Page 47 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

Samson

The carriage jostles and bumps. Darnley drinks and grumbles to himself on and off, occasionally spouting some of his grand plans at me, telling me what else I’ll do for him.

After killing Alyth, he’ll have me go after Mary.

Then there are others, lords who’ve supported Mary too much, ladies who rejected his advances.

My eyes shut where I stay on the floor, the carriage lulling me into oblivion.

No , I want to say again. No, I won’t do any of that.

Because when he sends me after Alyth first, she’ll end me.

Christ, I hope she ends me.

In that second after finding out there was no cure for the curse that isn’t a curse, I thought that I could control it, direct these blackouts. Make something good out of what’s only ever been bad. If it’s always been me, I should be able to control myself.

But there’s no controlling this, is there? Not when spells like the one Darnley used exist. I’ll always be too much of a threat, too dangerous.

If my father is truly a Red Cap, how is he all right with someone the likes of Darnley controlling him?

The carriage stops. Are we in a city? There’s racket just beyond, heavy noise I can’t place, but it’s too early for any city to be in such bedlam already.

Darnley waits for the door to open, and I look up at him.

Wherever we’ve stopped, there are torches, and he’s cast in harsh orange and scalding yellow.

His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s half-drunk—his usual state—and I want to rally some hatred for him.

That desire’s still there, the hunger to attack him, but I know it’s futile.

At least while he’s conscious.

Has he got magic on him to keep me from gutting him in his sleep? I’ll find out.

The idea is the first thing to bring levity to my mind all night. Darnley, I’ll murder gleefully, and I won’t even need to be in a Red Cap state to do it.

A servant opens the carriage, and the outside noise sharpens in my awareness.

It’s birds.

Squawking, twittering, chirping chaos .

Darnley staggers out before rearing back, shielding himself in the carriage door. “What in the hell is that?”

I crawl forward, leaning half out to see beyond him.

We’re at an estate, pulled into the stable yard, but servants huddle under the awning of an outbuilding. The one who opened the carriage door is holding a cloak over his head in protection.

Because the stable yard’s covered in robins. Dozens. Hundreds. And they all whip into a frenzy, wings flapping and throats cawing, taking to the air in heaving droves before slanting down and flopping about the ground.

I stare, stunned, eyes wide and muscles locked.

Darnley curses again and takes off for the estate. “Shield us!” he cries at servants who don’t move a finger to help him. He runs in a panic, arms waving as birds flurry around him. They aren’t attacking anyone. Just causing all kinds of mayhem.

Robins.

The signal from Southwark. That I told Alyth.

Robins mean danger.

But…what danger? And why ? Why would she warn me after what I’ve done, who I am? Is she saying I’m the danger? But what else could she—

My eyes follow Darnley to the house, a few yards off from the stable area and the carriage.

He blows right past something sitting next to the door: barrels.

More barrels stand along the house, damn near as numerous as the birds, wrapped around the building like a fence, vanishing into the darkness not lit by the stable yard’s torches.

The servants cry out to each other and pull deeper into the stables. The birds caw and agitate the air with their wings. I squint, making out the symbol stamped on the side of the closest barrel.

Gunpowder?

Enough to outfit a whole regiment.

Darnley’s never mentioned a thing about gunpowder in all his plans. That oddity settles in next to all the pieces that’ve stacked up, the great big knotted tangle of it.

Mary wanted rid of her husband.

He was leaving court before my attack on Alyth.

Did Mary send Darnley to this estate specifically?

With everything going on around Red Caps and fae magic, I near forgot that other players are still having at each other in the game I originally came here to play.

The game of life and death, power and control.

It seems so small now, so obsolete, but in this moment, this small, obsolete threat eclipses all others.

Cold terror drives me into motion.

I dive out of the carriage, race through the robins who don’t care a lick for me. The servants have started to run back for the house now that their lord is gone, but I reach out, waving my arms, screaming, screaming —

“Get clear of the house!”

A few turn back. See me, frown at my shouting.

“Get out!” I make it into the stable. Through it, across a small path, is the main building, and more barrels sit next to the door there. My heart sinks low, a heavy stone taking up too much space in my chest.

“Get clear of the house!” I scream again, the birds screaming with me, and I point at the barrels. “Get clear of the—”