Page 10 of The King’s Queen

Wet grit scraped the sidewalk under my shoes—sensible boots with reinforced toes and heels for extra kicking power—and I wrestled my jacket back into place.

I’ll have to straighten my clothes when I get to the Curia Cloisters. If I ask for help while looking like an untidy rat, they’ll say no—shadow or not.

It was my day off, and I was heading to the Curia Cloisters with the vague hope of making arrangements for all the meetings I’d been studiously avoiding, and planned to surprise Pat with lunch after I finished.

I was nervous—my stomach was already flopping around in my gut, and I was just walking. I needed to make sure I didn’t say anythingto give away Noctus’s presence, but I couldn’t wait any longer. The tracker needed to be taken care of, for the sake of my siblings.

Maybe this will go better than I’m thinking. They’ve been requesting meetings, but they haven’t really been pressuring me. The Cloisters know where I live and work, and while I am a shadow, I won’t really be useful for supernatural society at large as a solo shadow.

I adjusted the way my jacket fell on my shoulders—it was starting to slide to one side—and glanced to the south.

The clocktower rose above all the other shorter downtown buildings.

I was passing closer to it than I technically needed to since the Curia Cloisters were on the northwest side of Magiford, but…there was something reassuring about the clocktower.

Not a word.I vowed.Not a single word about him. They never really asked how I figured out I was a shadow. If this meeting goes the way I want it to, whoever the Curia assigns to speak to me will do all the talking, so they’ll never think to ask me.

A thumping noise that sounded suspiciously like a trash griffin getting into trouble yanked my attention to the sidewalk in front of me.

About half a block up, French Fry was shoving his pigeon feet between the gaps of a wooden garbage can. He must have spied a piece of trash or fast food that had missed the garbage bag and fallen between the wooden frame and the bag.

“French Fry,” I called. “Stop it.”

The greedy little thing refused to let go, so I sighed and jogged to catch up to him. I knelt down and tried to pick him up, but I couldn’t stand since he still refused to let go of the scrap of food—a French fry, of course.

I poked my fingers through the gap in the garbage can and had to rip the French fry from his grasping bird feet. He tried to shove his head through the gap, but his aim was off, so instead he smacked his head on the wooden siding.

He made a short, staccato grumbling noise as I tipped him onto his back and whisked him away from the can.

“Don’t be piggy.” I grabbed the coveted French fry and stood up, cradling him like a baby.

French Fry grumbled some more and flicked himself in the face with his raccoon tail. He immediately switched to happy, cooing noises, however, when I offered him the flattened and probably week-old fry.

He grabbed it with one of his pigeon feet, then fell out of my arms, splatting on the cement where he stuffed the fry in his orange beak and promptly choked.

I wiped my hands off on my jacket and stepped around him. “It’s amazing your species has continued surviving all these years.”

I shoved my hands into my pockets as I started walking again, marching through the heart of downtown Magiford.

I smiled to the rare person who met my gaze, and paid close attention to my senses as I shouldered my way through crowded sidewalks.

I didn’t feel any supernaturals in the area, which was expected. Supernaturals didn’t exactly hang out downtown—it was why I had staked out the territory for myself.

Well, the Seelie and Unseelie Courts used to have occasional turf wars downtown, but that had stopped since I’d overthrown the monarchs of both Courts.

It still feels crazy to think that I stopped them. I was stiff with anxiety the whole time. But, then again, they shouldn’t have messed with my siblings.

I turned north, following one of the two lakes that sprawled across Magiford. Another few blocks, and the downtown area thinned out to parks and businesses with bigger lots like auto body shops, a gas station, and a car wash, before turning residential.

The Curia Cloisters were still far away, but I walked everywhere in this city, so the distance didn’t bother me.

French Fly flapped along with me, but after we’d gone a block he abruptly banked and crash landed.

He probably saw something edible.

“French Fry,” I started. “You are going to get hurt if you keep—” I snapped my jaw shut so hard my teeth clicked.

Fear. An oppressive fear that rode all my instincts so hard I froze, a tangle of desperation that made me want to run and terror so tangible I couldn’t move.

---