House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(78)

“Catriona fetched them from the shop. This one’s for you.” She plops the shopping bag on the table.

Aoife reclines in her seat. “Dinner?”

I seize the bag. “Yes, dinner.”

“Did Lorcan approve?”

Although I hate lying to Aoife, I say, “He did. He said it was a wonderful idea to speed things up on the Meriam front.”

Aoife frowns.

“By all means, shift and ask him, Aoife. Then again, now may not be the best time if he’s in Glace and all.”

She puckers her mouth as she obviously mulls my suggestion over.

“He’s the one who suggested headpieces by the way,” I add tritely.

One of Syb’s eyebrows rises high, but a look at my livid face makes her go with it. “Want to see mine?”

“I would love to see yours,” I say with great enthusiasm.

Syb overturns her shopping bag, and out spills a fluorescent pink wig attached to a crystallized mask. “They’re genuine tourmalines,” she explains as though she saw me thinking the word crystal and just had to set me straight. “And look at the length of the hair!” She holds it up, and the pink strands unspool like Minimus when he’s about to dart away. “I’ve always dreamed of growing my hair long.”

I pluck mine out from the bag and gently unfold the silk paper, then stare at the strange but beautiful creation. The waist-length platinum hair glitters as though threaded with diamonds and the filigree gray mask looks crafted from pure silver. It really is a thing of beauty.

Aoife sets the pen down, splattering the paper with more droplets of sapphire ink that expand as they soak into the vellum. “So you will wear scary thing on your head to go to meal with queen?”

Syb blinks in shock. “Scary? These are glorious.” To demonstrate just how so, she plops hers atop her head.

“You look like lampshade.” Aoife gestures to the desk lamp.

I cannot stifle the laugh that erupts from my mouth because Ptolemy’s brocade lampshades fringed with crystals are, indeed, a dead ringer for what Syb is modeling.

“Aoife’s right, Syb.” Giana stands in the doorway, arms folded. “Instead of spending— How many gold coins did you pitch away this time?”

“None. The headpieces were a present from the princess.” Syb pinches her lips together as she removes the headpiece and sets it down with the tenderness of a mother setting down her newborn babe. “We all got one. Even you. Catriona dropped it off in your room.”

Giana’s lashes rise so high they skim her brow bone. “Why?”

“Because I managed to convince her to go out for a girl’s dinner tonight at Terramare, that’s why.”

“It was Lore’s suggestion,” I add, because the Sky King can make no bad decision in Gia’s eyes. Unlike Syb and I.

Giana stares between Syb, Aoife, and me. “Was it?”

“Absolutely.” Syb nods, laying it on a little thick.

Before Gia can call our bluff, I say, “It’s really too bad we couldn’t have hosted the dinner here, but I understand that we cannot have her sniffing around the cellar.”

Gia sucks in a breath and swings her attention to Aoife, but Aoife misses the look because she’s busy gawping at me. I deduce my handler is on the insiders’ list while I am, well, not. Thankfully, Syb is not only dating an insider but also incapable of keeping a secret from me, so I’m up-to-date on all things resistance.

“You cannot tell anyone about what’s inside, Fal. I mean it.” Giana’s complexion has turned the same gray as the dirt streaking her jaw and neck.

“I would never, Gia.” Who would I even go blab to about Antoni’s stock of pixie dust, or whatever it is they call the drug the human rebel Vance manufactures in Rax? “Plus, I’m immune to salt.”

“I’m sorry we kept it a secret, Fal, but Lore didn’t want you involved.”

“I bet,” I grumble. “I am, after all, so dreadfully unreliable and childish.”

“Fallon.” Giana sighs. “That’s not—”

“You said so yourself the day you left the Sky Kingdom, Gia.”

Syb sets her hand on my shoulder and gives it a soft squeeze. “Eponine’s picking us up by gondola in two hours. You may want to bathe, sis.”

Gia scrubs a finger through the dried mud graying her pointy jaw, then peers down at her no-frills white shirt and sturdy canvas trousers—both caked in Racoccin muck. “Come get me when it’s time.” And with that she retreats into the hallway.

“Syb, can you help me pick out a dress?” I get up so suddenly that I knock my knee into the underside of the table. The dull throb matches my mood.

Syb snatches my hand and hauls me from my chair before marching me out of the living area, through my bathroom, the door of which she slams shut, and into my closet. “What the actual fuck?” she hisses. “Lore?”

“What about him?”

She sticks one hand on her hip. “You do realize that if Aoife can get through to him, he’s going to tell her the dinner wasn’t his idea.”

“So?”

“So I’d prefer not to be gutted.”

I roll my eyes. “He would never dare gut you.”

Although she’s still breathing hard, clearly not convinced, she says, “Did something happen between you and him while I was gone?”