Page 80 of A City of Flames

That ends my trance, and I glower. “You’re sickening,” I lie as I spin but not before sticking my tongue out at him as if I were a child. I pat down my chest, wiping away the sheen sweat, and desperately try to forget what he’s just said. And by the time we’ve stormed certain areas of the palace, my mind wonders if anyone has realized I’m not there.

“Here,” I reply with a blunt tone as I halt by a door, the same one the queen took me in the other day.

Darius surveys it warily like he’s not sure whether to believe me or not. I jerk my head at it again, each minute just wanting to get out of here, to see my brothers, to breathe for a second.

He hovers his hand over the brass knob. Flame designs flash bright once the moonlight hits the doorway, and then Darius opens it.

With a creak, I snap my head at him, puzzled that it isn’t locked. My gut curls at the idea this is a trick, that the queen knows, and she suspects this exact thing to happen.

For us to try and steal the pendant off her.

“Wait.” I grasp his arm, tugging at him. The need to get us out of here begs me to say it, but as he looks over his shoulder, the only thing to flare out of me is— “What did you do with that goblin?”

He quirks a brow at where my hand is. “For a venator—”

“Trainee,” I say with impatience, not realizing this is the first time I’ve ever corrected him on that.

“Trainee,” he amends in vague humor. “You seem to care a lot about the welfare of creatures.”

I let go. “I don’t.”

He tips his head back, laughing, his throat moving to the vibrations of his voice. “You’re also a terrible liar.”

“You can read minds now or what?”

“No.” He looks down at me with a darkened gold gleam in his eyes. “But I can hear your heartbeat speed up when you lie.”

I inhale a breath, clutching where my heart rests, feeling it thump rapidly beneath my palm. How many times had he listened to my heart?

“And to answer your first question,” he lilts. “He’s safe.”

For a moment, relief floods me to my core, then I think how previously I really hadn’t cared for creatures. I’d despised them, caught them, and sold them off to Ivarron. But ever since that dragon they’d captured in my village, things have changed.

Darius ignores my silence as he passes to go inside, and I don’t stop him. Instead, I swallow any worry and follow. The draft from the windows blows the honey-colored curtains across, reflecting its shimmers onto ornaments and the settee where the queen had lounged in front of me.

My eyes journey the room, highlighted dimly by the bright colors of the décor, and then they lock with the pendant twinkling its gold around the neck of the mannequin.

As if Darius has spotted it too, he slowly moves towards it. Skillful fingers unclasp the back before he holds it upward and it twists and turns in all sorts of directions like a beacon of light... a river flowing its course North. Admiring it on the queen, I can say that it intrigued me, but in Darius’s hands, fascination flashes in my blue gaze.

It’s still too easy, though, and I can see Darius knows that too, with how he frowns like he’d expected there to be more to it.

“Did you know the queen is a sorceress?” I ask, my voice softer than I’d anticipated like it’s still in awe of the pendant. I don’t know what caused me to say that, but it was out before I could think it through. When Darius doesn’t answer, I flicker my eyes to him and rephrase, “Do all the shifters know?”

He stares ahead, thinking my question over as he slides the pendant through his fingers. “A few.”

Leira didn’t know much, she only told me what her sister had once said, and her sister had been with a shifter.

“She’s one without power.” I tilt my head, acknowledging the little information I’d gotten from the queen. “Why?”

Both brows lift as he looks me over. “That’s a question you should ask her, not me.”

“But you know why, don’t you?” I press, starting to get agitated.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”

Frustration coils up in my chest. “Just tell me.”

“I’m not up for a history lesson right now, unless—” he flicks the words right off his tongue, enticing and full of wonder. “You think of the queen differently to what a venator does?”

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