Page 100 of Hexbound

"Ready?"

"Not really." Verity shot him a tremulous smile. "But I don't have much of a choice."

"They can't hurt you now."

She glanced down. "It's not really me that I'm worried about."

Bishop tilted her chin up. "Don't hide those beautiful eyes." All he could see was green, and the nervousness within them. "And don't worry about me either, Ver. I'm not an easy target to take down."

"I'll stop worrying on one condition."

"Name it."

"That you don't try to protect me in here," she said, and her lips firmed in determination. "Focus on yourself, and I'll take care of me."

She was right, damn her. Verity was his one weakness, which he'd already proven to the Hex. And every time he'd tried to protecther, he was the one who'd been bitten on the ass.

"Duly noted. Anything else, my love?"

Verity studied him. Then smiled. "No. You can call me that again though. I like the sound of it on your tongue."

He liked it too.

"Rathbourne," he greeted, steering Verity closer to his half-brother and the others.

"Bishop." Their eyes met, and once again Bishop could feel that shiver of portent through his veins as he and Rathbourne came into close proximity. Prophecy. He didn't believe in it. He didn't. But he couldn't deny that something shifted in the fabric of the world around him whenever he saw Rathbourne.

What did that even mean?

"Well-met," Ianthe said, peering around at the seven roads that spiraled out from the sundial. There were no watchers sitting on their corners today, indeed no sign of anyone to be found.

He could feel eyes on him, however. Bishop traced out, his psychic senses rippling across five auras in the nearby vicinity. "Five of them."

"We're not here to fight," Ianthe told him, resting a hand on his wrist. "Please lead on, Miss Hawkins. I've had a message saying that they'll meet with us at midday, no earlier, no later."

"Do you think there will be any traps?" Rathbourne asked Verity.

Verity hesitated. "Maybe, though I doubt it. The Hex Council will be more curious in what you have to say first."

"So any ambushes will come after the meeting," Bishop said.

"Unless they come from the One-Eyed Crows," she pointed out. "Guthrie won't want this meeting. He's the only one who might know what it entails, and the last thing he wants is the council getting involved."

"Noted." He and Rathbourne exchanged a glance. Both of them had people they wished to protect.

Ianthe glanced at her pocket watch. "Let's get under way. They'll be waiting for us."

Verity and Bishop led the way, with Rathbourne guiding both of the other women.

The Dials were quiet. Here and there he saw movement from the shadows of a roof, and fog curled in wisps as it slithered down shingles and smoked its way out of narrow alleys.

"We're being watched," he murmured.

"Of course we are," Verity replied.

"One-Eyed Crows?"

"Not in this street. This territory belongs to the White Rabbits, and not even Guthrie would cross Queen Mab. She runs most of the brothels here, and it's said anyone who at her looks sideways ends up hexed with syphilis." She tucked her collar up against the chill and leaned in closer to him.