Page 57 of With Wing And Claw

The slap of a wingbeat sounded behind her.

A footstep echoed through the lifeless hall.

She reacted too slowly, turned too late. Before the alarm could spread from her senses to her muscles, a ruthless arm had already hooked around her throat and yanked her backwards; in the same moment, a knife swept into view, settling against the soft underside of her jaw before she could somuch as cry out.

She stiffened from head to toe.

Ragged breath rasped against her ear.

‘One move,’ a voice she knew and didn’t know growled, arms tightening around her throat as the tip of the knife dug into her skin. ‘One wrong move, and you’re dead.’

Chapter 14

It wasn’t the bladethat paralysed her.

She’d felt and dealt with daggers to the throat before. As unpleasant as they might be, they were rarely the end of a fight; if it had been only the knife, she would have raised her hands in surrender, talked her way out of things, then taken down her assailant in a swift and efficient storm of magic as soon as she’d been released from his hold.

But the sight of the armholdingthe weapon …

She could feel the blood draw from her face just looking at it.

Every visible inch of it was covered in bargain marks. Dozens upon dozens of gem shards in every colour of the rainbow, scattered across a skin as dark as her own – the resulting pattern strangely reminiscent of the Labyrinth’s gem-studded walls. And again, age-old, long-buried memories stirred in dusty, spider-webbed corners of her mind …

She hadn’t evenknown, back then, how dangerous it was to stack bargains. How great the risk of incompatible obligations and inevitable death. She’d just sat in that familiar lap and counted marks. Picked a new favourite colour every single time. Asked for the stories behind them and giggled at the more and more ridiculous fabrications.

The Bargainer, they’d called him.

Now she remembered.

‘Uncle Silas?’ she whispered, voice choked. ‘Is … is that you?’

He froze behind her.

‘Oh, gods.’ She almost forgot about the knife against her throat, remembering only at the last moment not to whip around. ‘It’s me. Thysandra. I—'

The hand on her throat loosened. ‘Thys?’

‘Oh gods.’ Now she fully recognised his voice, the sound hitting her like the scent of an old home one hadn’t visited in decades. ‘Oh,gods. You actuallyare—’

He let go of her, and she spun around so fast her wing missed him by inches, her heart a drum against her ribs. There he stood, the male she only remembered as a giant towering over her, now suddenly a mere half head taller. Black hair shorn short. Golden wings drawn tense. And those bargain marks, gleaming like the world’s most menacing jewellery beneath the collar of his off-white shirt …

‘Oh,’ she breathed again, staggering backward to find the support of the wall.

‘How in hell—’ he started, then abruptly interrupted himself, gaze shooting to the nearest entrance with the vigilance of a hunting falcon. Gone was the moment of dazed bewilderment, the mutual paralysis; his voice went tight, urgent in the blink of an eye. ‘Never mind. Who else is with you? Who else knows you’re here?’

‘I— No. No one.’ The words fell from her lips like mindless babble. ‘I’m alone. I—’

His golden eyes narrowed – distrust and disbelief thick as storm clouds. ‘Really? Did she send you here?’

She.

It took a moment to figure out who he was talking about.

‘No!’ she blurted, breathless and rushed. ‘No, you don’t understand— She’sdead. The Mother isdead. I’m the only one—’

He stiffened. ‘What?’

‘There was a battle.’ Gods, where was she even supposed to start? ‘Almost two weeks ago now. She challenged the other magical peoples. At the White City. Then she lost, and … and they killed her.’