“That’s what I thought.” I pointed up the stairs. “Now, you can either walk up these stairs on your own, or I can carry you. What’s it going to be?”
She wriggled against the invisible bonds. Even knowing she couldn’t escape, she didn’t give up. The infernal woman started for the door.I caught her, threw her over my shoulder, and carried her straight up the stairs, kicking and screeching like a banshee.
I didn’t put her down until we reached the third floor. I ignored her glare but couldn’t ignore the way she glanced at the staircase. With her hands bound, she’d probably end up toppling over and breaking her beautiful neck.“Don’t even think about it,” I warned before opening the door to a guest bedroom with a white sleigh bed, white coverlet, rug, and empty fireplace. With a bolt of magic, Aveen’s bonds evaporated. Another flick of my wrist lit the fire. With a third flick, I filled the armoire with the dresses I’d purchased over the last six months.
“If you need me,” I said, “my room is down the—”
“I won’t need you.”
“Dammit, Aveen. Why can’t you just believe I did what I had to do and leave it at that? You are the one who sought me out. The one who begged me to help you. This wasn’t part of the plan.”
“You promised to keep her from your brother. You promised to keep her safe. To keepmesafe.”
Yes, I had promised that. And I’d meant it, too. Unfortunately, I couldn’t control the world and every feckin’ person in it. “Your sister threw herself atme. She kissedme, and when I tried to remove myself from the situation, your father showed up like a feckin’ bull. Every bone in my body screamed to evanesce, to escape and leave her to her fate, and yet I stayed. I stayed because I knew, as angry as you’d be about me marrying Keelynn, you’d never forgive me if I abandoned her.
“As for the rest of it, I cannot control my brother or your sister. They found each other through no fault of mine. And you . . .” This was the only part I was sorry about. “You were never meant to wake up in this cursed place.”
I went to leave but stilled when I reached the door. “And for the record, I never touched her,” I said.
She told me to get out.
She didn’t care. She’d made that perfectly clear the night we’d spent together.
“Do not leave this room,” I said. “Lock the door and—”
She slammed the door in my face, and I heard the scrape of the bolt sliding into place.
I stalked downstairs and shifted the broken glass and roses into the kitchen bin. When I got outside, people were still milling about. “Do you not have anywhere else to be?” I bellowed, sending them scurrying away like rats.
Fiadh’s body remained beyond the wards. I called fire to my palm and held the flame to her black skirts, letting the acrid stench of fire consuming flesh wash over me. Once she was no more than ash, I shifted those ashes into an iron box. One could never be too careful.
I withdrew the cursed dagger from where I’d hidden it in my sheath, mesmerized by the emerald’s unnatural green glow. Surely I should feel some semblance of happiness for being one step closer to defeating the Queen? Instead, all I felt was hollow. And not the usual hollowness that lived inside me. It was as if the void had taken hold of my soul as well.
22
“What’s this for?”I kicked the corner of the shed near the back wall. The thing shuddered but didn’t give. The same could not have been said for the shed at Aveen’s cottage. But that was a problem for another day.
Oscar scratched his short red whiskers with a hairy hand. “Storage, mostly.”
The problem with living in a centuries-old castle was that there was useless shite everywhere. “It’s mine now. Clean it out and go to Airren for some new tools.”
Oscars’ wide-set brown eyes swept from my immaculately tied cravat to my shiny boots, oozing judgement. “What sort of tools?”
“Ones for gardening.” This was a feckin’ garden, wasn’t it? “And get some flowers,” I added as an afterthought.
“They’ll die in a shed, sire.”
“Notactualflowers.” Why was I destined to be surrounded by useless eejits? “The seeds or whatever to make flowers.”
“Ye don’t make flowers. Ye grow them.”
“Just get them. And clean it up.”
He went back to scratching his whiskers. “What sort of flowers would ye be wantin’?”
“How the hell should I know? Just get pretty ones.”
“Pretty?”