House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(82)

“Ladies.” The all-too familiar voice flattens my heightened pulse. Tavo.

That explains Arina’s behavior. She must’ve smelled the man-wench who wanted to slaughter her because she was born flawed.

I reach out to pet her between her pricked ears, but Tavo’s voice echoes through the darkness again, and she rears back and tosses her head, scattering the purple blooms I threaded into the plaits I gave her while we promenaded through the gardens earlier. She pivots on her haunches and canters off, engulfing herself in the marble temple that Syb and I filled with hay.

I hope life goes on after death just so that Ptolemy’s spirit can glimpse how we transformed his home. He would, undoubtedly, perish anew.

What little delight this contemplation brings me is trampled by the long once-over Tavo gives my body as I climb aboard Eponine’s gondola. The male hates me and everything I stand for, so why must his eyes wander?

“Evening, Serpent-charmer,” he murmurs. “Or should I say, Nebban-charmer?”

“I wasn’t aware generals doubled as cruise directors,” I reply, passive-aggressive as always in his presence.

The male’s amber eyes flare red in the lone lantern light that illuminates the embankment. “Dante’s betrothed has asked that you sit beside her.”

“An honor.” I step around the upholstered bench occupied by a stiff-backed Catriona, and sink onto the triangular-shaped couch festooned with golden throw pillows upon which sprawls the future Queen of Nebba—if all goes well—or Luce—if all does not go well.

Her green gown is threaded through with so much gold that it gives the luxurious satin a mirror sheen. “Apologies. I didn’t know Dante would saddle us with Diotto.” She regards me from over the rim of her wineglass, and even though Eponine and I have met only twice before, I comprehend her look, the one that says that Dante does not trust us if he sends his general.

I can feel Syb’s eyes on me as she steps into the gondola and takes a seat beside Catriona. I don’t look her way, partly out of annoyance, and partly because I’m wholly focused on the courtesan’s fingers. Or more accurately, on the buttons she keeps toying with that run from her navel to her neck. Here I was expecting her to wear a grand and colorful gown loaded with gems and sequins. Although made of crushed velvet, her black dress is more conservative than the ones worn by my former school teachers’.

“I wasn’t aware that only silver suited black,” I say as Eponine and Sybille exchange pleasantries.

At Catriona’s frown, I gesture to her dress.

“I was going to wear red.” Her usually dewy complexion is wan in the moonlight.

“Then I suppose we should switch. Silver will better suit what I’m wearing.”

“Too late.” Her fingers fall away from the black-pearl buttons, folding over one another in her lap. “We’re already out in the open.”

How convenient . . . “We’re still tethered to the embankment. It would take but a minute to swap.”

“No.” She doesn’t yell the word, yet it pops out of her mouth almost brutally.

All right then . . . I drop the subject so as not to make a scene. Catriona will only back herself farther into a corner if Eponine gets involved. Not that Eponine is listening. She’s too busy laughing at something my friend who does not trust me has said and which I’ve missed.

The gated entrance to Antoni’s garden—park, really—clangs behind Aoife. As she locks it, her head turns toward the sky and she nods. Is Lorcan here or is she nodding at something Colm just told—

The seam of my lips firm because she isn’t in bird form, so her fellow Crows cannot communicate with her. Only Lorcan has that ability, which means he must be present. But if he was present, wouldn’t he command her to abort the mission he never encouraged in the first place?

Still, I hunt the darkness for the familiar golden pinpricks, but I neither see Lore’s eyes nor any giant bird circling above. I lower my gaze without making contact through the bond and refocus on Aoife just as she steps into the boat. It rocks, and she flails, catching herself on the varnished bulwark. At her guttural slew of hissed words, the gray-eyed gondolier goes as stiff as the long oar in his hands.

He must realize he has a Crow aboard.

Beads clink in Eponine’s black headpiece as she reclines. “Diotto, fetch my friends some wine.”

The general tenses, surely considering the task beneath him. The white smile that Eponine casts him says she’s singled him out for the job specifically for that reason. Naturally, this makes her leap up in my esteem.

Although I don’t feel like alcohol, I do feel like watching the redheaded Fae do my bidding.

It’s all the more satisfying when the boat rocks and the wine sloshes onto his hand and soaks into his burgundy sleeve. His head whips up, and he lobs an insult at the gondolier, who’s scrambled off the port side of the gondola.

“Serpent.” The air-Fae nods to the rippling water.

I twist around and hinge over the bulwark. In the transparent water beneath us glimmer two scaled beasts—one as blue as my dress, and the other, as pink as Syb’s headpiece . . . and scarred.

Although tempted to fan my fingers through the water, the whole point of our masks is to preserve our anonymity. Since no pureling in their right mind would stick their hands in the ocean, I keep them flush with my cushioned seat.