyes reptilian in a moment. ‘What for?’
‘Me,’ I answered reluctantly.
She half choked, shaking her head furiously. ‘You can’t go into the Council chambers. You were almost dead a few nights ago.’
‘I don’t think there’s another choice,’ I argued, despite knowing she was right. I felt like a wrung-out rag, and I doubted sitting in bed would stop that.
‘Kat, they’ll—’
‘I know what they’ll do,’ I cut her off. What they’d done every time before. Ridiculed me. Abused me. Anything theycould. The worst pain of all was that I’d let them. Drank the poison of their lies gladly. Let those fey die.
The truth of that would have cowed me, only now it stiffened my spine. Now I understood – I’d survived worse than them.
With a settling breath I pulled back and made for my room, the house jangling some small fairy bells to show me it had moved the door nearer to the stairs. However, as I entered, I realised I was back in Emrys’s room.
‘My clothes aren’t here,’ I complained in the direction of the floorboards. Only for the wardrobe doors to burst open, to see my dresses rattling on their hangers within. Many more than I’d come with, and I wondered just where on earth all the rest had appeared from.
I ignored the forwardness of the house. It was my own fault. I had willingly entered Emrys’s bed. I couldn’t be annoyed at the house’s clear delight at the debauchery I offered it.
‘What are you going to do?’ Alma demanded, closing the bedroom door. ‘You’re still too weak to be going and—’
I caught her hands again, stilling her panic for the barest moments. ‘Emrys and Gideon will be with me and if we’re going to solve this and help anyone … I need to answer this summons.’
I needed the Council off my back. I needed to be free of it once and for all.
I didn’t know what she saw lingering in my eyes but whatever it was settled her enough for her to pull in a harsh breath, for those scales to slip back beneath her skin and for determination to spread across her features.
‘If you come back with the barestscratch,I’ll kill you myself,’ she snapped, turning for the wardrobe and rifling through the options available.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I laughed softly, cutting it short when it still pulled at the ache in my ribs. Remembering the hunters had interrupted me taking my tonic.
‘Wear the black lace. That’ll really piss the bastards off.’ She draped it on the bed, scowling down at the fabric as if the barest crease had caused her some great offence.
‘That’d normally worry you,’ I observed, earning myself an annoyed glance.
‘I’m confident Blackthorn will probably kill them all before you can get a word in anyway,’ she added dryly, pulling me towards the dressing table to start on my hair. It worried me more how pleased she seemed by the idea.
Chapter Twelve
Kat
The sanctity of the grand halls should never be breached, nor any harm befall the mages who defend the purity of magic. To save it from the corruption of beneath. From beings with little control, who bring chaos and entice the world to fall back into the way it should never have been.
The Saints’ Compendium, 19:1–11
Those warnings had been written in dusty texts by fools. Lords who knew nothing of fey magic and cared little for anything but themselves and what they could take, what profit could be made or how high they could rise. The stories they could spin and lies they could tell to justify the murder of magic and the beings it belonged to.
I fidgeted with the high collar of my dress, making sure it covered the bite mark at my neck, the pale scar I’d glimpsed in the mirror as Alma did my hair, vicious and ugly with how it pulled at the thin skin there.
The lace at the collar of my dress was severe, making the golden hue of my skin stand out. I ran my hands over my skirts, anything to keep them busy as I followed the large forms of Emrys and Gideon as we moved through the hallway.
