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Ravus turned to Val "You can stop pretending to be asleep now"

Val sat up, frowning

"You think that she’s unkind," said Ravus, standing with his back to her Val wished she could see the expression on his face; his voice was difficult to interpret "But it isiron and she has other, even better reasons to hate me"

"What reasons?"

Ravus waved his hand above a candle and out of the s man’s face, too lovely to be huure’s neck, blown back froasped She had never seen glamour used this way before

The rest of Ta arh and dotted with lass sas strapped to his side and, on him, it looked liquid, like water forced to hold an unlikely shape

"He was ht Court He didn’t care that I couldn’t abide the sun He would visit me in darkness and tell hout the day" Ravus frowned "I wonder that I was any good colass sas his?"

"It is too slender a thing for ure appeared, this one fah it took a moment to identify her The faerie woreen, like the leafy carpet of a wood, and under the sweep of her red goere goat’s feet She was singing a ballad, her rich, throaty voice thickening the words with proestured toward her "Mabry, Tamson’s lover"

"Was she your friend, too?"

"She tried to be, I think, but I was hard to look at" The glamoured Tamson put his hand on Mabry’s ar interrupted by their ee of Ta like coals

"He talked about her endlessly" Ravus’s slah suranates"

Val wondered if Ravus thought those descriptions were accurate She bit the inside of her cheek

"He wanted to impress her," Ravus said "He asked me to partner hi I’m tall and I suppose I can look fierce

"The Queen of the Bright Court likes fighting best of all the sports She would organize tournaments where the Folk could show off their skill I was new to the court and I did not hts caht; I re of Iceland, of the cool forests ofwords back and forth I heard him say ’I saw you with hih I can guess" Ravus turned toward the cloaked s "The Folk do nothing by halves, we can be capricious Each eht that we must drain to the bottom, but sometimes I think we love the sour as ht Court that because Mabry had dallied with Taht not dally with another"

"Taicked to be harder than iron" He stopped speaking, closed his eyes and started up again "He was a better swordsman than I, but he was distracted and I struck first The sword, it cut through the bark like it was paper"

She saw the blow fall in the glamoured candle smoke The armor crumbled around the blade, Tah the air, high and sharp as though she’d realized what had happened a lah the dusty rooht like a troll--fury overtakes me Perhaps another could have checked his blow; I could not I still held the hilt of h it elded to o The blade looked like it had been painted red

"Why would he take the ics off his own arht be waiting for an answer His gaze slid frolamour dispersed "And yet he must have No one else had any reason to wish him ill" Ravus’s voice was low and harsh "I kneas in distress--I could see it on his face I thought it would pass as all things passed… and selfishly, I was glad that Mabry had disappointed hiht he would be arity in me--why else would he choose me as the vehicle for his death?"

Val didn’t knohat to say She composed sentences in her head: It wasn’t your fault Everyone thinks terrible, selfish things It had to have been an accident None of the They were just words to fill silence When he began speaking again, she realized how long she

"Death is in poor taste in Faerie" He laughed o into exile here after Tamson’s death, it suited them to let ht ht Court’s Queen, coether The stench of death clung to her, too, and made the other folk restive So, she had to accompany me, the murderer of her lover, and here she must stay until I complete the term of my self-exile or I die"

"That’s awful," Val said and at his silence realized how stupid and inadequate her words were "Iof was the part about sending her along with you That’s cruel"

He snorted, alh "I would cutonce more in his chest Even for a moment No sentence would have bothered rief must have been almost too much for her to bear"

"What’s it like here? I mean, to be in exile in the city?"

"I find it difficult I am constantly distracted by the press of smells, the noise There is poison everywhere, and iron so close that it ine how Mabry feels"

She reached one hand toward hiers over her calluses She looked up into his face, trying to convey her sy intently at her hand

"What are these froh," he said "Calloused"

"Lacrosse," she said

He nodded, but she could tell froht have said anything and he would have nodded that way

"You have a knight’s hands," he said finally, and let go of her

Val rubbed her skin, not sure if she was trying to erase the memory of his touch or to recall it

"It’s not safe for you to keep doing deliveries" Ravus went to one of his cabinets and took out a jar where a butterfly fluttered Then he pulled out a tiny scroll of paper and began to write in reater debt than I can easily repay, but at least I can cancel your prolass sword hung gliloom, nearly as dark as the wall behind it She re of the pipe in her hand, the adrenaline rush and clarity of purpose that she felt on the lacrosse field or in a fistfight<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>