Page 156 of Taste of Thorns

“You could keep it. Badge of honor. It looks pretty bad-ass.”

“I have enough badges of honor. I’m more than happy to lose this one. Besides, I like it that people look at me and don’t see bad-ass. It means they underestimate me.”

“Clever and bad-ass. I like it.” I hold her head between my hands and examine the deep scrapes that run down her face. Three of them in a row. An anger flares in my stomach. It’s just as well that bitch Bardin has escaped because I don’t think I could keep any promises to let justice run its course. I blow soft shadows across her face and she sighs as they soothe the injured skin and knot it seamlessly back together.

“There,” I say, “good as new. And just as beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she says, reaching up on her toes and kissing my mouth. I pull her close, debating whipping the towel away and wearing her out after all.

But she pulls back first, looks up into my face and says, “Did you know about Linny?”

“Know what? That the girl is only a little less deranged than her sister?”

“I don’t think she’s anywhere near as deranged as her sister,” she mutters.

I smile at her, resuming my work of drying her body. “What’s this? You spend a couple of hours in the girl’s company and now you’re best pals?”

“Errr, no.” She makes a face. “But I do feel a little sorry for her.”

“With a sister like Henny …”

“Yes, that, and she can’t shadow weave. She has no powers.”

My hands freeze, the towel hanging from them. “You don’t say?” She nods. “You sure about that? She wasn’t just playing games with you, refusing to help–”

“That’s what I thought at first. But I was wrong. She doesn’t have any.”

“Shit.”

“Have you ever heard of that before? A shadow weaver not having the ability?”

“Never.”

I try to recall if I’ve ever seen Linny wield magic, but she’s always been with Henny and Henny’s magic is so crazy and chaotic, it’s damn distracting. The perfect cover.

I shake my head and my body.

“She’ll be sent to Granite or Iron, right?” Briony asks.

“Yeah, I guess,” I say, scratching my ear, not understanding why she’s bothering with this now.

“And yet, she seemed to think she’d be staying in Onyx. In fact, she didn’t seem to be worried at all. She didn’t even seem worried about earning points in the trial.”

“The entire family is madder than a box of frogs, Kitten.”

“She said people knew and it didn’t matter. Who do you think she meant?”

“No, fucking clue. Her sister probably. Henny is a selfish bitch about everything except Linny. She’d cut off her right tit for her sister.”

Little Kitten chews on the inside of her cheek, clearly not convinced by that explanation.

“Come on,” I tell her. “I can smell food.”

The first thing the little Kitten asks when we walk into the kitchen is whether there’s any news about Fox.

“Nothing, yet, but he’s probably busy talking with the Empress. I’m sure she’s going to have questions for him,” Beaufort says.

The Kitten takes a big slice of chocolate cake offered to her by Thorne and accepts a steaming mug of coffee from Beaufort. She sinks her teeth into the sweet sponge, groaning and sparking all kinds of ideas in my mind; ideas (given the darkening eyes of my two bond mates) I’m sure they’re entertaining too.