Page 7 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Seven

The Amulet

Clover

“They were rude,” Darby said as she slid her nightgown over her inky skin.

“We knew they would be rude,” Hadrian reminded her.

Darby stuck her bottom lip out, and Clover thought about drawing it into her mouth and having them all forget about the last couple days, weeks, months. That was what she wanted for the two loves of her life, for them to not continue to know all the heartache and risk everything for her.

Not that she could let them go. Even when she thought about how much safer the two full-blooded Fae would be in their little houses married to someone else or, gods forbid, each other.

She just couldn’t fathom letting them go.

Yes, she was a human with zero magic of her own, just her father’s amulet, which promised her something she was sure would forever be just out of reach.

She’d used it once to save her loves from the Red Masks’ arena purge.

She’d never been able to make it work since and was almost certain she never would.

“Don’t pout,” Hadrian said with an eye roll.

Clover smirked. “Now, now, sweetheart, be nice to our little princess.”

Hadrian’s back went up at the old nickname. “We can’t control how these bigoted people see Kerrigan is all I mean. They hate humans and half-Fae. I’m not sure what they’re thinking, bringing us all here as if we can change their minds just by having Fordham on the throne.”

“I for one believe that’s the only way to initiate change,” Darby argued. “We can’t let their prejudices stand. Kerrigan is half-Fae. Clover is human. They’re the best of us.”

“Aww, baby, you say such sweet things,” Clover teased, tipping Darby’s chin up with a finger.

Darby’s eyes went round with desire. “Do you think we can change their minds?”

“No,” Clover said automatically.

Hadrian huffed. “Don’t be a pessimist.”

Clover arched an eyebrow at Hadrian. “You were just agreeing with me.”

“I didn’t say we can’t change their minds. I just don’t think we should start with the House of Shadows. They’re nightmare fodder for children.”

“We need their army,” Clover said with a shrug. “A show of strength. Once Kerrigan and Fordham secure that, then we’ll work with the allies we already have. We don’t have to convince everyone. We just have to show enough force to go up against the Red Masks and the Society.”

“Oh, is that all?” Darby muttered.

Hadrian slid an arm around Clover’s waist and drew her into him. “You’re sexy when you discuss strategy.”

Darby held her hand out. “Why am I not involved in the sexy strategy?”

Clover laughed and drew her girlfriend against her as well.

It had been such a long time coming for them.

She had always liked Darby, but as a human, she had felt so far beneath Darby and all her beauty and magnificence.

She was going places, and that was away from Clover.

And when that possibility had splintered, Clover had fallen into Hadrian’s arms, content to have him but always yearning for both.

When Darby had finally come around, they weren’t sure how it would possibly work.

But in the weeks of Kerrigan’s absence, hidden away from the world, they had found that it had worked better than expected.

“Let’s not talk sexy strategy. Leave that to our king and queen,” Clover teased. “It’s been a long day. To bed with you lot.”

Hadrian pulled them both toward the large bed at the center of their new chambers.

It was a serious upgrade from the space they’d been holed up with the RFA—Rights For All—organization back in Kinkadia.

They’d been working on replicating her father’s amulet, hoping to find out how it produced magic.

Even though Clover told them over and over again that her father hadn’t gotten it to work.

It was why he was dead after all.

The Red Masks had discovered what he was doing and killed both her parents for it.

They would have killed Clover too, but her mother had stashed her away with the Laments church.

She’d hidden in the catacombs among the bones as the church had been burned to the ground.

She’d crawled out after and run straight to Dozan Rook.

He had the loch and the new identity that she needed to survive.

He’d given her a place at his Dragons Up card tables, where she had earned her keep and found herself all over again.

“I need a cigarette first,” Clover said. “Get in bed, and I’ll just be a minute.”

Darby and Hadrian slid under the covers on either side of the bed, leaving the middle for her. The space that she was always meant to occupy.

She lit her loch cigarette with shaking hands.

Her stash had dwindled significantly, and looking at it made her heart ache.

She didn’t know what she would do if they didn’t find an alternative.

Amond had said there was nothing more that he could do for her illness.

He’d tried to cure her over the years, but what she had didn’t have a cure.

Not even from a fancy healer. There was only managing the symptoms, and she couldn’t be under his blue healing light day and night.

The loch gradually settled her nerves as she inhaled the white smoke.

“Sing for us,” Darby pleaded somewhere between being awake and asleep.

Clover sighed. She didn’t sing much anymore. That had been stolen with her parents’ deaths as well. But for her loves…

She took another long pull on her cigarette before stubbing it out against their tiny balcony that they’d been afforded because of her smoking habit. She ran her finger over her father’s amulet as she began the lullaby that her mother had always used to sing her to sleep.

Sleep, my little darling.

May dreams soothe and obey.

Turn the charm one, two, three times.

Don’t leave. I want you to stay.

Clover followed the words of the song, turning the amulet when the song said.

Sleep, my little angel.

Open the heart, and I’ll appear.

Speak my name one, two, three times.

No fear. I’ll always be near.

She tilted her head. Speak the name three times.

“Clover. Clover. Clover,” she whispered into the stillness.

Her amulet lit up in her hands. Her eyes widened in shock as the thing split in half, a little heart opening at the middle.

“Oh my gods,” she gasped.

Hadrian and Darby sat up in bed. They exclaimed at the amulet, which had sat dormant for weeks, despite trying everything, but her parents had left her the clues for it all along.

“How?” Hadrian asked as he scrambled to her side.

“Clover, you did it,” Darby said.

The amulet was hers now, but what could it do?

She thought about how Kerrigan always said magic felt like a well within her and she needed to draw it out and shape it.

Well, the magic wasn’t in Clover. It was in the ancient Fae tendrille amulet that had been crafted for her.

She reached and for the first time felt the threads of magic at her fingertips.

Fire appeared in her hand.

She looked up at her two loves and smiled a very dangerous smile.

“Dragons up, baby.”