House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(87)

Something gleams in the night sky, and I think it may be the Crow King’s eyes since no other Crow has metallic eyes, but I’m wrong.

It isn’t Lore.

It’s the tip of an arrow.

One that is sailing straight for our gondola.





Forty-Three





“Aoife, shift!” I shout. “Princcisa, watch out!”

Eponine has already encased herself in a tangle of vines, but my friends have yet to coax out their magic, so I launch myself off the divan, arms extended in order to bowl them both down.

As I flatten them against the deck, I gasp. Not from the impact of falling but because something bit the back of my thigh. A glance over my shoulder reveals an arrow protruding from the delicate indigo. Although the rush of adrenaline coursing through my body nulls the pain, when I shift my leg and the arrow doesn’t fall, I imagine it’s nicked more than the folds of my dress.

Are more missiles about to rain down on us?

Did I bring this upon these women?

Merda, merda, merda.

I hear Tavo shout at the gondolier to change course and the princess shriek through her cocoon of branches. Has she been hit? Who was the archer’s target?

The boat rocks and water sloshes over the low rim, drenching my back, just as the air darkens with massive wingbeats that blunt out the stars and lanterns. Spine-tingling caws erupt in time with brassy shouts. Both echo against the choppy canal and smooth limestone walls.

“Syb, are you okay?” I ask.

“Watch out!” Gray eyes as wide as twin moons, Syb grips my nape, yanking my body down just as another arrow whizzes over us.

I don’t dare move as I wait for the attack to end. My pulse has become such a violent thing that it distends my throat, and I cannot catch my breath.

“Is it over?” I croak, since Syb is facing up.

“I th-think s-so.” My friend is trembling so hard that it shakes my body.

Levering myself on one forearm, I reach around myself and pluck the arrow out. I almost black out from the scalding pain, but the whimper that falls from Catriona’s lips keeps me alert. Tossing the arrow aside, I whirl my attention toward the courtesan just as another soft mewl falls from her lips.

A scream claws its way up my throat as I stare, in horror, at the arrow embedded inside her cheek.

“We need a healer!” For all the horrible things I think of Diotto, his enlarged gaze and waxen complexion tells me he’s in just as much shock as the rest of us. “Tavo, did you hear me?”

He jerks a nod.

I crawl nearer to Catriona, the back of my leg burning like a mother. The courtesan’s eyes glitter like the shards of the wineglass that shattered beside her shoulder.

Cauldron, the pain she must be in . . .

Although conscious that this might make it worse, I pull the arrow out, and blood spurts from the wound and flows in rivulets down her beautiful face, soaking into her silver wig.

I bracket her jaw between my shaking palms. “Catriona?” My gaze flicks to the wound on her cheek, where, beneath the blood, I catch the white of bone.

“Oh my Gods, is that—is that—” Syb’s aborted question vibrates through my orange wig and thudding skull.

Tears finally spill over the reddened rim of Catriona’s eyes, beading beneath her mask. “I’m—sorry.” Her murmur is all breath, but I’m so close that I catch her words. “I didn’t want to . . .”

To what? Sorry for what? I want to scream but can hardly regulate my breathing.

When Catriona’s mouth shifts again, and I don’t hear what she says, I tear off my mask and wig.

“What did you say?” I manage to croak.

“You shouldn’t—have returned.”

Syb’s earlier words scroll across my lids, the ones about me putting everyone at risk by coming back. They crack my chest wide because I was the one being targeted.

These women were attacked because of me!

Catriona’s scarlet mouth parts, and I think she’s about to shape more words, but she coughs and mists my collarbone and neck with droplets of blood.

Her flesh is hot beneath my palm and feels as though it’s swelling. Sure enough, her cheek has grown puffy. And bumpy. Welts are forming around the wound and spreading. Her mask has become so tight that it cuts into her skin.

I fling my gaze around, noticing we’ve docked and a crowd has formed around us. “Where’s the healer?”

Tavo stares down at me dumbly.

I’m about to implore the Crows to find a healer, since the Fae are incompetent, when another idea lights up my mind. “Tavo, glove your hand with fire to cauterize her wound!”

Catriona moans. “It burns.”

And yet Tavo hasn’t touched her with his magical flames.

For two point one seconds, I consider rolling us into Mareluce and getting Minimus to lick her wound with his miraculous tongue, but what if my serpent snatches the courtesan and swims her into his lair?

As I shove my hair back, my fingers collide with my earring. How did I forget about Lazarus’s crystal? I rub the pollen-colored bead between my fingertips until I’ve ground it down to almost nothing and my fingers are coated in its sticky residue.

Catriona watches me, her eyes growing glassier, her complexion paler, her face so distended and full of welts that I’m momentarily torn from the here and now and propelled into the vision that Lore once sent me of the boy who ate the poisonous moss lining the riverbed.