House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(39)

The smile warps off his face and his jaw clenches as though his head is becoming a lump of metal.

“As per our agreement, no one will harm her,” Dante, who’s yet to command his captain to steer him back to Isolacuori, exclaims.

Lorcan swings his attention toward his fellow monarch. “Have you seen what your people did to her house, Regio?”

The Fae King’s gaze travels over the blue walls that, once upon a time, kept me safe. “I have not.” Though his answer doesn’t alter the state of my home, it does alter the state of my heart, sweeping away one layer of hurt. “I’ll see that it is restored to its original state.”

“Please also see that all of your soldiers keep their distance from my—” Lorcan so rarely stumbles over his words that his drawn-out pause pulls my eyes back to his. “Subject.”

“I’m not your subject.” My tone holds no bite. It barely holds any volume. I feel deflated and tired.

I miss Phoebus. I miss Nonna and Mamma, even if they don’t—

The rock! I dropped it. I scan the cobbles, but my eyes blaze with so much emotion that the ground beneath my feet resembles a painter’s palette. I blink several times, but it does next to nothing to clear my blurry vision.

I crouch and run my hands over the wind-and-salt-buffeted stones, over the coarse grass that somehow found a way to grow in spite of the harsh winds and briny sprays.

What are you looking for? Lore asks through the bond, or maybe out loud—I’m not certain.

I’m not certain of anything anymore besides the need to find this piece of my mother and get to Syb as quickly as possible. “Mamma’s rock.”

Although no giant wave is closing over me, I feel like I’m about to be sucked so far under that I won’t emerge this time unless I have someone and something to hold on to. I crawl on my hands and knees, shaking fingers scrabbling over the cobbles until they connect with a smooth rock. Mamma’s.

As I rise, I grip it so tightly that the shallow grooves dig into my palm. “Actually, I’ve changed my mind about the ride.” I need Syb like Minimus needs the ocean. “If your offer to take me to Antoni’s is still on the table.”

“Antoni’s?” Dante’s eyebrows jerk so near each other they almost kiss. “Antoni Greco’s?”

“My home is not fit to live in, Maezza.”

Although Dante has changed—we’ve all changed—I don’t miss the bob of his Adam’s apple. “Ríhbiadh is allowing you to stay with the likes of Antoni Greco?”

“Antoni is a friend. Besides, it’s my life. My decisions.”

“If you need a place to stay, Fallon, I can find you accommodations in the castle,” Dante says.

“No.” The gold in Lore’s eyes churns as smoke curls off the edges of his broad body. “She’ll stay with Greco.”

Dante’s mouth hooks into a crooked smile. “I thought you trusted me, Lore.”

“Do not call me Lore. You’re neither a Crow nor a friend, Regio. As for trust, it is earned.” Before my next breath, Lorcan bursts into five crows that slam together to shape one.

“Till our next meeting, Serpent-charmer.” Had the nickname escaped any other mouth, I would’ve scowled, but from Dante, it doesn’t sound like an insult. It sounds like an olive branch.

“Will there be another?”

“Many. After all, you’ve a tendency to stir up trouble, Signorina Rossi.”

“Surely that won’t merit an intervention from the king himself.” I smile at him, and although it doesn’t expunge the disappointment of his abandonment, it scrubs away one more layer of my pain.

Bronwen’s wrong. Dante and I, we may never be as close as we once were, but I could never end his life.

His full lips bend and separate around blinding white teeth. “Who else is as well equipped to cope with you than I?”

Lorcan snatches my biceps and hurtles into the sky. We rise so high so fast that my heart bangs against my balled stomach and my ears pop.

The princeling used you, Fallon. Has it already slipped your mind?

I know Lorcan won’t drop me, yet I wrap one hand around the cool metal of his legs, keeping the other locked around my rock. It has not.

Dante tilts his face to watch us, and although I hold his stare, I’m soon distracted by the sight of Luce from the sky. Liquid arteries sparkle like streaks of glitter around the twenty-five islands, which grow in width and breadth like the multihued houses and expanses of greenery the farther east we fly.

The same way that your exploitation of my candor has not slipped my mind, Lorcan Reebyaw.

Do not dare cast us in the same boat. Dante and I are nothing alike.

You’re both kings. You both love Luce. You’re both marrying foreign princesses. Shall I go on? I’m certain I can find many more similarities.

Lorcan mutters something in Crow that I don’t grasp as his body lists forward. Unlike Eefah, he sinks slowly as though to give me one more second to admire the kingdom that, once upon a time, I believed would become mine.

How gullible I was.

As we land, the sprites and Fae soldiers posted beside the apricot walls circling Antoni’s property move aside to make room for Lore’s giant crow. All have a hand on the hilt of their swords or dart pipes, and all have their eyes on us.