Page 131 of With Wing And Claw

‘Bereas?’ she repeated, louder now.

The hall was so dreadfully silent around them. There he lay, the male who might have brought her court to its knees with his reckless, violent pride … bruised and broken, and heartbeats away from death.

Something curled around his lips. A sneer, even now.

‘I can still heal you,’ she heard herself say. A lie, quite possibly – but then, what had he ever done to deserve the truth from her? ‘I’ll heal you, if you tell me how you knew to attack this gallery.’

He blinked.

A spark of consciousness flared in his gaze.

‘How …’ His lips moved almost without sound, nothing but a raspy whisper slipping out. ‘How I knew …’

‘Theattack, Bereas.’ She fell to her knees beside him, as if she could glare the memory back into his battered mind. She had to know. Shehadto know. Nothing she’d done wrong, and yet … ‘Who told you?’

He blinked at her again, and then …

Then helaughed.

‘Oh.’ Grating chuckles bubbled up from his throat, blood frothing out with them. His chest shook with the physical effort. ‘So …. sorry to tell you, Thys. You’re …’ Another wheezing inhale. ‘You’re fucking the wrong person, love.’

She stiffened. ‘What?’

His breath grew more strained.

‘Wait— Bereas,wait.’ Trembling fingers. Bloodied skin. Blue, so much blue in her dress – but where should she even start? ‘What do you mean—’

He blew out one last ragged exhalation under her hands.

And then he no longer moved.

You’re fucking the wrong person.

She sat on the cracked flagstone, bleeding from wounds she no longer even felt, and stared with unseeing eyes at the ravaged hall around her. Shattered faces. Splintered limbs. Broken marble as far as the eye could see, the pedestals cratered, the names on them illegible. Millennia of fae rulers, fallen without so much as a fight – oh, she truly fit in well with them, didn’t she?

An embarrassment. A liar.

A traitor, and hell, everyone knew it now.

You’re fucking the wrong person.

They shouldn’t have known to attack the gallery. They shouldn’t have known she’d be making a last, desperate attempt to do better here. She’d told no one, she’d believed two minutes ago … and only now did she realise that was not true. That she’d merely wanted it to be true. That she’d wanted it so much, really, that she hadn’t even allowed herself to see the crystal-clear facts before her.

That one person had known exactly where she’d be, and why.

That one person had knowneverythingfor weeks.

Four of them, she’d told herself again and again. Gadyon. Nicanor. Inga. Silas. One of them must have betrayed her secrets to the world, and only now did she realise she had entirely, completely overlooked the fact that there had been a fifth suspect on the list all along—

‘Sashka?’

No.

Please, gods, no.

‘Sashka.’ Quiet footsteps, inching closer, and she did not dare to lift her head as that soft, soothing, spellbinding voice drew closer. ‘What did he say? What is the matter? Why are you feeling so … so …’

Shocked.