Page 90 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
She took a step toward me, lifting Uriel’s dagger a little higher. “That can bearranged.”
“Monster blood.”
She paused, big brown eyes narrowing. If she were anyone else, those eyes would be considered doe-like and quite pretty, but staring into them from my vantage, I could see how haunted they were. How troubled. How angry.
Mariana brushed a lock of her hair over her shoulder and lowered herself into a crouch, elbows on knees, facing me at eye level. “You have my attention.”
Great, because that’s not terrifying.
I lifted my chin. “I need cursed blood for an experiment.”
She let out a long sigh. “Right. You work with Phina.” She seemed vaguely disappointed by that, as if it meant she couldn’t rough me up.
Thank the Fates.
“Don’t look so relieved, you’re still approximately one revelation away from bleeding out in this alley.”
I bit my lips together.
Her smirk returned, and for a moment she simply watched me squirm. Then she tossed Uriel’s dagger up, caught it by the flat of the blade, and tucked it up her sleeve.
Mariana rose from her crouch and held out her hand. “Come on, then,” she said, as if dragging me into an alley and threatening me was a major inconvenience, and me sitting on my ass in the filth was more of a tantrum than obedient fear.
I stood up on my own, brushing my grimy palms on my skirts. The skin was scraped up, but not bloody; my knees, however, stung underneath my dress, and I felt a trickle of blood slide down my shin.
Though Mariana was shorter than me, her watchful gaze and intimidating presence made her seem bigger. Her apparent prowess reminded me of a wildcat, her body in a state of constant, deadly grace, forever tense and ready to pounce, shred, kill.
“Speak,” she demanded.
“You’re…friends with Phina?” I ventured.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“But you know about her research.”
“Her charge occasionally intersects with mine,” Mariana said delicately, in the way most knights did when skirting around topics controlled by their Oaths.
“Curses and Hylder,” I clarified.
Her expression remained unreadable, if slightly amused; she was probably unable to give any indication about those subjects.
“Blank Fates, too?”
Her lip twitched. “What do you know?”
For a moment, I considered asking her about Noble’s Fate—but I didn’t want to call attention to him if she didn’t already know.Especiallyif her charge was to kill cursed beings. “I’m not answering that.”
She took a step forward—feline, predatory.
It took every ounce of self-control not to cow to her threatening posture, to keep my feet rooted in place. “Would you say that Phina’s research creates conflict within your Order?”
“Orders are never without conflict.” Her tone was patronizing, but it was the non-answer that I found most frustrating. Clearly, Mariana’s Oath prevented her from saying much of anything.
I folded my arms. “Can you get me the monster blood?”
“Those don’t exist,” she said coolly.
“Did your Oath make you say that?”
