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Chapter 28

Demons didn’t cry.

Then again, Naxi had never been that good at being a demon, and her tears didn’t give a damn whose eyes they were pouring from – just that they wouldn’t, couldn’t stop. The gallery was a maze of broken shapes around her. Shards of glass crunched beneath her linen-wrapped feet. The tidal wave of Thysandra’s emotions was trying to drag her under with every step, and by the time she reached the door on the far side of the hall, she felt like she was struggling through knee-deep mud just to keep going – and yet she walked.

The alternative was running back.

The alternative was making that gods-damned bargain and resigning herself to being, once again, the monster lurking beneath everyone’s bed.

Which she shouldn’t care about! Being frightening was nothing new! And yet the tears kept coming and coming and coming as she slammed the door behind her, tore the linen off her feet, and staggered on through the deserted academy halls – because she always had to be the frightening one, whether she wanted to or not, and Thysandra …

Thysandra should have been different.

For Thysandra, she had tried so very hard to be safe .

And still it was not enough. Still it ended with the same tired old story. She shouldn’t care, she shouldn’t care, she shouldn’t care , yet demon heart or no, it hurt like hell. You ran from the ones who relied on you before , and the worst thing of all was that it was true – she had taken her revenge for the destruction of Mirova, lived with the shame and the regret for three hundred years, and still it was entirely, undeniably true.

Had she wanted to leave the humans to their own devices?

If she hadn’t, why in the world had she said she did?

Didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She was a demon, and she could run and never look back the way all demons did. All she had to do was find anyone with a ship, scare them into offering her passage to the Golden Court, then find an alf to return her to her friends – not a nice way of going about it, perhaps, but who cared about nice?

She was a demon. She sure as hell didn’t.

If the world insisted on treating her like some child-eating, heartbreaking menace, she might as well lean into it.

Down the stairs. Through the gardens whispering at her to come and have a seat in them. It was unnerving how easily she found her way around the cursed place already, a maze of corridors and rooms that had etched itself into her unwelcoming brain – past the heavily perfumed gateway that led to the bathhouses, then down again, closer and closer to the main gate of the castle.

Out. Finally.

The relief of freedom did not come.

Why, for hell’s sake? She hated this place. She’d wanted to leave from the moment she arrived, and at the very least that was finally happening – so why did it feel as though she was losing something with every step closer to her goal? There was little the Crimson Court had that she couldn’t find elsewhere, except perhaps—

The Labyrinth.

And Thysandra , a vicious little voice whispered in the back of her mind. She wiped that thought away. She was a demon, after all. She did not stick around for what no longer served her. She was selfish and she did not care, and since Thysandra had hurt her by—

By accusing her of not caring?

Didn’t matter, damn it! She was leaving the island, and she no longer wanted to think about Thysandra, because thinking about Thysandra hurt more than it had any right to. The Labyrinth, though …

The Labyrinth hadn’t done anything wrong.

And she didn’t want the mountain to be angry with her if she never returned without any sort of goodbye.

She changed course mid-step, trotting in the direction of the bone hall at the heart of the castle. New plan, then. Leave the castle through the Labyrinth. Say goodbye to the trees of Faewood, too, while she was at it. Then make the walk around the mountain to the north coast, where the houses and the ships were waiting – a long walk, admittedly, but she had all day, and what else would she be doing with her time anyway?

She no longer had anyone to protect. There would be no more stealing lunch from the kitchens because Thysandra would forget to eat without her. No more sitting through meetings and making faces when no one but Thysandra was looking at her. No more of that unwilling smile, the amusement she could feel rather than see, and—

No.

The breathless sobs bubbling from her throat, the sticky tears misting her view … they had gotten it all wrong. She did not care.

Bone hall. Labyrinth. Faewood. As long as she kept thinking very, very hard of her plan, she did not need to think of anything else.

The demolished heart of the Mother’s reign was empty as always, although she could feel traces of a large group of people not too far away – shreds of triumph and joy emanating from their distant presence. Stupid Nicanor with his stupid army, probably. Would Thysandra be lying in his bed soon? Not that she cared, of course. If Thysandra wanted to waste that perfectly shapely body of hers on mediocre lovers, then—

No. No . Not the time to think about anyone’s body – Thysandra’s least of all .

She descended into the Labyrinth, still sobbing.

The mountains balmy concern was like a soft blanket around her shoulders, and even that couldn’t stop her tears from flowing, as if some tap had broken inside her that could not be shut off again. She’d been here with Thysandra. Thysandra had told her she needed her in these same bejewelled tunnels. Thysandra had told her she wasn’t scared, that she understood the demon mind, and even if that had turned out to be all wrong, even if it turned out she would in fact never trust Naxi no matter how trustworthy she was …

It was still too happy, that memory.

Which was stupid. Demons did not do happy memories.

She staggered onwards over the warm stone floor, blubbering apologies at the silent walls of the Labyrinth. At least the mountain wasn’t scared of her. At least she could pretend for another few minutes that she would never need to return to the world outside, where even the most genuine of smiles would always come with that little sting of reserve, where no one, no one —

Why hadn’t she just made the stupid bargain?

Would it really be that bad to live the rest of her life under the constant weight of suspicion, to have to defend herself over and over again? To be reminded time and time again of who she was, what she was, and that there would be no way for her to ever escape the very nature of her own callous heart?

She no longer even knew.

She just ran.

Lingering was dangerous. Lingering might lead to pausing, and pausing might lead to giving in and running right back to where she’d come from – and so she kept moving and moving and moving, all the way to the Faewood gate of the Labyrinth. It felt like half a century had gone by since she’d stepped out of Thysandra’s rooms that morning, and yet the light that welcomed her outside was still the pale sunlight from the east. The dew hadn’t even dried on the leaves and petals yet.

She spoke her last teary goodbyes to the Labyrinth, then stumbled on through the tangles of Faewood. Yesterday’s hunt had left its traces. Marred tree trunks, arrows sticking into roots and branches. Splatches of blood. The occasional tuft of animal hair left behind in thorns and brambles, and—

Voices.

Familiar voices.

Naxi did, of course, not care.

She did not give a rat’s arse about the Crimson Court. She never had and never would. And Thysandra had accused her, insulted her, and deliberately flung the memory of her family’s death into her face, which reasonably had to mean she did not care about Thysandra, either … so she had no reason, no reason at all , to wonder why in the world Silas and Inga would be standing in the heart of Faewood.

Or what they were arguing about.

Or why they would be feeling worried and furious and … nauseous? As unexpected as that may be, it wasn’t her problem in the slightest. She did not care she did not care she did not—

She changed course.

The voices grew louder.

‘… can’t just stand aside and wait !’ That was Inga, more vehement than Naxi had ever heard her before – no longer hindered, somehow, by the persistent wariness that usually lay over her every word and movement. ‘At least it’s still recent now. If we give it too much time …’

Silas’s answer was harder to make out, his voice lower and quieter.

‘Well, there’s only two of them left, isn’t there?’ Inga again. There was a pinch of grief mixed into the blend of her emotion, Naxi realised as she approached, and even if she still did not care, that was intriguing enough to keep her tiptoeing forward. ‘And if we tell Thysandra, I’m sure she’ll agree to—’

The girl stopped talking abruptly.

A surge of alarm peaked in the silence.

It was only then that Naxi remembered that a bright blue dress was not the most inconspicuous attire to sneak around forests in.

Two hasty steps back was all she managed. Then Thysandra’s uncle lunged out from the foliage with much, much more speed than a male of his size had any right to – a slap of golden wings, a shimmer of gemstones in the morning light, and a solid, calloused hand fisted in the front of Naxi’s dress, all but lifting her off her feet. Silas towered over her in a way that made her feel annoyingly like cowering. Most people towered over her, admittedly, but this male added a whole new dimension to the experience – a height and breadth to him that even most fae could only dream of matching.

His eyes were narrowed in fury.

Then narrowed even more in what was, visibly and tangibly, confusion.

Belatedly, Naxi realised she was no longer crying, but that her cheeks still felt raw and sticky, and her eyes ached with every blink. She wasn’t sure just how pathetic she looked. The cautious ebbing of the Bargainer’s alarm suggested the situation was dire, though.

She sniffled, because her nose was still a little runny, and squeaked, ‘Hello, Silas.’

‘Anaxia?’ His frown deepened impossibly further. ‘What are you doing here, exactly?’

‘Saying goodbye to the trees,’ she sputtered, considering whether she should be so merciful as to threaten him first or start draining his joy of life immediately. The first, probably. Thysandra would need him around the court. ‘Let go of my dress, or I—’

‘Goodbye?’ he interrupted sharply.

Oh.

Perhaps he hadn’t needed to know that.

‘I … I’m leaving.’ The tears began trickling down again. ‘I … I …’

He blinked, lowering her a few inches. ‘Where the hell is Thysandra?’

‘The statue gallery,’ Naxi whimpered, unable to speak the words without hearing those pleas again, echoing through the ravaged hall behind her. ‘There was an attack, and … and …’

‘Were you away from her side at all, yesterday?’ Silas cut in, fingers tightening around the bunched-up front of her dress. ‘She spent the day in her rooms, yes? Did you leave those rooms at any point?’

She gaped at him. ‘What?’

‘Please.’ As tightly controlled as his expression might be, the straining pressure within him was what Naxi imagined a volcano might feel in the moments before eruption. It was a testament to either his self-restraint or his fear of her that he wasn’t yet physically shaking her. ‘Just answer the bloody question: did you leave her rooms? Did you visit the Labyrinth?’

‘No!’ She was so bewildered she forgot to cry again. ‘No, I told the Labyrinth I couldn’t be there with the hunt going on – you can go ask it, if you like! It was very grumpy, so I’m sure it remembers all the details! I was with Thysandra all day until she got poisoned, and then again after—’

Silas let go of her dress so suddenly she almost toppled over.

‘Why? What’s going on?’ She inched backwards, trying to peer around his looming posture and the near-endless span of his wings. ‘Did anything happen during the hunt yesterday?’

Without an answer, Silas glanced over his shoulder.

Something went unexpectedly softer inside him with that movement. Or not softer but rather mellower , like that clenching, almost desperate anticipation of thaw after a long frost – a feeling of—

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Naxi barely kept down another miserable whimper. It would be unreasonably petty, wouldn’t it, to torture a man to death just because he had the audacity to start falling in love right before her heartbroken eyes?

‘Yes,’ Inga said from behind that endless expanse of wing and muscle, voice a little choked. ‘Let’s show her.’

Show her what ?

Never mind about the torment, then.

‘Alright,’ Silas said, voice grim as he turned away. ‘Over here. Apologies for the distrust – we’ve been trying to figure out your movements for a while now.’

‘What?’ Her voice jumped. ‘Me?’

‘Don’t take it personally,’ Inga said brusquely, waiting for them on the other side of the clearing. Her eyes were red, her fingers and hair covered in mud. ‘But I didn’t tell anyone about the plans to move the humans, and I knew Silas couldn’t be the leak because he wasn’t at the court yet – so we figured it had to be Gadyon or Nicanor or you. We’ve been making visits, these last few days. Tried to get useful information out of everyone.’

Oh.

They’d been sitting in Nicanor’s living room, the two of them, when Thysandra had walked in with the Alliance’s demands – even Inga making unusual attempts to appear amicable in the Lord Protector’s company. They’d been on their way to visit the archives together, too, when they’d found Gadyon’s confession last night.

‘But then there’s no more need to be suspicious of me, is there?’ she stuttered, trying to keep up with Silas’s longer strides. No reason except the gallery attack – but they didn’t know that much, and she had no reason to wince at the thought. She did not care. ‘We know it was Gadyon who leaked the information.’

‘Do we?’ Inga said bitterly.

Silas didn’t speak. Just held aside a curtain of vines for Naxi – not realising, apparently, that she could easily have willed them out of the way herself.

‘He wrote that it was him,’ Naxi said sheepishly, following as Inga turned and gestured at her to come along.

‘Yes.’ The girl’s voice was back at its usual level of brewing fury. ‘But that never made sense to me. He may appear messy, but his paperwork is always where it needs to be. And if he mislaid his notes …’ She sucked in a sharp breath as they passed between the next row of trees. ‘He wouldn’t have fled and never shown his face again. He would have dealt with the consequences.’

‘So we’ve been searching all night,’ Silas softly said behind them. ‘And then half an hour ago, we found this.’

Inga stood still with a strangled sound – almost a gag.

Before them, half-buried in the soil …

It was unrecognisable, the half-eaten corpse. Wings gone. Face gone. Nothing but bones left of the whole lower body. But around where the leg must have been, someone had meticulously brushed aside the mud and the leaves.

And there, pale and bloody, lay the twisted, misshapen skeleton of a foot.

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