Page 69 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
Gideon looked like he wanted to carve his own eyeballs out with a kitchen spoon at the suggestion – but one glare from Emrys had silenced him. Thankfully.
I should have talked her out of it. Talked her out of going deeper into another deadly game none of us should be playing. Considering the state she’d come back in from the Council chambers.
Instead, I’d hidden once again in the kitchen. Like the coward I was, only to be faced withThe Crow’s Footas the papers lay scattered across the table before me, the violence and riots that had already begun across Elysior. The uprisings that had erupted against Montagor’s vicious new rule. As his hunters sought any rebellion they could find.
They’d taken cursed venom again, turning them into vicious monsters who moved faster and could kill quicker. Just like in those wars as fey fled further north. As their villages were purged. How quickly their façade of peace had crumbled. How ready their cruelty was.
Unease clawed at my skin which still stung from the change or from the vicious scrubbing I’d done in the bath earlier. Not feeling clean. No matter how much soap I used.
I’d always remain like this. Dirty.
We were all made to be used, little rat. You’re a liar for telling yourself any different.The memory of the Keeper’s drunk slurred words only soured my mood further. How right that monster could still be, even after all this time. How true Master Hale had made those words.
A hand waved in my vision, making me jump. Seeing William’s worried frown as he stood before me, clearly speaking to me.
‘Sorry, William.’ I shook my head, rising from the table, but his kind brown eyes dropped to the back of my hand, where I’d scratched the skin red raw.
‘Does changing irritate you?’ He frowned at the mark.
‘Sometimes.’ I shrugged. Reluctant to admit how it felt like I lost something every time. How this power had been so tightly woven with my pain. How they’d twisted this gift into a curse. Made me remember everything I wished to forget.
Kat would have made me something, a tonic, maybe? She would have stayed if she’d known but I wasn’t her burden.
‘It’s hard to feel …’ The words seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth. Claggy. ‘To feel clean afterwards.’
Something that seemed like understanding crossed his expression before he moved to one of the kitchen shelves, coming back with a small metal tin in his outstretched palm.
‘Here. Mirtle wood. That’ll soothe it.’ His offering was so simple and yet it made a brutal mark across my heart. That he’d care enough to even think of it. To help something as wrong and strange as me.
‘Thank you, William.’ I squeezed his hand. His warm smile like a reward. Then I saw the strange markings scratched on his fingers.
‘What happened?’ I frowned, wondering if he’d got carried away with his thorn tonics again.
His cheeks flushed as a small line furrowed his brow. ‘It was that bloody gobrite. Horrid little bastard. I only tried to put it back.’
‘Why would Emrys keep it?’ I unscrewed the lid and rubbed the balm on my raw flesh. Feeling the irritation ease instantly.
William shrugged. ‘Who knows. But I wondered if you wanted to go over the compendium records.’
The offer was gentle, coaxing. Perhaps afraid I’d withdraw further. I tried not to be unsettled by that. By someone caring so much. Too used to hiding in kitchens, store cupboards or shadowed stairways. Hiding from all the things I couldn’t change.
‘Where does Emrys keep the compendiums?’ I asked, something within me seeming to raise its scaled head at the question. My curse’s interest never usually led to good things.
‘In the cellar,’ he answered with a shudder. ‘It’s …strangedown there.’
‘Strange?’ I frowned.
‘Magic doesn’t like to be contained, and it likes to misbehave when Emrys is out of the house.’ The boy shrugged, pulling at his curls.
Of course. Emrys was Verr. The mere presence of his magic would be enough to tame more feral manifestations. Why he didn’t seem to have an issue hunting dark fiends. They probably came to heel easily enough. Why the lord had unsettled me upon first meeting, despite doing nothing to warrant my suspicion.
Something in me must have sensed that threat. Even if I didn’t know what it was.
‘There was … a strange scent. When I changed, I could smell something. Kat said dark beings can track dark magic.’ I wondered if that was why it still stung my nose. As if trying to catch my attention, the darker side of my nature trying to help for once.
‘They can.’ He nodded, weighing my words.
‘I wonder if I could sense if there was anything similar in the other compendiums. Something created at the same time.’ That if I even went near them, would the creatures in my blood be able to sense it.
