Текст книги "A vow of blood and tears"

Автор книги: Cate Corvin

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

She arched a brow, dipping bread in jam. Keeping secrets now, are we?

“Only for a little while. When I’ve learned all I can, you’ll be the first to know what it is.”

Cirri chewed and swallowed, eyeing me with undisguised inquisitiveness. You know this wondering is going to drive me to madness.

I laughed a little, covering my mouth. “Consider how much time I’ve spent in the madness of wondering about you. Perhaps turnabout is fair play.”

She nodded sagely. Alas, I can’t argue that. Though in all fairness, I don’t make an effort to be mysterious. It’s simply a side effect.

“True, but… it still remains my secret for now. All I can promise is that you’ll be pleased.” Ancestors, I hoped she would be. And if this went well, perhaps Brother Glyn would be minded to earn more gold, to stay here and teach the other citizens of Ravenscry so that Cirri might not struggle any longer.

She ate more rapidly than I expected. Perhaps she’d skipped the morning and noon meals; I hadn’t been here to ensure she came up for air from the documentation. But when she finished the last bite, instead of writing more about the current work, she shut her journal, tucked it in her bag, and took my hand, beckoning to me to follow.

Of course I did as she asked, curious about where she was going.

She led me to the Tower of Winter, to my room. Heat jolted into my stomach, my cock hardening; perhaps, after last night, she too craved more than a touch…

But after she bolted the door, she dropped her journal-bag on the bed and vanished into the washroom. I heard the sound of water splashing, the faint scratch of scrubbing, and when she emerged she’d cleaned her teeth, brushed her hair, and her arms were… scrubbed to the elbows?

Cirri planted a hand on my chest, pushing me onto the bed. I sat obediently as she took out her journal and wrote.

Dinner is served soon, she said, and looked me in the eye. It will be slow, and perhaps not as intimate and ecstatic as you’ve described yet… but we are going to try. 

The heat in my veins died, even as the itch in my throat grew unbearable. For the first time, I wanted to recoil. “I’m unwilling to do anything that frightens you. I can feed elsewhere. I’ve been doing it for this long, it doesn’t matter if I continue.”

You can feed from me. Her jaw was set, chin in the air as she stared at me. I’ve considered this all day. It frightened me the first time, but I was unprepared then. Now I’m ready to try, and we’ll try it my way first—something easy, to help get past the first hurdle.

She extended her arm, freshly scrubbed, the blue traceries of veins in her wrist making my mouth water and my gums ache.

“Cirri…” I swallowed, wishing my mouth weren’t on fire with need.

She shoved the journal away in response, tossing the pen after it, and curled up against me. I was powerless to resist the warmth of her pressed into my side, the softness of her head pillowed on my shoulder; my arm slipped around her of its own accord.

My wife inhaled, then reached up and cupped my cheek, her fingertips moving delicately over the striations of muscle and cartilage in my face, tracing the ridge down to my lips.

Her thumb caressed my lower lip, then, with excruciating slowness, she touched one fang, her brow furrowed with concentration.

She signed to me, her words unclear but her determination obvious.

A hand on her chest, then a broad gesture to me.

She turned her head, pressing her lips to my shoulder, and offered her wrist again.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered, and she shook her head. She pressed herself closer, draping one leg over my lap in a billow of thick skirts, the softness of her curves igniting my imagination.

I took her hand, turning over the pale fingers that had been stained with ink; there were still faint patches on her fingers. “You don’t need to wash for this. The taste of you will be delicious regardless.”

She gave me a crooked smile, but now I could see the faint shine of fear in her eyes.

Ancestors, I didn’t want to do this… and I did. More than anything. It was taking every last shred of willpower, scraped from the deepest pits of my being, to not sink my fangs into her flesh immediately.

And when I would have protested again, not wanting to be an animal in her presence, she tilted her head, raising her eyebrows in a furrow: What are you waiting for?

“I will take it slowly,” I told her, feeling her fingers tremble in mine. “There will be a small pain… and then it will fade. We have a venom in our bite, to help bring the ecstasy and make it more pleasant.”

She nodded, lips set, eyes on my face. I brought her wrist to my mouth, inhaling her luscious scent, mastering myself. I was not an animal. I could control the beast.

My throat burned as I carefully, ever so delicately, set my fangs to her arm. With all of my concentration on this small limb, determined not to savage her, I sank my teeth in slowly, allowing my venomous saliva to penetrate her before I went deeper.

By the ancestors and the gods, the delight. Soft as silk, parting like butter under my fangs…

Cirri drew in a sharp breath, her fingers twitching in my grasp, but she exhaled, settling herself, resting her head on my shoulder.

Her blood, hot as it was and sweet from the vein, soothed the scorching dryness in my throat. I swallowed once, twice, still focused on stopping myself from draining her entirely, and tapered off.

It was enough to soften the pain of thirst. Blood from the vein was far better than blood harvested; my appetite was satiated on that small taste alone.

I couldn’t stop myself from taking another tiny, cooling sip, running my forked tongue over the pinpricks in her flesh and allowing my saliva to close the wounds.

“Did it hurt badly?” I asked her, my voice gruff. She would despise me now.

Cirri examined her arm, the pinpricks, now closed and a muted pink tone, like a constellation inscribed in her flesh. She flattened her hand and tipped it: Somewhat.

The other signs I couldn’t make out, but… she didn’t run, nor was she breathing quickly, with a heightened heartbeat or widened pupils.

Could she truly be unafraid? Had that single bite not frightened her?

My gaze dropped to her throat, wondering… and then her breathing sped up as she noticed where my eyes were focused.

No. The fear was still there, but it was the fear of total vulnerability to a predator.

She grabbed her journal. Small steps, she wrote with a slightly shaky smile. It hurt, but not as much as I thought it would. I really believed it would hurt worse. Even Wyn’s knife has more bite. Next time will be easier. 

Cirri glanced at her arm again, taking in the marks that would heal to white scars overnight.

Is that preferable to drinking it decanted? she asked.

“There is no comparison,” I told her with feeling. “Imagine being so thirsty you can think of nothing else, your tongue is as dry as cotton, your throat aches, and before you is a spring of icy, newly-melted mountain water—or a glass of old, yellowed well-water, warmed by the sun.”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Thank you for allowing me to try. I know it’s—it’s not what you wanted, but I can assure you that you are delicious.”

That got a genuine smile out of her. My one true ambition in life is finally achieved: to be tasty.

“You mock that, but let me tell you… some people are not tasty. Truly, you should be honored by such an accolade.”

She laughed breathily, a slightly giddy quality to the sound. I absolutely am honored. If anyone asks, I will tell them: I am extremely edible. Toothsome, ambrosial, and possibly even scrumptious.

My precious wife… she was riding the high of victory and venom, having overcome her fear to the degree of allowing my teeth to pierce her, the relief evident in her smiles and laughter and jokes. I wouldn’t ruin her high by telling her any vampire asking about her taste was also asking to be decapitated with extreme prejudice.

“Ambrosial for me, my lady. Toothsome for me.” I pulled her onto me so she straddled my lap, still overcome with silent giggles. “No other vampire’s fangs will touch you.”

She paused, touching her chest with a concerned look, and grabbed her journal to scribble: Why can’t I stop laughing? 

Then she fell forward, her head thumping onto my chest helplessly and shaking as she was consumed with more inaudible laughter.

I winced, cradling her to me. “I may have allowed a little too much of my saliva to inoculate you against the pain. It was… well, a fairly large dose, considering I tried to ration myself.”

She sat up, signing with loose gestures, her meaning rather nonsensical.

“All right, love, come here. Let’s sleep this off.” I unlaced the stays of her simple dress, peeling the overdress from her and tossing it on the floor. Cirri was like a doll, still trapped in a cycle of giggling and catching her breath, but she gripped me tightly as I pulled her up into the bed.

She flopped over me languidly, one bare leg draped over my thighs, her head and an arm flung across my chest. I stroked her smooth leg idly, unable to hold back a smile at the occasional explosion of shakes that signified her laughter.

“It might be a while before this stops.” I stroked her hair. “Would you like a bedtime story?”

Y-E-S, she signed, and if her hands were her voice, that voice was slurred and drunk.

Ancestors, next time I would use much less venom. My poor wife.

I thought of a story to tell her that would maybe give her a little insight into the people of the keep. My family, hopefully to be hers as well one day.

“Once upon a time, in the days when the vampires still lived Below, there was a bloodwitch who just couldn’t follow the rules and always wanted to test the patience of her elders…”

Cirri erupted into another small earthquake. As much as I enjoyed holding her this close, for her it was going to be a long night.

But as for me—my thirst was quenched, I had a gorgeous woman draped on me in bed, soon I would understand her, and… there was going to be a next time.

As I spoke, and the venom’s effects slowly mutated into a soporific grip on her, I didn’t let myself think about how I didn’t deserve this, or how it all seemed so unreal. Even later, when everything had been ripped away from me, I held onto this moment as the exact night that my life, my hopes, my dreams… they had all changed, suddenly taking an unknown path I had never considered before, a path that led to something I’d long since given up on.

I was going to grip this happiness with both claws and run with it. It was mine now.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 21 Cirri

For the second day in a row, I woke up alone in Bane’s bed.

Instead of rising, I rolled onto my back, staring at the high ceiling, then raised my arm up to my eye level.

The marks his fangs had left were faint, tiny silvery patches, like years-old scars. Or stars… stars that had somehow fallen from the sky and embedded themselves in my skin.

So it was real. I had let him feed from me, and I hadn’t lost my mind to terror, or jerked away and caused irreparable damage to myself. I exhaled a sigh of relief, remembering the strange, dizzying sensation that had crept up on me after he fed. Everything had seemed so funny for no particular reason, my skin had been fizzing with warmth… and Bane had simply cuddled me tight, until I fell into a sleep so deep I didn’t remember a single snatch of dreams.

I blinked at the ceiling, and let my arm drop across my stomach as a sudden frown replaced my smile. What was he studying? I felt a little selfish for wanting him to be here when I woke up, particularly when last night was the first time I had ever tried to meet his needs, but… in my heart of hearts, yes, I was selfish.

I wanted the first thing I heard every morning to be the sound of Bane’s voice. I wanted the first thing I smelled to be his woods-and-smoke scent. I wanted the first sound to be his voice, and my first sight to be the face that had been so dreadful to me a short time ago.

It no longer seemed strange to acknowledge just how much I liked my husband. He was a true friend, like I had always known him in my soul, and we were just working out a few details in the reality of now.

I finally climbed from the bed and began dressing, but only after taking a deep whiff of the pillow Bane had slept on.

Last night was a good first step, and today I would examine the Veladari hymn I’d found in one of the books. I was saving the altar book for last; my sixth sense about books was rarely wrong, and I had a gut feeling that one would be the one to consume all my waking thoughts, but I wanted enough material to be able to translate it first. Today was devoted entirely to the hymn, and to searching the other books for more sample texts.

And when Bane came to fetch me for dinner and we sat down like a proper couple, I would share my progress, and hopefully weasel a detail or two out of him about what he was studying.

But it was not to be.

Dressed and equipped with my journal and pen, I opened the door on Miro, whose hand was raised to knock.

“Good morning, Lady Cirrien.” To my surprise, he sketched a small bow, no hint of his usual cockiness or sly sidelong glances. “I was wondering where you’ve been. You’ve missed our portrait sessions.”

Oh. The damned portrait.

The last thing I wanted to do was sit and listen to Miro make crude jokes, and the books called my name with a silent siren song, but… Bane himself had commissioned the portrait.

He wouldn’t share his blood with me, because I wasn’t what he considered a true mate, but—I felt that we were becoming true friends, at least. We were on the first tentative steps to being lovers. Genuine companions.

If I wasn’t a mate… I could at least be someone he would remember. If he had the portrait, then a hundred years from now, two hundred, he could look back and think of me fondly.

I should stop thinking of it as a gravestone.

One day, it was going to be all that was left of me, and if a portrait was all Bane had left to remember me by, I wanted it to be a damn good one.

I managed to smile at Miro, and signed: I’m ready if you are.

A hint of puzzlement crept into his eyes, but he held out a hand. “After you, then, my lady. We’ll return to the Bloodgarden. I’m already set up there.”

His new, distant politeness was incredibly pleasant, and made it much easier to follow him to the Bloodgarden. The mist was thin today, allowing faint rays of actual sunlight to pierce the usual gloom.

A chair had been nestled against a background of thorny brambles and lush roses, and the canvas was set before it. I glanced at it as I passed, taking in the rough charcoal sketch and the overlaid wash of ochre paint.

“As I was looking at it, I thought the posed formality didn’t seem to suit you.” Miro pondered the sketch. “When I see you, you don’t behave like most of the noblewomen here. There’s more of a… a looseness to you, like you don’t want to be seen, but you can’t help but draw the eye. So I decided we’ll just paint you as you are now. No overdone dresses, no styled hair.”

I pulled my journal out of my bag, being very careful not to allow the back cover to droop open: I’d pressed the tiny rose Bane had left on my pillow yesterday between two pages in the back, where it would remain for eternity.

Then I wrote, I think that’s best. I never feel comfortable in formal clothes. 

Although I didn’t agree with him about drawing eyes—it was probably just the color of my hair, which made me fade into the background easily enough when it was covered—I certainly agreed that overdone was not what I wanted this painting to be.

I wanted it to be as I was now, messy hair and ink stains on my hands, not an idealized memory of someone who had never existed.

Miro read my message and his shoulders relaxed. He smiled at me, running a hand through his dark hair and rumpling the curls. “There’s something we have in common. I don’t, either. Probably because… well, my mother was a noblewoman, but I didn’t inherit the title. I was never expected to dress well or attend comportment classes.”

Oh? I wrote in an effort to be polite, watching him mix paints on a palette. He’d seated me close enough that he could glance over and read the page, even as he used a tiny trowel to mix colors.

Miro examined what he’d made, then picked up a stiff-bristled brush and began dabbing it on the canvas.

“As you know…” He gestured to his face with the brush. “I’ve a Forian father.”

His usual smile was small and twisted. I tapped my pen softly, debating what to say, and finally settled on: Many people have Forian fathers.

Miro let out a soft snort, his gaze flicking between me and the canvas. “The problem is when you live in a place where that’s what they see first,” he said softly. “In the Rift, they see a Forian. In Foria, they see a Veladari. When Mother died, the peacetime hadn’t yet begun—and nobody wanted a half-Forian bastard to inherit her title. Bane kept me on, as I was already her protégé, but my inheritance is long gone.”

It was far too early to be thinking of this, but a polite Miro was better than a crass Miro.

I’m sorry that happened to you, I wrote, thinking that it was a bit much to complain about it every time we met. He was still the court artist of Ravenscry, no small feat.

Perhaps he thought he’d met a kindred spirit in me, having lost a title as well, but I could go the rest of my life and never think of the lai Darran family or estates again, and remain unbothered.

“That’s kind of you,” he said, dredging a new brush through scarlet paint. “But then, you’re always kind, Cirri.” He smiled at me, giving me a long look under dark lashes, and I wondered if this was some sort of joke: I certainly hadn’t been kind in what I’d said the last time we met, and I would gladly say it again. “And this painting… I think this will be my greatest work, and with luck, I’ll move up in the world.”

Artists are always in high demand in Argent, was my neutral contribution.

“Perhaps, but I’m not a city lad. Born and raised in the Rift.” He patted his chest. “I’d just be happy to take my family title back, make them see something more than a Forian by-blow when they look at me.”

I’m sure they will. 

He continued on for some time, and even though I tried my hardest to be an attentive listener, my mind drifted, lulled by the warmth of the rare sunshine on my shoulders.

The hymn… in the space of a late afternoon, I might be able to translate one or two of the High Tongue runes. By the Light, when I could finally present Bane with actual, verifiable translations… it would be the greatest project of my life, the unbinding of a lost language.

So that would be today’s goal, but the fact that he had risen before the sun and vanished again still had my curiosity by the throat. Could he be studying the High Tongue on his own? Or was it something to do with Wyn’s new bloodwitchery, the reason she’d filled a vessel with my blood?

I pondered whether he was holed up in the Tower of Autumn with Wyn, working on something that was possibly deadly—he hadn’t made those warnings for no reason, and I trusted him not to understate the matter—and if I should be concerned about him being involved in something of a dangerous nature.

Which made me huff aloud with laughter. Bane was a fiend. Literally, what could possibly pose a threat to him, outside an army of wargs?

“Is something funny?” Miro glanced up from the canvas, still smiling, but there was a subtle gleam of annoyance in his gaze. “I didn’t realize that I was so amusing.”

Just thinking of Bane, I wrote, and replayed Miro’s last words in my head: he’d said something about the noblemen disliking him.

Well, it clearly hadn’t been the best time to laugh, but then, I could only listen to a constant stream of self-pity and woe for so long before I began to get itchy.

“Ah.” He glanced at what I’d written. “I imagine he occupies your mind quite a bit.”

Instantly my guard went up; I examined his face for the tell-tale signs of petulance I’d come to expect from him, but he appeared almost carefully neutral, disguising his true thoughts.

That tends to happen when you’re married to someone, I wrote.

“It’s just a pity, that’s all,” he continued, brow furrowed as he dabbed more paint on the canvas. “To waste a lai, a beauty like you, on… well, you see what he is.”

And we’re done here, I wrote, holding it up for his perusal before scrawling more in sharp letters. You can keep beating the dead horse, but it’s rotting and it stinks by now. I’d wish for you to have a good day, but something tells me you’ll spend it sulking and miserable and making it worse for everyone else. You can come find me again to finish this when you’ve grown up a bit.

His eyes widened as he read my words, and when I slammed my journal shut and got to my feet, he reached out as though to grab my skirt.

My fist clenched around my pen, and I glared at him hard enough that he withdrew his hand, leaning away from me.

“Cirrien, wait. Wait.” Miro laughed disbelievingly as I walked away. “So you’re just leaving? All right, then. Good day to you too, Lady Silence.”

His mocking nickname pricked at me as I plunged deeper into the Bloodgarden, determined to walk off my irritation before going to the library. I didn’t want to be angry and uncontrolled when I handled the precious books.

Lady Silence. How clever. Really, it was amazing we didn’t fall all over ourselves to appreciate his wit.

I exhaled as I took the curling paths through the garden, until I stumbled into a shadowed corner in the back; the fountain—no, altar—where we’d made our vows was hidden in darkness, the woman’s eyes closed, her mouth no longer spilling blood. Her empty hands were dry, still stained crimson with wine and blood.

If the fountain was here… then our thorns were over there. I retraced the steps I remembered from that night, smiling as I remembered Bane signing, asking me for cats, and found the patch of earth at the base of one of the carved loggia columns where I’d knelt in my wedding dress to dig with my bare hands.

I knelt before it now, unsure whether to smile or frown: our vine was growing. Green tendrils had emerged from the soil and were beginning to creep up the column, the tiniest nubs of what would become thorns blistering their sides. There was even a bud with the faintest hint of pink to it, a bloodrose born of our conjoined hands.

But the earth here had been disturbed, and recently. I touched the freshly scattered soil, breathing in the scent of newly-turned earth.

Who had been digging in our vines?

I was happy to see it already growing, a sign, as Bane had explained to me, that their ancestors were pleased with us. But to come here and dig around in it… what purpose did that serve?

I would ask him when I saw him tonight; I made a mental note to make a written note, so I wouldn’t forget.

But forget I wouldn’t; it still nagged at me as I made my way to the library, my irritation with Miro overcome by the unsettlement I felt at the knowledge that someone had specifically found our vines and dug there.

I settled myself at my usual table in the library, wrote it down in my journal, and pulled the book with the Veladari hymn towards myself, diving headfirst into the work.

Disquiet became enthusiasm as the afternoon slipped by; it was almost impossible to keep my excitement tamped down. I identified several of the known High Tongue runes in the passage across from the hymn, cross-comparing and finding the translated words in the correct places.

So this was a parallel text, and perfectly positioned to directly translate the High Tongue verse alongside it.

I notated the new runes, checking a formal Veladari dictionary as I went. The formal version of our language hadn’t been used as common vernacular in over a millennia, but my initial suspicions seemed to be supported: the High Tongue runes seemed heavily influenced by them, or vice versa.

I’d managed to confidently add several words to the new, functional dictionary of the High Tongue that I was creating when the hair on the back of my neck rose, standing straight up. Chills followed, creeping down my spine and arms.

Something was watching me.

I looked up slowly without moving my head, taking in the library. The sky, framed in the high arched windows, was tipping towards evening in shades of rose and lavender; the shadows had grown long, and the candles had already been lit.

There was no sign of Koryek, whose silent presence I had grown used to. No sign of any servants.

I was alone, and yet I felt the slow creep and crawl of eyes on my back.

Gripping my pen as a makeshift weapon—I should keep a letter-opener here, was the sluggish thought at the back of my mind—I burst into motion, kicking my chair back and spinning around, pen held to stab.

But I froze in place at the sight of what watched me from the library doors, all thoughts of stabbing overcome by a deep, stark sense of wrongness, overlaid by a sense of awe at the sheer, strange beauty of them.

Whatever they were, they weren’t alive. Not in the sense of a living, breathing being with blood in their veins.

I wasn’t entirely sure that they had veins, in fact.

They were the shape and height of people, if people had been reduced to mere outlines: a head on a neck, joined to a torso, with limbs in the right places… even fingers and toes. Both stood several inches taller than myself.

But they had no faces. No eyes, no mouth or nose, no distinguishable features.

The one on the left was made thorny vines; black and spiny, as though the bloodroses’ brambles had grown into the shape of a vaguely masculine being, torn themselves free, and walked away.

The one on the right was softer, smoother; I decided it was a ‘she’ based on the more feminine form, and she was nothing but velvety crimson petals, molded into the shape of a woman.

I stared at them, and… they stared back. Eyelessly. Unmoving. Simply standing in the doorway, facing me.

Goosebumps rippled over my flesh as I debated my options. I had no idea what they were. I’d never seen anything like them before. If it had been a warg, my options would’ve been clear: fight or die. If it had been Miro, I could’ve handled that with some harsh words.

But these things, shaped like people, made of thorns and roses… I couldn’t even begin to guess what they were, or if they could be killed at all.

I’d made up my mind to focus on the thorny one first—his spines could be dangerous—when a voice rang out from behind them.

“Oh, for the ancestors’ sakes, there you’ve got off to—!”

At first, with the strangeness of it and the adrenaline humming through my veins, I couldn’t quite make sense of Wyn’s voice here, in the library, right at this moment.

But the bloodwitch came striding in, shooing the figures apart with little waves of her fingers. By the Light, they even moved like people—Thorn moved aside grudgingly, his head turning towards Wyn, while Rose did a dainty little side-step, with the grace of a born dancer.

Wyn huffed, adjusting her robes, and held out her hands like an impresario. “It worked! I am absolutely brilliant, if I do say so myself.”

Thorn’s head had turned towards me again. I cautiously reached for my journal, unwilling to move my eyes from the things for more than a few seconds. What worked? This? By the Light, what are they? 

“These are yours, made specifically for you by yours truly.” Wyn laughed, clapping her hands together with delight as she looked Rose up and down. “They’re a variety of golem, I suppose, as a Fae-made golem was the basis for their forms, but I’ve removed all unnecessary aggression from their magical makeup, and my own sanguimancy has imbued them with some rather interesting properties.”

Unnecessary aggression? I wasn’t entirely sure what a golem was to begin with, but if it was anywhere near as disturbing as these, I didn’t want to meet one.

“So.” Wyn gestured to Rose. “It’s become obvious that you won’t accept the help of the maids; now you have this lovely companion. And here…” She gestured to Thorn. “It will protect you with its… well, not its last breath, as it doesn’t have lungs, but you get the idea.”

I nodded numbly.

Why did they come here? I asked.

A wavering expression crossed Wyn’s face, half apologetic, half triumphant. “They’re made with your own blood, Cirrien. They weren’t released from the wards until after we’d run some necessary tests—ensuring they wouldn’t become hostile, or mutate, or… ah, any number of other things—but as your blood is the component for the sanguimancy giving them a semblance of life, they were drawn to you, like iron to a lodestone. Wherever you are, they’ll want to find you. Truly, this is a work of genius, and while I don’t expect anyone else to appreciate the magnitude of such an accomplishment, I feel absolutely zero scruples about shouting my achievement from the rooftops.”

She rubbed her hands together with glee, leaving me to stare at her.

They were going to follow me everywhere? Was… was this what Bane had been working on?

How lovely, I wrote weakly, wondering how I was going to sleep at night ever again, and startled as Rose raised her hands.

Thank you, she signed, ducking her head as though bashful, and my heart started racing. I lowered the journal and pen to the table.

“Yes,” Wyn said slyly. “As I said, they were made for you. They’re simple—after all, they are creations, not living creatures—but they will understand you. With that being said, these are the first of their kind. Perhaps I will refine the design and grant them more intelligence, though the ancestors know, a construct with intelligence of its own is always asking for trouble.”

You hear me? I asked with my hands, and Rose nodded. Thorn’s spiny hands moved more slowly, his movements cautious: I hear.

Rose stepped towards me, her movements still dainty and graceful; that must have been part of her design. Pretty, she said, touching my hair, then her own face. Same.

I couldn’t lie to myself; I was still quite nervous of them, these creatures made of Fae magic and Wyn’s bloodwitchery, but the wistful motion of Rose’s hand as she touched her own petal cheek was so… human.