“My mother died when I was a child,” she said, turning away and nodding her farewell to the head cook. “She never told me anything.”
“Pity,” Asterin said.
The servants all gawked at Elide as she limped out, their questioning eyes telling her enough: they hadn’t heard. A small relief, then.
Gods—oh, gods. Witch-blood.
Elide took the stairs up, each movement sending shooting pains through her leg. Was that why Vernon had kept her chained? To keep her from flying off if she ever showed a lick of power? Was that why the windows in that tower in Perranth had been barred?
No—no. She was human. Fully human.
But at the very moment these witches had gathered, when she’d heard those rumors about the demons who wanted to … to … breed, Vernon had brought her here. And had become very, very close with Duke Perrington.
She prayed to Anneith with every step upward, prayed to the Lady of Wise Things that she was wrong, that the Third was wrong. It wasn’t until she reached the foot of the Wing Leader’s tower that Elide realized she had no idea where she was going.
She had nowhere to go at all. No one to run to.
The delivery wagons wouldn’t arrive for another few weeks. Vernon could hand her over whenever he wished. Why hadn’t he done so immediately? What was he waiting for? To see if the first of the experiments worked before offering her as a bargaining chip for more power?
If she was such a valuable commodity, she’d have to go farther than she’d suspected to escape Vernon. Not just to the Southern Continent, but beyond, to lands she’d never heard of. But with no money, how would she? No money—except for the bags of coins the Wing Leader left scattered around her room. She peered up the stairs stretching into the gloom. Maybe she could use the money to bribe someone—a guard, a lower-coven witch—to get her out. Immediately.
Her ankle barked in pain as she hurried up the staircase. She wouldn’t take an entire bag, but rather a few coins from each, so the Wing Leader wouldn’t notice.
Mercifully, the witch’s room was empty. And the various bags of coins had been left out with a carelessness only an immortal witch more interested in bloodshed could achieve.
Elide carefully set about stuffing coins into her pocket, the binding around her breasts, and her shoe so that they wouldn’t be discovered all at once, so they wouldn’t jingle.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Elide froze.
Asterin was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed.
The Third was smiling, each of those razor-sharp iron teeth glinting in the afternoon light.
“Bold, mad little thing,” the witch said, circling Elide. “Not as docile as you pretend, eh?”
Oh, gods.
“To steal from our Wing Leader …”
“Please,” Elide whispered. Begging—maybe that would work. “Please—I need to leave this place.”
“Why?” A glance at the pouch of money clenched in Elide’s hands.
“I heard what they’re doing with the Yellowlegs. My uncle—if I have … if I have your blood, I can’t let him use me like that.”
“Running away because of Vernon … At least now we know you’re not his spy, witchling.” The witch grinned, and it was almost as terrifying as one of Manon’s smiles.
That was why she’d ambushed her with the knowledge: to see where Elide would run to after.
“Don’t call me that,” Elide breathed.
“Is it so bad to be a witch?” Asterin spread her fingers, appreciating her iron nails in the dim light.
“I’m not a witch.”
“What are you, then?”
“Nothing—I’m nobody. I’m nothing.”
The witch clicked her tongue. “Everybody is something. Even the most common witch has her coven. But who has your back, Elide Lochan?”
“No one.” Only Anneith, and Elide sometimes thought even that could be her imagination.
“There is no such thing as a witch being alone.”
“I’m not a witch,” she said again. And once she got away, once she left this festering empire, she’d be no one at all.
“No, she’s certainly not a witch,” Manon snapped from the doorway, gold eyes cold. “Start talking. Now.”
Manon had endured a fairly shitty day, which was saying something, given her century of existence.
The Yellowlegs coven had been implanted in a subterranean chamber of the Keep, the room carved into the mountain rock itself. Manon had taken one sniff of that bed-lined room and walked right back out again. The Yellowlegs didn’t want her there, anyway, while they were cut open by men, while that bit of stone was sewn inside them. No, a Blackbeak had no place in a room where Yellowlegs were vulnerable, and she’d likely make them vicious and lethal as a result.
So she’d gone to training, where Sorrel had kicked her ass in hand-to-hand combat. Then there had been not one, not two, but three different fights to break apart between the various covens, including the Bluebloods, who were somehow excited about the Valg. They had gotten their noses broken by suggesting to a Blackbeak coven that it was their divine duty not just to go through with the implantation but also to go so far as to physically mate with the Valg.
Manon didn’t blame her Blackbeaks for shutting down the talk. But she’d had to dole out equal punishment between the two groups.
And then this. Asterin and Elide in her rooms, the girl wide-eyed and reeking of terror, her Third seeming to try to convince the girl to join their ranks.
“Start talking now.”
Temper—she knew she should rein it in, but the room smelled like human fear, and this was her space.
Asterin stepped in front of the girl. “She’s not a spy for Vernon, Manon.”
Manon did them the honor of listening as Asterin told her what had happened. When she finished, Manon crossed her arms. Elide was cowering by the bathing chamber door, the bag of coins still gripped in her hands.
“Where does the line get drawn?” Asterin said quietly.
Manon flashed her teeth. “Humans are for eating and rutting and bleeding. Not helping. If she’s got witch-blood in her, it’s a drop. Not enough to make her our own.” Manon stalked toward her Third. “You are one of the Thirteen. You have duties and obligations, and yet this is how you spend your time?”
Asterin held her ground. “You said to keep an eye on her, and I did. I got to the bottom of things. She’s barely past being a witchling. You want Vernon Lochan bringing her down to that chamber? Or over to one of the other mountains?”
“I don’t give a shit what Vernon does with his human pets.”
But once the words were out, they tasted foul.
“I brought her here so you could know—”
“You brought her here as a prize to win back your position.”
Elide was still trying her best to vanish through the wall.
Manon snapped her fingers in the girl’s direction. “I’m escorting you back to your room. Keep the money, if you want. My Third has an aerie full of wyvern shit to clean out.”
“Manon,” Asterin began.
“Wing Leader,” Manon growled. “When you’ve stopped acting like a simpering mortal, you may again address me as Manon.”
“And yet you tolerate a wyvern who sniffs flowers and makes puppy eyes at this girl.”
Manon almost struck her—almost went for her throat. But the girl was watching, listening. So Manon grabbed Elide by the arm and yanked her toward the door.