“Garret!” Cedric’s kind face broke into a wide grin. Though ancient, the Guild Master’s looks were eternally youthful. His hair, sun-kissed-gold despite the lack of sun, was long and just unruly enough to avoid looking severe. His face was not as beautiful as some Faeries’; the jaw was too wide and sharp, his nose not quite straight. But he was handsome enough to attract the Queene’s eye, if the rumors were true. His kind blue eyes moved to Ayla, and his smile faded the smallest bit with surprise. “And Ayla. It is an unexpected surprise.”
“Surely you’ve seen my student in my company before,” Garret said with a chuckle. He put his arm around Ayla’s waist before she could protest the display, and the hall erupted behind them with speculative murmurs.
“I had heard rumors. Congratulations, friend.” He nodded to Ayla. “You were a promising member of the Guild. You will be missed.”
“That is why she is here.” Garret disentangled his arm and stepped forward with her, leading her as though she were a child. “She has come to make her final report.”
“Yes, of course.” Cedric nodded to the paymaster seated at his left, then motioned to the records keeper at his right. “We have received word of your victory, are ready for the recounting, Assassin.”
An almost painful sense of sadness gripped her, freezing her lungs in her chest. She would never stand here again. In a month, her fellow Assassins would have forgotten her. She cleared her throat and attempted to speak without her voice quavering. “I was instructed to kill five Demons in revenge for encroachment upon the territory of the Lightworld.”
“And did you complete this duty?” Cedric barely waited for her “Yes” to continue. It was a formality. “And at what time did you complete this duty?”
She hesitated. The time that had passed between her assignment and her return would be questioned. Could she lie convincingly enough? Garret had believed her, but he was blinded by his certainty that she would never do anything he did not wish her to do. Suddenly aware of the expectant look on the Guild Master’s face, she said, “One day and one night ago.”
His gaze flicked to Garret, and then back to her. “And why did you not report yesterday?”
Everyone in the hall would believe her if she said the consummation of her mating with Garret had taken precedence over her position as an Assassin. Already some of the courtiers seemed to be leaning in to hear, so that they could titter at the implications and congratulate Garret with knowing winks as he left the hall.
Still, Garret would ask her later why she lied, perhaps even demand that she tell the truth so that his perfect record as a mentor would be unsullied.
While she mulled over her answer in the space of a few heartbeats that felt like ages, Garret stepped forward and spoke for her. “She was wounded in the Darkworld, and had to hide herself in order to heal. It is lucky indeed that she was returned to me safely.” He reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips as if to kiss it when a voice from the back of the room shocked him into dropping it.
“Ah, that would explain the energy expenditure that was reported by my spies last night.” Queene Mabb herself, surrounded by guards and several of her ladies-in-waiting glided down the aisle toward them. The assembly knelt in a wave, and Garret quickly pulled Ayla down to bow beside him as his sister approached. Unlike the rest of the Faeries in the room, however, Garret stood, one hand still on Ayla’s shoulder to keep her in her supplicatory position.
From where she knelt, Ayla could see only the Queene’s skirt and cape, and one white hand. The skirt was of a silk so fine that it appeared liquid violet, the cape a deep shade of blue and heavy, with silver thread twining around amethysts and quartz sewn to the fabric. Gold and silver shimmered on her fingers, long silver chains dripping with more amethysts wrapped about her wrist.
“Your Majesty. What a pleasure to see you again. May I present my mate—”
Mabb spoke as though she had not heard her brother. “There was a large amount of Fae energy detected in the Darkworld last night, Guild Master. Perhaps you should instruct your Assassins better in our policies.”
She swept past, and Ayla dared a glance in her direction. Her white hair was long, nearly touching the ground if not for the knot that bound it into a sharp point near her ankles. A circlet of silver with a mass of looped chains rested on her head, and her wings were concealed.
Ayla looked at Garret. His antennae were red and flat against his hair. He was angry with his sister, and no amount of graceful posturing would cover it.
As if sensing his anger, Mabb stopped and turned. Ayla averted her gaze quickly.
“Garret, I need you. Send your mate home.”
Ayla could judge the moment the Queene had left from the buzz of excited conversation that exploded into the air.
Angry and humiliated, Garret pulled Ayla to her feet. It was not the gentle, loving touch he’d given her before. His grip on her hand caused her bones to creak. “Go home. I will finish things here.”
Stunned at the Queene’s sudden appearance and her quick dismissal, Ayla only nodded. She’d taken a few steps away from him when Garret stopped her. His tone was calmer, his touch softer. “I will return to you tonight, never fear.” He kissed her, then whispered against her lips, “I hope to find you awake and…eager for my attention.”
She left the Palace alone, afloat on a sea of new whispers at her back.
Fourteen
T he signs were not as easy to follow as Malachi had first thought. After too many dead ends he’d nearly given up, until the sound of water turned his head and feet around.
There, at the end of a dim tunnel, he saw the four doors, two on each side, one above, one below, and the pipe leaking water.
Which door was hers? It was above, so Keller had said, but which of the two? One mistake might bring the guards, and he’d seen many in his traversing of the Lightworld. To come this far, to be so close after hours of searching, and to have his progress snatched away would be more than he could bear.
In the hours since he’d entered the Lightworld, he’d imagined the moment when he would see her again. Would she come to him, tortured by the same emotions he’d suffered since they’d first touched? Or would she kill him, as she had sworn to?
It mattered very little. If he could not have her, he would no longer need to live.
He wondered if he had not been lying to the shopgirl when he’d said he sought his true love.
Throwing off his cape—the way was clear enough—he stretched his wings carefully. If they did not work, then what? He would find a way, even if he could not reach the door through his own power. Though they were heavier with Keller’s patching he managed to give his wings an experimental flap that brought him off the ground. Another try, and he was level with the first door, heart nearly bursting with relief.
There were no windows in these dwellings. It would have made it easier to check for her. The residents of the other homes were either away or asleep. The night must have fallen while he walked. Near each door, a single metal bar was set into the concrete. Malachi gripped it, let it take some of his weight as he considered his next move.
A single strand of flame-colored hair was wrapped around the bar, just above his thumb.
The shock of the sight nearly sent him tumbling back to the ground. This was the door. He pushed it open without further thought and used the bar to steady himself as he stepped in and closed his wings.
Only when he saw the cheerful domesticity of the scene did he halt. Two pairs of boots, both belonging to a male, rested on the bricks near a dying fire that lit the room. Stepping farther into the dwelling, Malachi caught sight of the end of a bed. A proper bed, like the Humans above used, not a pallet of dirty blankets like Keller had in the back room of his workshop. Dangling over the edge was one slender white foot.
If she lay there beside a male of her own kind, he would kill him. He no longer cared about Keller’s orders. Keller had no understanding of the feelings that roiled in him. He woul
d kill the Faery at her side, then Keller for not warning him.
Malachi turned the corner to face the alcove where she lay, alone. Instantly, the murderous rage in him evaporated. She lay on her stomach, her wings folded against her back. A blanket twisted across her lower body, and her hair spread on the dark sheets as though fire had spilled like water there.
He approached carefully, not wishing to wake her. Not yet. He wanted to imagine the scene, to see her waking in his mind, her face rumpled at first in confusion, the expression giving way to joy when she realized he’d come for her. He wished to hold the image in his head for a moment, for he could not be sure he would see it with his eyes.
Slowly he reached out a hand and touched the foot that hung over the bed, cupping it in both his hands. Her flesh was warm and soft, and he knelt to press his cheek to it.
In her sleep she turned, murmuring something in her dreams. Malachi stood and placed one foot on the mattress, testing to make sure that his weight would not disturb her. He crouched at the foot of the bed, his wings slightly opened to keep his balance, and reached for a tendril of her hair. He lifted it to his face, taking in her scent, then looked to her face.
Her eyes were open, wide and afraid. She sat up slowly, never breaking her gaze from his, as if she faced an opponent in battle. A mere day ago, she might have, but Malachi could not believe that, not wholly. Even at the height of his rage after she’d left him for dead, even then he could not have killed her. There was no explanation for it, no reason such feelings could have consumed him at his first sight of her. But none of that mattered now.
She rose to her knees, clutching the thin covering in front of her like armor, and inched toward him with a hand outstretched. It seemed an eternity as those small, white fingers inched toward him. An eternity of watching the pulse beat wildly at her throat, an eternity of feeling his own heart leap as if trying to escape his chest to reach her.
Then he felt her fingertips on his chest, warm through the fabric of his shirt, and he covered her hand with his own. That brief contact broke some dam inside him, and without thinking of what his actions might cause, he grabbed her, wrapped his arms around her back and pushed his mouth over hers.
She did not fight him as she might have done, as he should have expected her to do. Her hands lay on his chest, but she did not push him away. Her mouth was as greedy and desperate as his. He twisted his hands in the mass of her hair, wanting to ensnare her further, to have so firm a hold on her that no physical power could wrench her from him.
It was as though all of his blood rushed to meet her, wherever she touched him. As if his heart would cease beating if he stopped touching her.
“Ayla!” An angry voice that spoke in the sound of rushing water broke through the ragged quiet of their breathing. She stiffened in his arms, tore her mouth away.
A male Faery stood in the doorway, his expression twisting through a spectrum of disbelief, horror and rage. Malachi’s gaze fell on the huge sword propped against the wall beside him, and the Faery’s eyes flicked to it immediately after.
Ayla—even in his sudden terror, the rapture of finally knowing her name swelled in his chest—pushed him, shouted a word he did not understand. Then, she spoke in a strangely accented version of his own tongue to order, “Go!”
A world of promise hung in that word. She did not banish him, but protected him. She feared for him.
She shouted no warning to the Faery at the door, who had no time to lift his blade before Malachi knocked him aside. Faeries were immortal, but fragile, built to blow on capricious winds rather than stand against them. The creature’s head smacked the bricks of the hearth and he crumpled.
Somewhere, an alarm went up. Malachi dropped from the doorway, landing on his feet with a painful shock that shuddered up his bones. He could not stand. Opening his wings, he took to the air awkwardly.
Ayla stood in the doorway, robed in her shining hair. Her white skin lit the air around her.
“Come with me,” Malachi said, the words scraping past a barrier of fear in his throat. “Please.”
She looked inside, where her injured man lay. “I cannot. Go.” When he did not move, she screamed it at him, the cry seemingly wrenched from her heart. “Go!”
As he flew away, he looked back. She watched him, tears sliding in long trails down her face, putting out the light that surrounded her.
“How did he find us?”
Ayla sat motionless on the floor. She’d donned her fine, blue robes and now they fanned into a jagged circle around her knees, a sea separating the island of herself from the onslaught of Garret’s cold anger.
“How did he find us?” he repeated. Not “How did he find you,” but “us,” to emphasize the magnitude of her betrayal.
When she did not speak, he struck her. If any other creature had raised his hand to her, she would have fought back, but how could she fight her mentor, the one person who’d believed in her, taught her and loved her since the day she had come to the Lightworld? She deserved the stinging slap that burned her cheek like a brand. It would leave a mark and display to the world the depth of her betrayal.
“On the same evening that I dedicated my whole heart to you, the same evening I bound my life to yours, I come into our home and find you with a…a monster! An enemy of our world!” He stopped and took a deep breath. “You owe me an answer. How did he find us?”
She spoke quietly and slowly, so that she could listen to the words as she said them. She would not let herself be misunderstood or make a mistake. “I do not know how he found us.”
Another slap.
“It is not a lie. I am not withholding the answer to hurt you. When I returned from the Darkworld, I had no clue that I would be living here, with you. I could not have told him.” She waited for another blow, but it did not come.
With a heavy sigh, Garret agreed. “Yes. That is true, I moved your things here without first notifying you.” After a moment, the cold calm returned. “Do you know him? Do you know why he would seek you out?”
“I know him,” she whispered. She had not braced herself for the next slap, and the shock of it brought a ragged gasp from her throat. She swallowed thickly and began again. “I broke the geis by sparing his life once, and again when I healed him last night.”
He hit her again and again, and she let him. She had betrayed him, there was no denying it. Besides, the pain in her heart was far greater than any pain he could inflict upon her with his hands.
Strange, though, that her sadness was not from the pain she’d caused Garret. Her heart ached for the Darkling, who was certainly dead by now. Mabb’s guards would have found him, if not in the Faery Quarter then when he tried to cross the border into the Strip. They would have taken him to one of Mabb’s dungeons and tortured him, not for information, but for entertainment. Perhaps the Queene herself would have been present to see the deed done. Only when there was no value left in causing him pain would they let him die. Even now the process of his death had likely begun. She could still taste him on her lips.
“We will never mention this to anyone.”
For the first time, Ayla looked up to meet Garret’s eyes. His face was gray and drawn. Blood crusted on his skin beside fresh rivulets. The wound on his head had opened while he beat her.
“I will go to Mabb myself, and lie for you,” he repeated. “You have no idea what she would do to you if I did not.”
“She would have me executed.” After their meeting in the Assassins’ Hall it seemed she would have found an excuse to soon enough.
Garret was not listening, lost in his own thoughts, which he spoke aloud as though he were mad. “I will go to the Guild Master and speak with him on your behalf. To be sure that you are protected.” He turned to her then, as if noticing her presence for the first time. “Is there anything else I should know?”
His rage was spent now, so she could ask without physical retaliation. “After you speak with the Queene…then what?”
He
turned away. The wound at the back of his head was ugly, the flesh split. He needed a healer. “Then we will continue as I had hoped we would. You will never be left alone again, though, Ayla. I will never trust you enough to let you out of my sight.”
But you will leave me alone. You will leave me alone when you go to the Palace. A horrible thought came over her. She could leave the Lightworld tonight and never return. She could leave everything behind.
“You will stay here,” Garret told her quietly, as if he could read her thoughts. “Even you are not foolish enough to walk away from a throne.”
“But I am not—” She stopped herself. Garret seemed so intent on her ascension to his sister’s throne. Ayla did not wish to know why he was so sure of it. “Shall I send a healer for you?”
“I have my own healer. I will consult him on my way to the Palace, once I have composed myself.” He reached into the trunk beside the bed and pulled out a stocking cap, which he pulled down to cover his wound. “Time apart will help me cool my anger.”
She waited, numb with despair, as he pulled on his boots and went to the door.
“I will find this Darkling, if the patrols have not,” Garret said. She did not look up at him. She knew she would see triumph and anger on his face, desire to cause her pain. “I told you once that you are prone to temptation because of your Human blood. I see now that I must remove these temptations as they arise. Let his death be a lesson to you, should you seek to betray me again.”
Ayla did not answer him. She listened to the sound of the door closing, counted to ten, then twenty, waiting until it was safe to move.
Thoughts of the Darkling tormented her. Would he curse her for not helping him? Her heart beat hard against her chest, her pulse echoing in the fresh bruises on her face. She could not help him, but if she would, this would be her only chance. She could walk to the Palace, prostrate herself before Mabb and hear herself pronounced a traitor and sentenced to death. If she were to be charged with a crime, let it be a crime she felt just in committing. Let her save the Darkling, if she could.
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