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He dragged his knife along the grains of damp sand. “Ready to go home?”

Home. To an empty tenement. The patience and endurance of Cuyler and his men was admirable. Whenever I returned to Raven Row after visiting other kingdoms, they lived in tight quarters in rotted tenements well beneath the glamor and spacious cottages in the Court of Blood.

They never complained. At least not to my face.

In truth, my small tenement had felt less and less like home and more a place of empty reminders of laughter that once filled the walls when Stef and I would play face cards until the early morning, or when we’d read strange fairy tales of the sea folk in the lands below the surf.

Those stopped being enjoyable when I met some of those damn sea folk.

Their ships were horrid and they were hardly polite.

“Ready?” Cuyler pressed again. He stood and held out a hand.

“No,” I said as I stood. I didn’t bother wiping the mud off my trousers, more would always come. “I don’t feel like going home quite yet.”

“Where do you want to go?”

I hugged my middle. “I want to see my brother. I have a fate tale to write, and he’s going to tell me how to get the words back.”

Chapter6

The Storyteller

If every kingdomwere part of a living soul, Etta would be the heart that kept us vibrant, Klockglas in the East would be the brain that kept us scheming, and the fae isles of the South would be the blood that kept us living.

Raven Row would be the shit.

Roads made of mud, goat droppings, and a touch of vomit crisscrossed through tattered tenements and haggard taverns and hostels. A haze always hugged the buildings in a low mist as though the stench from unwashed skin and refuse was too putrid to rise to the clouds, so it remained.

I hardly noticed anymore. It wasn’t filth, it was home.

With a long draw of breath, I filled my lungs of the heavy essence of the Row. Behind me, dozens of boots squelched in the mud, blades scraped in leather sheathes, and murmurs of the thick stink drew a grin to the corner of my mouth.

I adjusted the wide brim hat over my wild braids and flicked my gaze to the blood heir. “Cuy, you don’t need to follow me. I know how much you resent me when I make you trudge through the Row.”

Cuyler’s full lips spread, flashing his white teeth. “I’m delighted to trudge, Cal.”

Lord Gorm would smack the back of his son’s skull if the blood lord ever heard his heir address me so casually. Hells, I appreciated it.

All my life, I’d been a street urchin. A fate worker who merely wanted to survive the snatchers who occasionally came to the Western shores to buy up witches. Now, I had a crown plopped atop my head, and the thought of anyone bowing, dressing, or adorning me in finery caused my stomach to roll in disquiet.

I understood my Shadow King’s aversion to titles completely.

“Storm’s coming.” Cuyler repeated, gesturing overhead. Dark billows of ruthless clouds shadowed the already dim streets. “Still want to go?”

“A little rain never hurt the Row.” Truth be told, rain caused some of the more pleasant scents to emerge once the grime was washed away.

I led the procession of blood fae down the road, occasionally drawing a few hazy glances from drunkards spilling out of Olaf’s game hall. Over the turns, Lord Gorm—possibly Ari—had casually sent no less than two units of blood fae watchers. At least forty guards meant to be at my personal disposal.

They’d merely become another spectacle in a kingdom filled with the lowliest of folk. Pleasant folk, but lowly. Raven Row, the whole of the West, was docile. Almost made up of wanderers. There wasn’t much aspiration in the people who walked these streets, at least nothing behind the next drop of ale or how much kopar coin they could win at the game tables.

A few were helpful. Sometimes.

Dock men had always provided Stefan with skiffs if we wanted to sail out to cleaner coves on the far edges of the kingdom.

The old seamstress who mended and patched old tunics better than any royal tailor I’d ever encountered, did it for a few fate prophecies or a bit of sweet bread if I could scrounge any up from the stingy bakers nearest toHus Rose, the crumbling palace.

The old hags who thought they were goddesses by calling themselves the Norns were irritating, but they’d delivered a few missives for me here and there.