House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(7)

The emotion glazing my father’s eyes is so potent that it rips tears from the giant man. As they carve through his makeup, he murmurs words in his tongue that sound soft in spite of their guttural pronunciation.

Is he swearing a lethal retribution upon all those involved in the ambush, or is he crying because I was saved?

“What happened to Agrippina’s child?”

“Agrippina was with child?” The bear of a Crow across from me scrubs at his wet, bristly cheek, smearing the black.

“I’m a changeling, which means I was changed. Is . . .” My tongue slips out and wets my lips. I cannot bring myself to utter the word mother, much less think of the Shabbin who gave me life as such. I have a mother whose name is Agrippina. Though she may not love me—may never have loved me—I cannot find it in my heart to replace her just because we do not share the same genes. “Is Daya raising Agrippina’s baby?”

“Agrippina was never pregnant,” Lore replies calmly.

My eyebrows all but collide. “I don’t—I thought for there to be a changeling, babies had to be dickered?”

A mild smile plays on Lore’s mouth. “Shabbin magic is rather extraordinary.”

Rather? It’s wholly bewildering. “Where is Daya? In Shabbe?”

“That’s the one place we know she is not.” Lorcan pinches an asparagus from atop the stack Connor deposited on our table and raises it to his lips.

“How?”

“Because we’ve been flying around the Shabbin wards for days, and have seen neither hide nor hair of your mother.” Kahol must grind his teeth because his jaw is all harsh angles.

I frown. “How is that possible?”

“Bronwen believes Meriam may have bound Daya’s magic.” Lore snaps off the crisped spear with teeth that flash white against his dusky lips.

“Meriam?” Why does the name sound familiar?

“Meriam was Costa’s Shabbin lover. The woman who doomed us and whose blood fuels the wards.” Lore’s explanation makes the memory of our conversation whizz around my mind. “Meriam is also Zendaya’s mother. Your grandmother.”

My back straightens as though my articulated spine had transformed into a serpent tusk. “I’m related to the sorceress who damned your people?”

“Our people. You may reject your heritage, but you’re no less a Shabbin or a Crow, Fallon.”

I roll my lips, not feeling like I belong anywhere or to anyone.

You belong. Lorcan growls. You belong—

Before he adds to the sky—which he’s appropriated—or to the pink dot on the horizon, I ask, “If my mother isn’t in Shabbe, where is she?”

“I do not know.” My father wraps his giant fingers around the tankard of wine. Metal scrapes against metal like chalk against slate. It takes me a second to realize the sound came from him, from his nails that have elongated and hooked into iron talons, even though the rest of his body has remained humanoid. “I do not know. I cannot feel her.” Kahol crushes his goblet, and wine sloshes out.

Feel her?

They are mates.

I blink. Mates can feel each other?

Yes.

If he cannot feel her, then how does he know she lives?

Hope. Is Lorcan telling me to hope, or is he saying that my father does not actually know?

“We will find her, Cathal.” Lorcan curls his fingers around one of my father’s leather vambraces, which I doubt he has much need for, considering the breadth of his bones and muscles. “We will find her and bring her home. But first we must bring down the wards so the rest of our people can return. We need the manpower.”

“You mean, birdpower?” The correction slips out before I can stifle it.

Neither the time nor the place, Fallon.

My impertinence wins me two sets of pointed stares. On the upside, it’s heaved my father out of his chasm of despair.

“Not everyone’s returned?” I ask.

Lorcan drums his fingers. “The Crows who sought refuge in Shabbe are confined there.”

Unlike my father whose nails are spiky and pewter-colored, Lore’s are blunt and nude. They never glided over my skin, yet I distinctly remember the feel of his ghostly fingers slithering over my body. He stops drumming them and flattens both his palm and lips.

What? Did he think I enjoyed being touched without my consent? I refocus on my father. “So, how do we bring down the wards?”

“We wait until Priya has tortured Meriam’s location out of one of the Fae the serpents dragged to her shores.”

Good serpents.

“Or until Dante figures out where his brother hid her,” my father interjects.

“My grand—” You’re not related to him, I remind myself. It may very well be the first time I’m glad I’m not a Rossi. “The general was closest to Marco. He’d know.”

“Your grandfather was not retrieved.”

“He’s alive?”

“If he is, he has not shown his face around Luce yet.”

“What about Commander Dargento?” I ask hopefully. “Has he washed up on Shabbe?”

Smoke begins to waft off Lore’s iron pauldrons as though the man were about to shift into his bird. “No.”

My pulse quickens as I recall the odious Fae with black hair and amber eyes who threatened to murder everyone I loved. “Is he dead?”