Page 34 of With Wing And Claw

Right.

That shouldn’t have been a reassurance.

Really,nothingthis treacherous little creature said or did should make her feel any safer … and yet she couldn’t help her loosening shoulders as she took two steps towards the door and swung it open. Damn the caution, then. If anyone attacked her, at least she’d have a demon watching her back.

The black-haired female who came tumbling over the doorstep looked like attacking anyone was the last thing on her mind, though.

‘Thysandra.’ She gasped the name, falling to her knees in a rush of violet wings. ‘Your Majesty, I mean. Myson, Your Majesty – my son was taken by the Labyrinth! He’s nowhere to be found, and the others aren’t either, and—’

Thysandra stiffened.

Her mind needed half a second to shift – an almost physically painful adjustment from the simple court quarrels she’d expected to something with the potential to be much worse. The bloodyLabyrinth? But she’d given orders that no one was to enter that cursed place yesterday, hadn’t she? She’d posted fae around the bone hall to keep curious idiots out?

Vaguely, she was aware of Naxi’s muffled giggle behind her.

‘Could you repeat that,’ she slowly said, bracing herself against the carved doorframe, ‘and then start from the beginning, please?’

‘It … it started last night,’ the kneeling female stammered, her purple wings quivering. She was wearing a particularly flimsy chemise and nothing else, Thysandra only noticed then; most of the company around her was similarly dressed, or rather, barely dressed. ‘There were strange lights coming from the bone hall. Which didn’t seem much to worry about at first, but now people have started going in, and—’

‘Tell me more about that,’ Thysandra interrupted sharply. ‘Who? Why? I seem to remember I gave explicit commands yesterday that no one was to go anywhere near the place under any circumstances.’

The female at her feet let out a shuddering wail. ‘It wasn’tvoluntarily, Your Majesty!’

A disconcerted silence fell.

‘Not … voluntarily?’ Thysandra repeated, lifting her gaze to the rest of the company standing huddled in the corridor – hoping, against her wiser expectations, that one of them would step forward and turn this madness into sanity. ‘Could you elaborate? Is anyoneforcingpeople to go into the Labyrinth?’

A lanky male wearing only a lacy dressing gown cleared his throat, nervously glancing back and forth between Thysandra and the female on the floor. ‘The … the Labyrinth itself, it seems.’

Centuries of keeping a straight face were barely enough to keep her expression in check. ‘Come again?’

‘It seems to be … enchanting people?’ He swallowed visibly. ‘Their eyes go all glazed and they wander off towards its entrances. I saw three or four people flounder into the bone hall before I got the hell out of there, but some others—’

‘My son,’ the violet-winged female sobbed. ‘My son was lured into the gate near the west cove, Your Majesty!’

‘But that gate issealed,’Thysandra sputtered, knowing damn well it was hardly the most important point about this situation but unable to ignore it all the same. ‘The Mother closed it centuries ago. How could anyone—’

‘That little halfblood opened it!’ the desperate mother burst out. ‘Emelin!’

Oh.

Ohgods.

It took them all down, Naxi had said about the fae who tried to reach her in the bone hall – but that had been only the bone hall, and only the people unwise enough to actively fly within the Labyrinth’s reach. Why in the world had no one told her the other entrances to the caves had been opened as well? She was the fucking High Lady of this court, for the bloody gods’ sakes – how in hell was she supposed to protect its people if no one even informed her of the dangers in the first place?

‘Alright,’ she said, gritting her teeth to keep down the scream welling up in her throat.Show no confusion, her thoughts droned.Show no weakness. ‘You there – get me a list of the opened gates within an hour. The two of you – I need names of the people who disappeared into the mountain. In the meantime—’

‘I could go take a look?’ Naxi’s bright voice interrupted.

Thysandra hadn’t thought anything could further startle the gathered fae around the doorway, but it turned out the presence of a broadly smiling demon in an adorable pink dress was enough to stun even the wailing female at her feet into silence.

‘You?’ she heard herself blurt, and there was far too much shock in her voice. ‘But—’

But you were going to leave. She almost let those pathetic words fall from her lips for half the court to hear –but I no longer needed you. You agreed so easily that you should finally leave me alone …

Far, far too easily.

The floor was sinking away beneath her feet.