I tested the knob on the door once more, twisting it from side to side and growling in frustration when it refused to turn. Banging the base of the candlestick against the solid door, I winced at the way the silver clanged against the filigree detailing lining the stone and wooden structure.
“Quiet, Pet,” Malachi shouted from the other side, the menace in his voice forcing me back a step. “You do not want me to have to come in there to quiet you down myself without Mab around to protect you.”
“Eager to lose your head, too?” I snapped, biting the tip of my tongue to refrain from allowing the insult to the memory of his brother to go any farther.
“You’re either the bravest human I’ve ever met, or the fucking stupidest,” he called.
I could almost hear the laughter in his voice. It wasn’t the friendly sort; rather a mockery of everything light and humorous. I considered myself fortunate in that moment that he chose to be amused rather than to attack me, because I wasn’t sure I was up to another physical fight for my life.
“I’m not a human at all,” I reminded him, stepping away from the door and pacing back and forth in my room.
My mate was out there somewhere, and my only assurance of his wellbeing was the lack of pain I felt from his bond. It had faded in the hours since he awoke, as his body slowly managed to heal whatever damage had been done to him. It meant they must have removed his iron shackles at some point so that his body could function normally once more.
It was a privilege I wasn’t likely to receive unless Mab put a snake around my heart as well.
His presence grew closer yet, until the commotion outside confirmed that, for whatever reason, they were bringing him to me. I braced myself for whatever pain and agony would be sure to follow our reunion, knowing without a doubt that it was not allowed out of the kindness of Mab’s heart.
The key slid into the lock, the scraping of metal upon metal forcing my heart to accelerate. I watched the door in rapt fixation. The knob turned, forcing me to toss my candle stick to the side when the first face that appeared on the other side was his.
Caldris stared back at me, his hands at his sides as he stepped into the room slowly and took in his surroundings. Checking for traps, observing the different corners of the room before he finally allowed the full force of his gaze to fall upon mine once more.
“My star,” he murmured, carefully avoiding my name. I didn’t know if Mab knew my name already, but I was grateful for the show of some semblance of protection.
Whatever magic she possessed that would affect me on the inside, she needed my name to do it.
“Caelum,” I said, glancing over his shoulder to where Mab stepped into the room. She averted her gaze, for all purposes seeming to give us a moment of privacy. Relief washed over me, his and mine blurring into one mass between us. I couldn’t tell where mine ended and his began, the comfort of seeing one another mostly unharmed becoming almost blinding in intensity.
I rushed forward. Throwing my weight into his body, I allowed him to wrap me up in his arms. I cursed the shackles for another reason, having to keep them from touching his skin as carefully as I could manage. Where I might have thrown myself into his arms and allowed him to pick me up in the way I’d so often protested when we’d made our journey to the Hollow Mountains, I could only settle for his chin resting on my head and his hands on my back.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, finally pulling back to look me over.
The cut on my face had scabbed over, Imelda’s paste creating a sort of wax that hardened to protect the injury from the elements. His thumb touched it gently, careful not to crack the surface as his nostrils flared and his jaw clenched.
“Who did this?” he asked me, the promise of retribution burning in his gaze. He would murder anyone who hurt me. He would make them feel every bit of pain I experienced tenfold.
Because I was his, and he was mine.
“No need to trouble yourself, darling. He’s already dead,” Mab said, light, youthful laughter coming from her as she traced the steps of the blood smear across the floor. Her shoes were black flat slippers today. She toed them off and sank her bare feet into the crusted blood as she danced over it.
Malachi winced; his fury evident on his face as he lingered in the open doorway. He only pulled his eyes away from mine when he moved out of the way for a servant to step into the room. She had scales on the side of her face, moving in a path down her neck. She brought a single bucket of water in with her, then rolled up her sleeves and dumped it into the basin the others had emptied and scrubbed after my bath the previous night. She waved her hands over it, circling them in a smooth, dance-like rhythm. The basin filled with water, her magic making it expand and grow until the tub was filled.
Another servant stepped into the room and deposited a fresh stack of clothes on the bed. There were two sets, one male and one female. The tunic and pants for Caldris were the black of night, devoid of all color. The dress chosen for me was the deepest green, the color of a snake’s skin, in contrast to the black bedding it rested on.
“For you both to wear tomorrow,” Mab answered as the servants fled the room.
With fresh clothes set out and a bath to clean ourselves, I turned a disbelieving stare to Mab.
“What happens tomorrow?” I asked, swallowing nervously as Caldris tightened his grip around my waist. He shifted us so that he could look at Mab, tucking me into his embrace as if he could protect me from the Queen of Air and Darkness.
As if either of us could protect ourselves from Mab right now.
Mab rolled her eyes in response, stepping farther into the room. She moved to the window, pulling the curtains open until the dim light from outside drifted in. I hadn’t dared to open them, not knowing what I might find outside. I knew nothing of the Court of Shadows, having only awoken when I was already trapped within it, but the light hinted at a filtered sort of sunlight.
“Don’t be disgusting,” she muttered, shaking her head. “You’ve already disappointed me with your foolish attachment to one another. Don’t make it worse by acting as if you cannot bear to be separated. Nobody enjoys codependency.”
“Says the woman who slaughtered her own mate in his sleep after she bore her heir,” Caldris said, offering the first hint of what had happened to Fallon’s father. My heart constricted in my chest, knowing that she would have wanted to bridge that gap while she was stuck in Mab’s clutches. For Mab to have killed him, he must have been even the slightest bit more decent than she was.
“That explains a lot,” I muttered, thinking of how Caldris claimed that he was halfway into the madness that consumed a Fae when he couldn’t reach his mate. Mab’s other half of her soul wasn’t just missing but dead, and by her own hand.
How much of her evil and the chaos she caused could be attributed to that?
“Mind your tongue,” Mab hissed, and Caldris gritted his teeth as she turned a glare upon him. “Or I will remove it.” The anger over her violence seemed out of character, whereas she would normally be proud of the death and carnage she caused. She hadn’t felt even a modicum of guilt over Ophir’s death or the fact that she’d been the cause of it, but the mention of her mate struck a chord.
She’d felt the bond, perhaps had even known love for a brief time.