Page 23 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

“I’m not here working for Darnley, I can tell you that much.” I stare down at her, willing her to believe me. This is all my truth coming right off. “I’m—”

The necklace pulls over my head.

I hold it out to her.

She rips her arm from my grip and snatches the necklace.

And the world unravels.

The room is full of swirls of…something. Blue and red and vibrant orange. They build and heave and flow out of Alyth, funneling toward the fire, wrapping around me. They’re translucent enough that I can see through them, can make out Alyth as the center of this chaos of color.

But—it’s those cats.

They’re not cats anymore.

They’re three little creatures. Roughly the same size as a cat but half-wild snarling things, not mousers like they looked just a moment ago.

Fine, downy fur blends in with their scraggly hair, and their eyes are all black, staring at me, narrowed in rage.

They stand on two legs and wear simple clothes, linen, I think, stained with soot.

And they’re armed with more normal objects. A fire poker, the tip red and burning. A small dagger. And the third one clutches something in both fists, arms cocked as if ready to hurtle whatever it’s holding.

My brain goes to blizzard whiteness. Utter, stupefied shock.

Then I’m grabbing Alyth, her knife be damned—it digs into my neck again, wells up blood—and I throw her behind me.

The three strange little beings close in around us, and I’ve no bloody idea what in the hell is happening .

“Got another knife?” I ask Alyth, one hand holding her behind me, the other out in front in protection. “Other weapons? Or something—I don’t—”

Alyth is very still behind me. She’s not reacting to my movement; in fact, she’s lowered the knife from my neck. I feel a trickle of blood running down.

“Lady Alyth?” one of the creatures says. “Can we kill him now?”

They can talk?

They… they know her ?

And—

Kill me?

My head throbs. The swirling strands of thin colors pulsate around me still, the fire high and hot; my body breaks out in sweat. I’m breathing too hard, each inhalation rough.

I’ve fully gone stark raving.

“Lady Alyth,” the creature says again. “I think he can see us through the glamour. That’s not so good, is it?”

Prickles of awareness race across my skin. Not the pleasant kind, not the ones I’ve started to expect from feeling Alyth’s focus on me. These are something burrowed deeper, something telling me I’m in danger, I gotta run.

Slowly, I turn to face Alyth.

Whose eyes are saucer wide. Her mouth opens in horror, face gone pale. The knife in her hand seems forgotten, as does the necklace in the other.

“You,” she whispers, her eyes running over me, head to toe and back again, seeing, seeing things I can’t guess at. “You’re a—”

Then I’m flying through the air.

It takes my body and brain long seconds to connect I’ve been thrown at the wall, the harsh, jarring impact of my shoulder blades against the stone making me cry out.

A force loops around my neck and tugs, slamming my head back, and I scrabble at it, but there’s nothing to grab.

I’m being choked, held an arm’s length off the ground by nothing.

The little creatures are focused on me, faces set in terrifying scowls. The invisible force tightens, and chills of true, deep fear counter the sweltering heat of the fire as I claw more desperately at my neck, still uselessly.

Black spots prickle the edges of my vision. From lack of oxygen?

Or from my curse, rising in defense against this threat?

Fear becomes something bigger. Something consuming. I don’t want to black out here. Whatever Alyth’s on about, I don’t want to hurt her.

And that desire, to not black out and hurt her, to not let her see me in a rage, seems enough to press back against the swell of darkness. For now.

How long can I hold out this time?

Alyth’s standing just below me, hatred pure and raw on her face.

“Tell me,” she demands, “what you are.”

The force releases enough for me to suck in a breath. The black spots clear, but I’m still held up.

“I’m Samson Calthorpe,” I croak. “I was sent here by Cecil—William Cecil, Baron Burghley. My rat bastard of a father—” The pressure on my throat tightens threateningly.

“He suspected Mary of storing away fae magic items to attack Elizabeth. I was sent to pose as Latimer’s man, infiltrate the court, find out what’s what. That’s it, that’s the truth—”

I garble, sputtering when the force closes over my windpipe.

“I don’t give a shite about Elizabeth and her spies,” Alyth snarls. “Tell me what you are. Tell me what you’re doing here—with this.”

She holds up the necklace.

“Cecil really did give me that before I got here. Told me it was protection from fae magic and a way for others loyal to Elizabeth to recognize me. I wasn’t to take it off.

I only did what he asked on account of Mary’s got something in her magic stores that cursed me, and I need to break this curse.

I have to. I don’t care about politicking or any of this shit, I swear, and I don’t—I don’t have the slightest bloody idea what’s going on! ”

Alyth steps toward me. Those odd little creatures close in around her, all set on me.

My God.

She’s going to kill me.

Blackness surges in, a harsh wave that I blink frantically to clear.

No, no, don’t slip, don’t pass out—

I won’t hurt her. I WILL NOT HURT HER.

I try to kick, try to fight , but I’m held good by nothing .

The knife she raised lowers to her side.

“There is no plot to kill Elizabeth from Mary,” Alyth tells me, but her voice is deadened. “Mary does not have a store of fae magic items, as you called them. Darnley, however, is the threat, and if you are part of how he has been getting Red Cap weapons into this country, I will kill you both.”

“You shouldn’t wait to kill him,” I gasp against the tightening force on my neck. “Off the bastard.”

One of the creatures squeals. “This one can’t be so bad, can he, Lady Alyth? He’s smart. Can we release him?”

“No, Kitty,” Alyth snaps. Her eyes don’t leave mine.

She lifts the necklace higher, as if I haven’t seen it.

“This necklace was given to you, down the line, by Darnley’s mother,” she says. “Obviously, it must dampen magic. That’s why I couldn’t see you were fae when you were wearing it. What kind of Leth are you?”

“I was cursed, I told you—maybe that’s what you’re seeing?

I came into contact with a fae item when I was younger, and it got its magic in me, and I hurt people sometimes when the curse takes me over.

I gotta stop it. That’s why I’m here.” My heart sinks, remembering what she said.

“But Mary doesn’t have fae magic stored up? Darnley—Darnley’s got the magic items?”

I have to shift my investigation to him.

If Alyth lets me live.

“Cecil is your father?” Alyth ignores my babbling. “Is he fae? Or did you get it from your mother’s line?” She squints at me. “You’re strong. Maybe…”

I laugh, pitchy and frantic. Cecil’s not magic; if he were, he’d have used it for something awful by now, not just been content to obey Elizabeth like a lapdog.

And my mother’s dead, a lady’s maid and then a working girl, and if she’d been magic, she’d have used it to save herself, to save us. Right?

“Whatever you are, you brought this necklace here. Is that what Lady Lennox wants from you? To carry Red Cap weapons across the border for Darnley?”

“What the hell is a Red Cap? Is that what the fae-magic items are—Red Cap weapons?”

The force around my neck spasms, pinches so tight that I cry out, only for the noise to get cut off.

Alyth draws closer to me. Watching, studying. “You’re Leth—you have fae blood. Do not pretend you don’t know what a Red Cap is. I will find out what you are, and I will deal with you accordingly.”

My lungs scream for air, fingers clawing at my neck, nails ripping through the knife wound she’d left, slipping on blood.

“I’m—not fae—”

“I don’t know what your place in Darnley’s plot is,” she says, calm, “but you’re done.”

The being she called Kitty squeals again. “We kill him?”

Kill me, release me—Kitty seems delighted by both options.

But Alyth stares at me a beat longer. My life is getting weighed in her eyes, and in that, I see the deer that walked close to us when we camped on the moors. How free it seemed, how free I felt, being outside the city for once, breathing.

There’s no rage in me. No push to black out. Just—resignation.

My eyes roll shut, and a tear leaks down my cheek.

“Release him, Kitty.”

Before I can react, I’m plunging down the wall, landing in a heap on the floor. I cough and wheeze, trying to breathe too fast, too much. My vision won’t focus.

Until Alyth bends over me, tucks the knife under my chin, and uses it to draw my face up to hers.

She comes into sharp clarity. Those big, all-seeing eyes, the tight lines of concentration and anger across her face. The smell of wild grasslands.

“I’m giving you one chance to leave Scotland,” she tells me. “Go back to England. If I see you here again, I will kill you.”

Kitty claps her little hands. “And we’ll help!”

Alyth releases me, dragging the point of the dagger up my chin, leaving another slice that stings with pain.

She crosses to the door and leaves.

The little creatures sink into the shadows, scurrying off and vanishing through holes in the walls, like mice.

And I just sit there. Rubbing my sore throat, wincing at the cuts. Coughing and eyes tearing.

I’m proper screwed.