Page 53 of With Wing And Claw

‘Oh, that wouldn’t be too bad,’ Naxi airily informed her, whirling around to reach for the linen-wrapped rolls on the top shelf. ‘I’m delicious.’

There probably wasn’t much use in feigning disagreement.

But this was madness – reckless, foolish madness. Already she was surrendering much too easily. Already she was inching much too close tolikingthe little terror, her eyes clinging to those swift, dainty feet rushing around her living room. The months after the Last Battle had been bad, so very bad, and this …

This had the potential to be a thousand times worse.

It was weakness to even admit it. She would end up twice as weak if she ignored the fact, though.

‘I’mserious,’ she ground out, wishing it sounded more convincing. Wishing she was more convinced. It would be the beginning of the end, she knew, letting this grow into more than mere ill-advised infatuation … but staring at the small creature spinning through her room, dancing on that thin line between charm and threat, the end seemed a glorious destination. ‘Just sleeping. No fucking. I’ll agree under those conditions.’

‘Oh, sure, Sashka. Tell yourself that.’ Naxi rolled her eyes at her, then turned away and fluttered towards the kitchen counter, all blushing innocence again. ‘Anyway, lunch?’

Chapter 13

The document in herhand was a nightmare.

Thysandra had been staring at it for a good ten minutes already, until the ink had begun to blur before her eyes, and still the numbers and letters refused to arrange themselves into something slightly more palatable. She wasn’t even hoping for it to turn into somethinggood. It didn’t even need to beacceptable. All she wanted was for it to be …

Well. Notthis.

Mortal deaths in the year 3215, the heading at the top of the page said, and below that was a list as stark as it was horrifying:

Accidents (farm, construction, etc.) – 46

Infections – 39

Childbed – 21

Various diseases – 61

Starvation – 53

Execution –7

Fae encounters – 48

And at the very bottom of the list, almost an afterthought …

Old age – 2

For what had to be the fiftieth time this morning, her eyes flew back to the start of the list, scanning down the same unchanged words again.

It did not make sense. Nothing about it made the smallest lick of sense. Infections and diseases weren’t supposed tokillpeople, for bloody hell’s sake; a bit of blue magic could heal all but the most extreme cases. Andchildbed? About a hundred human children had been born on the island in that particular year, another administrative document had informed her … which meant that, good gods, afifthof the human mothers had died giving birth?

What was the statistic for fae? One in a thousand?

And somehow, impossibly, the rest was even worse. How in hell did anyone starve at a court where lavish banquets were a weekly occurrence? What in Korok’s flaming hell wasfae encounterssupposed to mean?

Best to sneak in before sunrise and out during dinnertime, Inga had said, and a hollow feeling in Thysandra’s stomach suggested these were exactly the sort ofencountersthe girl had been talking about. Forty-eight casualties. And unless all involved fae had proudly confessed to their actions, that might not even be the full extent of it. How many human bodies lay buried in Faewood, unseen and unregistered? How many murders had coyly been classified asaccidentsinstead?

A vicious headache was sharpening behind her eyes.

It had been five days since Symeon had made his attempt on her life. Four since Nicanor had gathered his commanders and informed them that, since humans were now a scarce resource at the court, their High Lady would be most displeased to lose even more of them. Which was the safest way to put it, of course, a way that didn’t sound like she was conspiring with the Alliance, and so far it had technicallyworked…

But staring at this list – at the world of suffering that hid behind these blunt numbers, year after year after year – she was overcome by thereckless, foolish urge to slam her fist onto the table and tell them they would be following her orders for the sake of fuckingdecencyfirst.

Had the Mother known about this?