Page 92

The haze started to creep over her vision, her muscles seizing painfully, her fingertips curled as if imagining shredding into someone—

“Walk it off,” Hunt murmured.

“Leave me alone, Athalar.” She wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t stand him or her brother or anyone. If the acolyte’s murder had been because of their presence at the temple, either as a warning or because the girl might have seen something related to the Horn, if they’d accidentally brought her death about … Her legs kept moving, swifter and swifter. Hunt didn’t falter for a beat.

She wouldn’t cry. Wouldn’t dissolve into a hyperventilating mess on the street corner. Wouldn’t scream or puke or—

After another block, Hunt said roughly, “I was there that night.”

She kept walking, her heels eating up the pavement.

Hunt asked, “How did you survive the kristallos?”

He’d no doubt been looking at the body just now and wondering this. How did she, a pathetic half-breed, survive when full-blooded Vanir hadn’t?

“I didn’t survive,” she mumbled, crossing a street and edging around a car idling in the intersection. “It got away.”

“But the kristallos pinned Micah, ripped open his chest—”

She nearly tripped over the curb, and whipped around to gape at him. “That was Micah?”

24

She had saved Micah Domitus that night.

Not some random legionary, but the gods-damned Archangel himself. No wonder the emergency responder had launched into action when he traced the phone number.

The knowledge rippled through her, warping and clearing some of the fog around her memories. “I saved the Governor in the alley.”

Hunt just gave her a slow, wincing nod.

Her voice sharpened. “Why was it a secret?”

Hunt waited until a flock of tourists had passed before saying, “For his sake. If word got out that the Governor had his ass handed to him, it wouldn’t have looked good.”

“Especially when he was saved by a half-breed?”

“No one in our group ever used that term—you know that, right? But yes. We did consider how it’d look if a twenty-three-year-old human-Fae female who hadn’t made the Drop had saved the Archangel when he couldn’t save himself.”

Her blood roared in her ears. “Why not tell me, though? I looked in all the hospitals, just to see if he’d made it.” More than that, actually. She’d demanded answers about how the warrior was recovering, but she’d been put on hold or ignored or asked to leave.

“I know,” Hunt said, scanning her face. “It was deemed wiser to keep it a secret. Especially when your phone got hacked right after—”

“So I was just going to live in ignorance forever—”

“Did you want a medal or something? A parade?”

She halted so quickly that Hunt had to splay his wings to pause, too. “Go fuck yourself. What I wanted …” She tried to stop the sharp, jagged breaths that blinded her, built and built under her skin— “What I wanted,” she hissed, resuming her walk as he just stared at her, “was to know that something I did made a difference that night. I assumed you’d dumped him in the Istros—some legionary grunt not worth the honor of a Sailing.”

Hunt shook his head. “Look, I know it was shitty. And I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for all of it, Quinlan. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, and I’m sorry you’re on my suspect list, and I’m sorry—”

“I’m on your what?” she spat. Red washed over her vision as she bared her teeth. “After all of this,” she seethed, “you think I am a fucking suspect?” She screamed the last words, only pure will keeping her from leaping on him and shredding his face off.

Hunt held up his hands. “That—fuck, Bryce. That didn’t come out right. Look—I had to consider every angle, every possibility, but I know now … Solas, when I saw your face in that alley, I realized it couldn’t ever have been you, and—”

“Get the fuck out of my sight.”

He watched her, assessing, then spread his wings. She refused to back up a step, teeth still bared. The wind off his wings stirred her hair, throwing his cedar-and-rain scent into her face as he leapt into the skies.