Contents

Prologue
1. Zendaya
2. Zendaya
3. Cathal
4. Zendaya
5. Zendaya
6. Zendaya
7. Zendaya
8. Zendaya
9. Zendaya
10. Zendaya
11. Zendaya
12. Zendaya
13. Zendaya
14. Zendaya
15. Zendaya
16. Zendaya
17. Zendaya
18. Zendaya
19. Zendaya
20. Zendaya
21. Zendaya
22. Zendaya
23. Cathal
24. Zendaya
25. Zendaya
26. Zendaya
27. Zendaya
28. Cathal
29. Zendaya
30. Zendaya
31. Zendaya
32. Zendaya
33. Zendaya
34. Zendaya
35. Zendaya
36. Zendaya
37. Zendaya
38. Zendaya
39. Cathal
40. Zendaya
41. Zendaya
42. Zendaya
43. Zendaya
44. Zendaya
45. Cathal
46. Zendaya
47. Zendaya
48. Zendaya
49. Zendaya
50. Zendaya
51. Cathal
52. Zendaya
53. Zendaya
54. Zendaya
55. Cathal
56. Zendaya
57. Zendaya
58. Zendaya
59. Zendaya
60. Zendaya
61. Zendaya
62. Zendaya
63. Zendaya
64. Zendaya
65. Zendaya
66. Zendaya
67. Zendaya
68. Zendaya
69. Zendaya
70. Zendaya
71. Cathal
72. Zendaya
Epilogue
Bonus Chapter
Acknowledgments
Also by Olivia Wildenstein
About the Author
Dare to swim against the current.
 Prologue
Cathal

T
he pink ramparts of Shabbe and the placid waters of its climbing rivers
shimmer gold in the light of a new dawn. Though the rising sun’s
radiance fans across my sweat-glossed brow, it doesn’t breach my
mood.
I cross my arms and glare at the moat that loops around the palace
gardens, my trepidation rising like the limpid waters that Priya’s coven—or
Akwale, as they prefer to be called—is coaxing upward. Thank Mórrígan
I’m immortal, for my poor heart would’ve stopped ticking long ago. It’s a
wonder it hasn’t, between my daughter’s misadventures and the fate that
awaits my⁠—
I swallow and replace the word titillating my tongue with the name of
the woman the Cauldron birthed from serpent scales a fortnight ago:
Zendaya.
Lorcan steps up to me, the contours of his body firm, unlike mine,
which bleed smoke. “Priya has conferred with the Cauldron, brother.
There’s no risk of Daya remaining in scales.”
Kanti, my daughter’s cousin and a prominent member of the Akwale,
glances up at us from where she kneels at the moat’s edge, luring the
waterline higher. “If it makes you feel any better, she might not even be
able to shift.”
No, it does not fucking make me feel better. If anything, it tautens my
skin and tenses my muscles, for if the Cauldron stripped Daya of her ability
to shift, then why did it bring her back so physically altered? Why did it
leave an ivory bead between her eyebrows and paint her eyes lid-to-lid
black?
“She’ll shift,” whispers Behati, the queen’s advisor and seer, who also
happens to be Kanti’s grandmother.
I look away from Zendaya just in time to see the veil of clairvoyance
clear from Behati’s pink eyes.
“You saw her shift, Taytah?” Kanti pushes her long black hair behind an
ear that bears more piercings than Lazarus’s.
“Yes,” Behati says. “The Mahananda has just shown me.”
The knot of my arms tightens in front of my stiff chest. “What else did
the Cauldron show you?”
“That is all I foresaw, Cathal. Daya in her Serpent form.”
“Did you see her shifting back into skin?” I press.
“I only saw her transform into scales.”
As long as she desires to shift back, Lorcan says through our people’s
mind link, I’m certain she’ll return.
“As long as she desires?” I snarl at my oldest friend and king. “What if
she doesn’t care to remain two-legged, Lore?” My muscles punch against
the cage of black fabric that was stitched to measure but which, at the
moment, feels maladjusted and shrunken. “What if she longs to return to the
ocean for good?”
I’ve changed my mind. I suddenly wish for Behati’s vision to be
erroneous. For Daya not to shift, for what if she loses herself to the ocean
and chooses scales over flesh? I crush my lids closed to bury the selfish
thought. How dare I worry that she might not shift back? My self-
absorption is repugnant. If I could no longer sprout wings and take to the
sky, who would I be?
Fingers wrap around my arm. I startle until I notice the hand belongs to
my daughter. She places her sweet cheek against my twitching bicep.
“Is everything all right?” I ask her when I notice how wildly her violet
eyes shimmer.
“I just wanted to stand beside you.”
Perhaps it’s the truth, or perhaps her empathy springs from the same
marrow-deep fear that gnaws on my soul.
I stare over at the pink-haired woman whose forehead rests in her
grandmother’s palms. “What is Priya showing your…” I swallow down the
word mother, replacing it with a pronoun that won’t sadden Fallon: “…
her?”
“What might happen to her body.”
“What will happen,” Kanti says, before gesturing to Behati. “Taytah had
a vision of her shifting.”
Fallon blinks at her fellow Shabbin, then at me, before finally locking
eyes with Lorcan. “She truly is a new breed of shifter.” Wonder brightens
my daughter’s pitch.
If only some of it could breach my heart.
The briny moat has risen so high, it now spills over the lip of the
sunstone cliffs and froths around Daya’s bare feet. I squint, scrutinizing her
deep gold skin for bright pink scales, but none appear. I loathe the relief that
floods my veins, loathe it with every beat of my bestial heart.
As the sun climbs higher, the swoop of dwellings that blanket the
hollowed land begins to shimmer as though crafted from gold instead of
sunstone. Shabbe is awakening, and the Shabbins along with it. I spy many
trickling down to the moat’s razor-sharp cliffs, gazes pinned to the recessed
vale, to the white-haired queen and pink-haired princess. I spy some
contemplating the water’s surface, which glistens a mere dozen feet away
for once.
“It seems that word of the princess’s dip has spread,” Kanti murmurs.
My jaw feels like granite. “They better not be thinking of jumping in.”
“The fine for swimming in the Amkhuti would drain their savings.”
Kanti’s pink eyes scan the distant shoreline. “Besides, who truly wants to
dive in with a wild creature?”
I snap my attention back to the tall Shabbin female. “Wild creature?”
“Yes, Cathal.” Kanti narrows her eyes on me. “Wild. For all we know,
the serpent version of Zendaya will be a ruthless carnivore.”
“Like us Crows?” My brusque tone must reach Zendaya, for her gaze
slides over me, then over Kanti who doesn’t even bother looking her way,
much less smiling at her.
Ever since the wards crumbled and the Cauldron brought Daya back,
Kanti, who’s of Priya’s bloodline, is no longer next in line for the throne.
“In her human form, she doesn’t eat meat, so I doubt she’ll have a taste
for it in scales.” Fallon’s tone sparks with antipathy.
“You’re probably right,” Kanti concedes. “I wonder if she’ll be larger
than she was the day Cathal plunged her into the Mahananda.”
 I shudder at the reminder of how we got here.
“Do you think she’ll be able to communicate with fish?” Kanti asks.
“I can’t communicate with pigeons,” Fallon snipes, “so I doubt my
mother will speak Minnow.”
Kanti snorts as though Fallon had cracked a joke. “Oh, you know what I
mean, chacha.”
Fallon scowls, loathing when Kanti calls her ‘cousin,’ for it reminds my
daughter that the same blood flows through their veins.
“Technically,” Kanti continues, evidently not done giving her opinion,
“your mother was born a serpent and you were born human, so maybe I’m
not entirely off the mark.”
Could Kanti be onto something? Even though Zendaya’s shown herself
an avid listener, she’s yet to utter an intelligible word. Or even a sound, for
that matter.
Where most believe she’ll never be capable of talking, Fallon and I are
convinced it’s a matter of time before she proves the world wrong. Then
again, I still believe that I’ll wake up to the sound of Zendaya’s voice in my
mind.
My nostrils flare, cycling a ragged exhale against Fallon’s dark-auburn
locks. I’ve become delusional. The bond I shared with Zendaya is gone, and
forever at that, according to Priya, who conferred with the Cauldron on my
behalf.
Gone, like my brother Cian.
Like his mate Bronwen.
Like the Regio dynasty.
Like the wards around the queendom.
I’m tempted to kneel beside the source of all magic and barter a piece of
my soul for another chance at being Zendaya’s mate, but I’d be wasting my
breath for the Cauldron only listens to its guardian.
The belt on Daya’s twilight-blue robe falls like a pitched snake at her
feet. Although it makes no sound, I feel as though it smacks the earth like
an anchor chain. She parts her robe, letting it drift down her shoulders, her
back, her ass, her legs. Lorcan glances away, but everyone else, men and
women alike, stare. I want to gouge out their eyes with my iron talons. I
want to choke her perfect hourglass figure in my smoke.
I do neither, for her body isn’t mine to shield or possess.
Her body isn’t mine, period.
 I grit my teeth. Even though the woman inching toward the water is
different than the one I fell in love with two decades past, when she’s near,
my heart beats fiercely and my skin burns. How I long to shape her waist
like I did the day she teetered out of the Cauldron. How I long to feel the
probing scrape of her fingertips against my beard.
“Breathe, Dádhi,” Fallon instructs as she trails her mother’s progress.
I haul in a breath, hold it until my lungs ache, and gasp it out only when
Zendaya jumps. I move away from Fallon to shift and take to the skies. My
heart misses a beat. Two. Three. Four.
Another Crow circles the liquid trench—Fallon. Her violet eyes are
trained on the moat, on the serpent undulating through its limpid waters,
pink scales refracting the rising sun. I soar as fast as Daya swims, dread
coalescing beneath my feathers that she will dart sideways, toward one of
the rising falls.
Would it be strong enough to lift her giant body into the rivers that flow
upward, toward the ocean? I’m guessing it’s a possibility, considering Priya
has stationed sorceresses at every junction. Sorceresses who dribble blood
into the water. I vaguely remember the Shabbin Queen mentioning nets
during supper last night. Is that what they’re doing? Casting a spell to keep
the female serpent caged in the moat?
I flick my attention to the white-haired monarch, who kneels at the
water’s edge and wriggles her fingers. Daya swims up to her, her giant
white tusk carving through the surf. I spy her forked black tongue emerging
from her maw and wrapping around her grandmother’s fingers.
The words shift back stick to my iron beak, tacky like the humid air.
Priya tries to seize her granddaughter’s equine-shaped head. Her
movements must be too abrupt for Daya’s liking because the latter lunges
back, then sinks so deep, her color dims.
I jolt as Fallon shifts in mid-air, her fingers swiping against the sides of
her neck a second before joining in front of her. Even though I sense she
must’ve painted gills on either side of her neck, I drop lower, ready to dive
in after her if the creature that my former mate has turned into decides to…
to hurt our…my daughter.
Calm down. Lorcan’s voice blisters my temples.
I send him a scathing look.
Fallon’s reminding Daya of her human form. Daya’s calm. She
listens.
 The circles I fly tighten until I’m all but spinning on myself like a top,
dizzy with panic. Come on, Princess. Come on.
Like a tree riven by lightning, Daya’s pink tail splits and retracts into
legs, and then the water around her body shimmers and foams. When its
radiance dulls, two women tread water.
My daughter.
And my…my nothing.
 Chapter 1
Zendaya

I
peer up through a cluster of fish that glow like stars and see him.
He is always there. I believe it’s because he worries I might find a
way to leap up into the Sahklare—the rivers that flow through the
queendom—and escape into the ocean beyond the great walls of my home.
He forgets I’ve neither the ability to make the waterline rise, nor to sprout
wings, so I cannot escape the Vahti—or Vale, as I’ve heard the Crows call
it.
How I long to wander, though. If only I had the words to ask the queen
to show me the land over which she rules. Perhaps the Crow with three
names could give me a tour on his back. The thought brings my swim to an
abrupt halt. That male would never accept to be ridden. I suppose I could
ask Fallon or her friend, Aoife, or possibly Aodhan, the only three Crows
whose lips curve at the sight of me when every other shifter’s lips flatten.
Especially the Crow pacing over the stars overhead. The corners of his
mouth never rise. Not for me. Not for anyone. Not even for his daughter. He
wears his anger like I wear the ocean’s salt, in a thin, coarse layer that
forever envelops my flesh and seasons the air.
If only I could read the reason for his menacing mood off his palms.
Unlike Pink-eyes, though, Crows—save for Fallon—cannot communicate
with their hands, only with their mouths. More often than not, the Crow
above me uses that orifice to growl raucous words that sound like tumbling
seashells and shivering hedges.
 I lap around the Vahti once more, dashing through hordes of fish that
used to scatter at my approach but now trail after me. If only the creatures
on land could also surpass their fear of me and comprehend that I’m no
predator.
I flick my tail, thrusting my body toward the vine ladder that my
Shabbin guard, Asha, knotted to the trunk of a date palm so that I could
bathe in the Amkhuti at will. I close my lids and picture my other form, the
one which allows me to tread land and steal air from the sky.
My pulse hastens.
My scales tighten.
My tusk twinges.
My bones grind.
Seven heartbeats later, I shrink into a creature made of skin instead of
scales, of limbs instead of fins. One heartbeat faster than yesterday. I am
improving. Perhaps someday, I will be able to shift as fast as Fallon. I roll
onto my back and float atop the starlit waters of the Amkhuti, my waist-
long hair, that is fanned out like seaweed, tangling around my smooth arms.
My toes poke out from the placid surf, the same hue as my locks, thanks to
the coat of polish that one of the palace attendants applied before she
plucked every hair off my body, leaving me with only the bundle atop my
head and above my eyes. When she’d smoothed the warm wax over my
skin, I’d frowned. When she’d removed it, I’d hissed and snarled.
If Fallon hadn’t pressed her palms to my forehead to show me that it
was a Shabbin custom, I would’ve stormed out of the humid stone room.
But I hadn’t. I’d borne the discomfort, so desperate was I to belong.
Fallon may claim I’m a shapeshifter like her and her people, but I am
nothing like them. Not only am I not part of a flock, but the shape I take is
also different. I’ve neither feathered arms to carry me skyward nor metal
protuberance with which to pinch. I have a tail I can snap to glide through
water, an ivory horn I can wield like those blades Two-legs carry, and a
forked black tongue which can heal flesh wounds.
I’m a creature that inspires fear in almost all. In a corner of my mind, I
believe that once I learn to string together all the sounds Two-legs
produce…once I’m able to comprehend their meaning, I will be gazed at
with kinder eyes. Then again, my Crow sentry can produce all those sounds,
yet he still causes pulses to hasten. Even his king—Fallon’s mate—is less
feared. Perhaps because Lorcan Ríhbiadh’s tone is more dulcet, and his
demeanor, less forbidding.
A screech rents the night, making my skin pebble, not with scales, but
with those same bumps Two-legs develop upon beholding me. I hinge at the
waist, sinking back into the water, then pitch my head backward to glimpse
what’s got the Crow with three names so agitated. Though he’s black like
the heavens, I don’t miss his trajectory toward the cliff opposite the palace,
nor do I miss how a Two-legs scrambles away from the stone sill.
I shake my head, the bumps on my skin receding. What an odd
specimen Dádhi Cathal Báeinach is—always watching me, yet abhorring
when anyone else does.
As I carve through the liquid expanse toward my ladder, he wheels over
the sprawling moat, wingspan as wide as my serpent body is long, gaze
pummeling the bloom-spangled foliage for more intruders. Not even my
guards are out at this late hour. Most Two-legs sleep when the stars come
out and wake when the stars extinguish.
I find I much prefer to drift from dream to dream when the sun is at its
apex. At first, I wondered if it was a shifter trait, but soon discovered it was
a me and my Crow sentry trait. We seem to be the only two souls voluntarily
awake from sundown to sunup. Though it could be that his wakefulness
isn’t deliberate. That he has no choice since the Two-legs who guard me
cannot trail me when I’m in scales. Not to mention that my guards have
homes and families they’re eager to return to when off-duty. From what
I’ve gathered, Dádhi Cathal Báeinach has no female, and his home is across
Samurashabbe, in a land some call Luce, others, Rahnach Bi’adh—the Sky
Kingdom.
By the time I’ve clambered up the vine ladder, the cool, shimmering
droplets on my skin have dried into a veil of salt, toughening the beads of
duskier flesh on my chest. I’ve yet to understand their use, or why they vary
in size, or why they harden when the air is brisk and soften like butter in the
heat.
The first time I observed this phenomenon, I’d worried they would melt
like wax and had fingered them so many times that Dádhi Cathal had
growled at the guards in attendance, which had made a lovely sound spill
from Asha’s lips. She’d later explained that it was called laughter and that
it’s produced when someone feels joyous. Obviously, my winged guard,
who now stands on two legs beside me, scarcely feels jubilant, for I’ve
never heard him produce this bright melody.
Although clothing reappears on my body once I shift out of my Serpent
form, I dislike the sensation of wet cloth, so I swim in the nude.
Severe gaze pinned to the palace sentries, Dádhi Cathal holds out the
purple fabric I cast off before tonight’s swim. “Dréasich,” he grumbles.
I wish he’d speak in the tongue Fallon and Asha are teaching me,
especially since he’s fluent in it. I’ve heard him carry on entire
conversations with Behati and Asha in Shabbin.
As I relieve him of the dress, I behold his fingers. They aren’t tipped in
iron when he’s in skin, but they’re just as alarming—long enough to circle
my neck, thick enough to shell it whole. A shiver scurries up my spine. Has
he ever used those fingers to harm another? Would he ever use them to
harm me?
Something tickles my arm after I’ve fed it through the sheer sleeve—a
land serpent as slender as my pinkie. My lips curve as I herd the animal
onto my palm and caress its scaly throat before setting it on a wide, heart-
shaped leaf. What did Fallon call these miniature serpents again? Che-
something. Chehpah? Chepassee?
“Chepahsslee!” The word trips off my tongue in a hiss that makes the
Crow swing around to face me. My cheeks blister like the pads of my
fingers had the day I touched candlelight.
His eyebrows, barely distinguishable amongst the black stripes he
wears, taper as he asks me—in Shabbin—whether I spoke.
I’m so stunned that he’s used my homeland’s tongue that I freeze. He
reiterates his question. I keep myself from nodding, worried he’ll make me
repeat myself. Until I work out how to eradicate my hissing, I intend to
keep practicing words in the privacy of my chambers.
I scrutinize the star blooms that dapple the hedges of the palace gardens,
my inhalations so brisk that my lungs cramp around the deep, dusky
fragrance that lifts off the Crow’s neck.
“Daya?” The male makes the fragment of my name sound so brutal that
my fingers tremble as I belt my robe with a braided strand of violet silk.
Pretending like I didn’t hear him call out my name, I sidestep him and
follow the serpentine walkways toward my wing of the palace.
Dádhi Cathal fractures into smoke and reappears on my path. My breath
catches when I almost bump into him, and I clap my chest.
 “Chepahlee.” There’s no hiss when he pronounces the word.
I tilt my head.
He dips his chin before creating another sound: “Deark.” When I frown,
he adds, “In Crow, chepahlee is deark.”
Durrk. I slot the single syllable away to rehearse later.
He rolls his lips, pinkening the flesh framed by bushy black hair. The
day the Mahananda turned my scales to skin, I’d touched his jaw. I do it
again tonight, but with a new intent. That of understanding what it’s called.
“Dahadee.” His harsh intonation makes my nerves skip and my hand
lower. “Dahadee. Fruhlag.”
That must be the name of the hair that grows on his face. I do not have a
word for it in my mind’s tongue. Because the language inside my head is
that of a serpent, and serpents do not have hair on their bodies? Then again,
I have the word for hair…
I touch my own jaw—smooth. Will it stay this way, or will dahadee
sprout there someday?
The Crow’s nostrils flare with a chuff and a single corner of his mouth
tucks upward. Is that a lip spasm or is the forever-austere male smiling?
Dádhi Cathal shakes his head, which sends his tousled black locks
sailing in all directions. “Mahala nahen dahadee.”
I startle that he’s read my mind.
He points to me. “Mahala.” Female. He points to himself. “Parush.”
Male.
I smile because I learned the distinction when I stared a little too long at
what hung between the legs of Fallon’s golden-haired friend, Phoebus, the
day he joined us in the balmy stone chamber where I was divested of body
hair. I’m sad the Faerie left Shabbe, but I also understand that he wanted to
join his mate back home.
I rake my gaze down the Crow’s chest, imagining that, like Phoebus, he
must have an extra limb there as well. What did Fallon’s friend call it
again? The skin around my retracted tusk pleats as I try to recollect the
term. When I can’t, I tentatively poke the Crow there.
The male goes so still that I peek up at his face. His skin, usually as pale
as the moon, has deepened to the hue of the corals that tile the Amkhuti’s
walls. I slide my fingers farther down the limb I don’t possess, my
confusion increasing when I feel it move.
“Príona,” he rasps.
 I frown some more. That cannot be the thing’s appellation since ‘Príona’
is the name he calls me. I tap on the hardening limb, then tilt my head.
The Crow with three names stares and stares, throat dipping, stunted
limb throbbing. Smoke gathers around his skin, thickens, until he bursts and
reappears farther down the path.
Too far to reach.
My throat constricts like the curved bones around my heart. I must’ve
done something wrong. Why else would he have added so much distance
between us?
I curl my fingers into my palms and slice my eyes in the direction of the
Mahananda, ruing it for having tossed me into the realm of Two-legs with
no knowledge of their ways and words. Yes, I’m learning both, but it is
hard, and most of the time, I feel so out of my element. I may resemble
them, but I’m not like them.
Would I feel more kinship with serpents? Would my mind attach to
theirs like Crows in beast form? Perhaps I should find a way to climb into
the Sahklare, which I hear are full of sea serpents.
My sodden hair suddenly lifts. I think the wind must’ve picked up but
soon realize it isn’t the weather that whips my pink locks; it’s a churning of
dark wings. Two Crows land around Dádhi Cathal Báeinach and
immediately shift into skin—Aodhan and Reid. Both males are a comely
gathering of burnished skin and chiseled curvatures, nothing like the stark
angles and harsh bleakness of the Crow who guards me.
When Aodhan spots me, his mouth crooks. I start to smile but halt when
an impenetrable wall of smoke pounds between us before reshaping into my
Crow sentry’s familiar physique.
Dádhi Cathal commands them to talk, and as they do, the newcomers’
mien turns grave, causing chills to scurry along my spine. Although they
speak in their tongue, I grasp a few words: Rahnach Bi’adh and Mórrgat.
Did something befall their king?
Did something befall his kingdom?
 Chapter 2
Zendaya

W
hen the silvery light of a new dawn finally slashes the horizon, I
stride across my bedchamber and wrench open the heavy door.
Abrax must’ve just arrived, for my guard is still tying the wide
carmine sash that all royal guards wear around their cream-colored tunics
and pants. “Rajka.” He blinks at my salt-crusted hair that has set in stiff
waves.
I should’ve probably bathed after Dádhi Cathal escorted me back into
my bedchamber and urged me to rest, but I’d been too distracted by the
Crows’ tense expressions.
Abrax asks whether I need anything. Yes. I need to learn why Reid and
Aodhan flocked to Shabbe in the middle of the night.
I hurry past my guard in the direction of the Kasha—the wing of the
palace where the queen holds court. I squint past the tall wooden doors that
are chiseled like sea fans to find the queen and Behati seated in their usual
spots on the circular carmine divan.
Fallon’s there as well, but she does not sit. She stands between her
father and Lorcan, her shoulders squared beneath a silk dressing gown that
gleams gold like her mate’s eyes. Her fingers cut the air while her lips move
over a flow of words that do not reach my ears because of the sigils painted
into the walls to keep sound from escaping the Kasha.
I nod to the doors, but the two female guards stationed outside do not let
me pass. Luckily, Abrax has followed me. He translates my desire to enter
with a command that the sorceresses shielding the queen don’t heed.
 I’m so desperate that I consider letting my voice squeak past my teeth,
but I’m saved from having to do so by Abrax, who hardens his pitch. It’s the
first time he uses a tone that isn’t as placid as the Mahananda’s surface.
Though both guard’s eyebrows arch at his outburst, neither relents.
I cross my arms and tap my foot against the buffed sunstone. If I have to
stand outside the Kasha until the meeting adjourns, then so be it.
Fortunately, Behati spots me through the lattice doors and alerts the queen,
who turns and crooks her finger, signaling to let me pass. As her guards
open the doors, she chides them for keeping me out.
She pats the cushion beside her. “Haneh, emMoti.” Come, my Pearl.
She calls me that because my retracted tusk reminds her of the iridescent
beads that sprout inside oysters.
Like Fallon, Priya still wears a nightgown. Unlike the Crow Queen, the
Shabbin one tamed her hair into pinned swirls.
I kneel at her side while Dádhi Cathal mutters something under his
breath in Crow, leveling me with his lightning-bright stare. I truly must’ve
imagined the soft look in his eyes earlier, because there is nothing gentle
about him now.
Louder, he addresses the Shabbin Queen—still in Crow. I circle her
wrists and lift them to my forehead, entreating her with my stare to show
me what troubles everyone so. Dádhi Cathal shakes his head. Priya quietly
but sharply tells him that I should see. Fallon agrees. Behati doesn’t give
her opinion.
Dádhi Cathal glances at Lorcan, probably for support, but the Crow
King’s eyes are glazed, harboring the same sheen as the giant gold platter
heaped with plump fruit. It’s possible he’s communicating with his shifters.
I hear he’s capable of this in both skin and feathers, whereas his people can
only mind-speak when in their beast form.
When the queen sighs, I pivot my head back toward her, the three
syllables for please—krehiya—warming my tongue. I rein them in behind
my teeth, flattening my palms over her blistered ones, choosing a silent
entreaty instead of a hissed one.
I draw in a breath when a twilit forest develops on the back of my lids,
one that mustn’t be in Shabbe, for the trees that line the queendom’s
ramparts have thin trunks and broad, glossy leaves. The ones in the queen’s
vision have fat trunks impaled with slender branches dappled in thumb-
sized, papery leaves.
 I slither through the forest like a serpent, stopping only once I reach a
clearing strewn with three black boulders. The queen glides me closer to
these dark mounds, close enough for me to realize that they are, in fact,
effigies of giant birds.
I wonder why she shows me these statues. Do Crows not appreciate
replicas of themselves? She must feel my brow furrow, for she directs my
stare toward striped brown feathers that protrude from a splayed wing.
Before I can comprehend why feathers have been glued to stone, the
landscape of her mind changes and I catch her hand folded around a dagger
tipped in black stone. I see her stabbing it through Lorcan’s heart and his
skin hardening to iron.
She yanks her palms off my forehead, her gaze wide with what
resembles fear, while mine is narrowed with a frown, one that grows when
Fallon points to herself and says: “batara azish.” I know the meaning of
azish for it’s been used many times to describe my condition—curse—but
I’m unfamiliar with the term batara.
As I sit back on my heels, my temples buzz as though a bee were
trapped behind them. What link exists between the forest statues and
Lorcan’s stabbing? And why does the queen’s hand tremble as she reaches
for her glass of steaming date tea?
When her gaze flicks to Behati’s, the buzzing grows so insistent that I
knead my temples. Were those visions? Did she not intend to show me the
one of her stabbing Lorcan? Was it even her? The Two-legs holding the
dagger had long white hair. Behati’s is also white, though hers is streaked
through with gold.
The seer directs words to Fallon in Crow. She usually always speaks to
her in Shabbin. Has she switched languages to thwart me, or is it simply for
her audience’s benefit?
Smoke slithers around Lorcan like vines as he growls something at the
Shabbin Queen that must concern Fallon since he uses the Crow term for
mate. Fallon sidles in front of him and brackets his cheeks between her
palms. His complexion, usually moon-pale, currently resembles the berries
clustered in the platter before him.
Lightning cracks and thunder grumbles over the window that stretches
almost the full length of the Kasha’s ceiling. Fallon once told me that her
mate can control the sky. Is the incoming cloud front Lorcan’s doing?
 Out loud and in Shabbin—for my sake, I imagine—she asks why he and
Dádhi don’t trust the Mahananda. My frown deepens, for what does the
Mahananda have to do with the bird statues and Lorcan’s stabbing?
Dádhi Cathal Báeinach folds his thick arms and slits his dark gaze.
What? I want to ask. What did I do wrong now?
I hear Fallon murmur the name she sometimes calls me to Lorcan—
Mádhi. I’m not sure what it means, only that it sounds vaguely similar to
how she refers to her father. Since I’m not a mother, I suppose the likeness
is coincidental.
“EmAzish,” Lorcan murmurs. My curse. And then he says something
else that starts with -em but finishes with a word I’m unfamiliar with.
His curse? What is his curse?
Fallon shakes her head and murmurs that it’s hers, that she’s the “batara
azish.”
I blow out my cheeks, my frustration mounting. What does batara
mean?
As the queen takes a sip of her tea, her eyes whiten like Behati’s.
Except, in the Shabbin monarch’s case, it happens when she convenes with
the Mahananda. A moment later, she proclaims, “Mahananda keteh ab.”
The Mahananda says now.
Lorcan closes his eyes and shakes his head, repeating the word “no” in
both Shabbin and Crow.
The queen sets down her glass of tea. “Ab va kada.” Now or never.
Lorcan’s jaw turns bladed. “Kada.” Never.
Never what?
A meaningful look passes between the queens that makes Priya climb to
her feet. As she strides toward Lorcan, she asks everyone to depart, save for
the Crow King. Does she believe he’ll change his mind if we’re gone? And
what of the dagger? Is she planning on hurting him? I reassure myself that
she’d never harm her descendant’s mate, for it would hurt her beloved
Fallon.
For some reason, this is when I comprehend the second part of her
vision. The stabbing had been an explanation of the forest statues since,
when the dagger had breached the Crow King’s skin, it had hardened his
flesh like theirs.
“Daya?” Behati holds out her arm to me.
 I stand, then pad over to where she sits, take her forearm, and boost her
up. Once she’s stable, I reach for her cane, but she shakes her head and
curls her callused fingers around my elbow.
All right…no cane.
Behati’s body might be brittle, but her mind’s alarmingly firm. There’s
no changing it once she’s decided something. And apparently, today, she’s
decided I will be her crutch instead of the gnarled branch carved to
resemble a coiled serpent. I suppose that if Kanti had been present, Behati
would’ve taken her arm.
Fallon catches up to us, her features blurring and writhing behind the
gossamer veil of smoke that envelops her. I wonder if it’s her mate’s smoke
or her own beast pushing against her flesh, desirous to emerge. She says
something to her father in Crow that has the umber rings surrounding his
pupils shrinking and his scowl darkening as though his smudged stripes had
penetrated into the pale canvas beneath.
He shoves open the door just as Fallon pricks her finger on the shell she
wears around her neck and sketches a motif in blood. Though my stance is
solid, Behati teeters and grabs ahold of the wall on our way out. I try to ease
her away but she resists. I soon understand why when I catch her finger
traipsing over the door frame, leaving behind knots of blood that quickly
absorb into the stone.
She doesn’t meet my stare as she tucks her bleeding hand into the
pocket of her wide-sleeved carmine robe. I start to ease her forward when
she halts once more to grumble something that includes Cathal’s name and
a nod at the cane she left behind.
What are you up to, Behati?
As Cathal goes to fetch her abandoned cane, Fallon steps out of the
Kasha, drumming her fingers on her thigh, speckling the gold with
vermilion droplets. Did she, too, just bloodcast? When she catches me
observing her, her shoulders turn needle-straight and she gives the murky
sky beyond the honeysuckle-laden trellis her full attention.
Behati tugs me forward, crooking her finger toward one of the female
guards, who hinges to accommodate the seer’s shorter stature. Behati
whispers something about gathering the Akwale that makes the guard spin
on her heel and rush away. Why does Behati request the presence of the
strongest sorceresses?
 My skin begins to prickle, not with the need to shift, but to understand
what⁠—
A tremor ripples through the air behind me. Brow puckered, I twist
around. And then I gasp, because Cathal’s fist is sailing toward my face.
 Chapter 3
Cathal

M
y fist connects with the ward that Behati must’ve conjured into
existence to keep me locked inside the Kasha. From the way my
daughter gnaws on her bottom lip, I sense she must’ve aided the
seer.
I get confirmation of this when she murmurs, “Sorry, Dádhi.”
I roar at her to remove her magic. When she doesn’t, I smash Behati’s
cane into the invisible wall, reducing the knobby wood to splinters that I
cast aside before pummeling the air with my fists. When no fissure forms, I
disintegrate into smoke and rush at the barrier.
A smirk tugs at Zendaya’s lips. I bare my teeth. Not at her. At Behati.
But since Daya stands so near the seer, her delight stumbles off her pretty
mouth and a good dose of fear soaks into her.
Remembering that Lorcan and Priya are locked in with me, I whirl.
Though I see Lore break into five shadowy plumes, I don’t spot the Witch
Queen. I soon understand why when a body shimmers into existence beside
Zendaya.
After recalling her invisibility sigil, Priya lowers her palm from her
forehead. “The Mahananda is always right and always just, Cathal. No need
to act like an uncivilized beast.”
Are her words supposed to calm me? To reassure us that planting an
obsidian dagger into my daughter’s chest and feeding her to the Cauldron
holds zero risk? What if the Cauldron doesn’t release Fallon? Or what if it
does, but altered?
 “I’m the curse-breaker, Dádhi.” Fallon’s teeth-bitten lip glows as red as
the tip of her seashell necklace.
She already broke one curse—Meriam’s. Who’s to say, besides two old
crones with pink eyes and a magical basin, that my daughter is also our
people’s curse-breaker?
Daya untangles her arm from the seer’s and reaches for Fallon’s wrists.
I hold still as she rests Fallon’s palms on her forehead.
What does she want our daughter to show her? The reason why she
painted a ward? When Daya rears back, eyes so big they devour more of her
face, my eyebrows pitch low. Didn’t her grandmother show her Behati’s
vision when she entered the room?
The Serpent Princess joggles Fallon’s wrists in an attempt to draw her
backward, toward where I stand, trapped and quaking with fury, praying
that Lorcan’s found a way out. My prayers are reduced to dust when the air
churns beside me and five dark streaks bang into one.
I understand from his reddened stare and the purpling sky that the ward
encapsulates every wall, window, and ceiling.
“What of the mind link?” I ask him.
Blocked.
Fuck.
Zendaya heaves Fallon back once more, this time, managing to make
her stumble. Lorcan snaps his hands up to catch his mate, but all he catches
is a palmful of air. I, on the other hand, catch an arm—Daya’s. Before she
can snatch it away, I yank her inside the Kasha and gather her against my
chest.
“Fallon,” I roar. “Get inside! NOW!”
My daughter doesn’t indulge me. No, she abuses the word “sorry” and
her bottom lip some more. She is not sorry. If she were, she would rethink
this self-sacrificial insanity.
Daya writhes. In case her plan is to return out there, I tighten my grip on
her biceps. She begins to shake like the sky over Shabbe. I imagine with
irritation until I spot her fingers lifting to her scar and rubbing her neck
manically. Perhaps she is frustrated, but mixed into her resentment is a
weighty dose of panic. One that makes her pulse go so wild that it tramps
past her silken sleeves and absorbs into my palms.
As Lorcan’s storm erupts into a deluge of raindrops, Fallon flattens one
palm against the wall between them and murmurs, “Trust the Cauldron.”
And then she repeats it in Shabbin, probably to quell Zendaya’s fear.
Trust the Cauldron to what? Keep her alive? Return her in one piece?
Return her—period?
Why must my daughter have inherited my stubborn streak and taken it
to the next level?
Why is she allowing Priya to inflict bodily harm on her just because the
Cauldron showed Behati that was the way to go?
“It returned Mádhi.” Fallon’s wispy reminder snakes through the
invisible divide between two rolls of thunder.
I stare past Fallon’s head at the Cauldron. Yes, it returned her mother,
but it didn’t return her intact. It stole her memories. Stole our bond.
Before I blemish Zendaya’s skin with twin bruises, I relax my grip but
don’t release her. I physically and emotionally cannot.
To placate me, Fallon adds, “That was Meriam’s doing, Dádhi, not the
Cauldron’s.”
“We do not know that, ínon!” I growl.
Daya twists around and cranes her neck. Our eyes collide. I expect
belligerence but find apprehension, and it kinks my heart. Does she fear me,
or is the mention of Meriam’s name to blame for her perplexing pallor?
“Sumaca.” The slap of sandals directs my attention off Zendaya and
onto the gold box one of Priya’s guards is proffering. “Your weapon.” As
Priya draws a sigil on the miniature trunk, the female says, “The Akwale is
assembled and waiting.”
Does she expect Lorcan to have mobilized a winged army? She must
know Behati and Fallon’s ward is mind link proof.
“Trust the Cauldron, Dádhi,” Fallon repeats again, fostering a smile that
doesn’t extend to her eyes.
“It isn’t the fucking Cauldron I have trust issues with,” I growl in
Shabbin against the top of Daya’s head. “It’s your great-grandmother and
her seer.”
Daya goes stock-still and then she glowers up at me. What was I
expecting? Both she and Fallon hold Priya on a pedestal. Even Lorcan
thinks the woman’s inherently good. The only thing the queen is good at is
controlling all those around her.
When the obsidian dagger is extracted from the box, Zendaya sucks in a
breath. For long seconds, she gawps at the weapon, then at Fallon, and
finally, at Lorcan. The slant of her dark eyebrows is so vertiginous that it
cuts furrows around her retracted tusk. It’s the same expression that
apprehended her face earlier.
“What did Priya show you when you walked in?” I murmur between
barely separated teeth.
I wait a beat. Two.
Daya’s lips remain sealed.
I repeat my question, using a more urgent tone. “What the fuck did she
show you?”
She flinches.
I gentle my tone. “What happens after she stabs Fallon with obsidian?”
Her frown digs deeper.
My frustration escalates because I realize she mustn’t understand what
I’m asking. I try not to hold it against her. It’s not her fault.
When her lips finally part, I think I was too rash in my judgment, but
then she murmurs in that odd raucous hiss of hers, “Lorcan.”
 Chapter 4
Zendaya

T
he Crow’s grip on my arms is starting to anger me. More so than
having staggered into the Kasha after Fallon showed me her intent of
heading into the Mahananda to break her people’s curse. To think I
could’ve been out there with her instead of in here with two seething males,
all of us helpless to stop her.
I reach for Cathal’s fingers and peel them off one of my arms. I’m
almost surprised when they loosen and fall away.
As I reach for his other hand, Fallon gasps. My hand freezes against his
as she utters a string of excited words. She speaks so rapidly that the only
ones I decipher are names: Mahananda, Bronwen, Alyona, and Glace.
The Shabbin Queen’s expression turns guarded as her blood penetrates
the lid of the golden box and makes it click. She doesn’t hinge it open as
she asks Fallon why she’s interested in Princess Alyona’s fate.
Of course… Alyona is one of the princesses of Glace. Behati told me
about her when she showed me a drawing full of lines and letters enclosed
in rectangles called a family tree. Apparently, every family has one. I long
to see Fallon’s, since she calls Priya, “ImTaytah,” which means “mother of
my grandmother.” I was hoping to understand who this grandmother was,
since neither Ceres Rossi nor Cathal’s deceased mother are related to Priya.
I shake away the tangent my mind has taken and concentrate on Fallon’s
mouth, catching the tail-end of her reply…something about how knowing
would appease Dádhi and Lore.
 I glance at Lorcan, then at the sulking giant at my back. I’m about to
hiss at him to let go, when Behati uses the word “kill” in Shabbin and
brackets it with both Fallon and Alyona’s names. I forget all about Cathal’s
unyielding grip then.
Fallon cocks an eyebrow, then asks Behati something about hair color.
The seer’s forehead grooves beneath the golden-white strands that drape
across it. “Kahala.” Black.
Fallon smiles at Lorcan. Again, I feel like I’m grasping at water. Why
does she seem glad to learn that she kills Alyona of Glace? Because it
proves she’ll reemerge from the Mahananda if she goes inside to discuss the
Crows’ curse? And who has black hair? Alyona?
Behati blinks the shroud of magic away, murmuring something about
how, in fact, the girl’s features do differ from Fallon’s, while Cathal mutters
something in Shabbin—I imagine for my sake—about their personalities
evidently being one and the same.
Priya glances toward the Mahananda where the members of the Akwale
are painting sigils on the drenched sunstone. Though the clouds are still
menacing, and the sky as gray as iron, Lorcan’s storm has eased.
Fallon had said that knowing would reassure Dádhi and Lore. Clearly, it
has. Or, at least, it’s reassured Lorcan. Cathal remains tense, his pulse so
loud that it rumbles from his rigid fingers into my captive arm.
When metal groans, my mind jumps to the conclusion that the ward has
collapsed, but I’m wrong. The sound emanates from the box that the queen
has flicked open. As she reaches inside, I hear her tell Lorcan that if his
daughter—he has a daughter?—is destined to kill the Princess of Glace,
then breaking his curse is all the more important for his race to survive
King Vladimir’s wrath.
My lungs seize around a breath, and not because the pieces of their
conversation are falling into place, but because the Shabbin Queen now
holds the weapon I saw her plant inside Lorcan’s chest. Is that what she’s
about to do? Is that why Fallon trapped her mate inside the Kasha? So he
would calm and allow the Mahananda’s keeper to transform him into a
statue? How does cursing the Crow King break his curse?
The buzzing from earlier returns, this time pressing against my
eardrums instead of my temples. Though it creates a din, I somehow hear
the queen explain that the Mahananda never takes, merely transforms: a
Two-legs into a Crow, a Serpent into a Two-legs.
 As Fallon backs up from the invisible ward, Lorcan murmurs words in a
tone that chills me to the bone. I don’t know what he’s saying, but it sounds
like a plea. Is he begging her to convince the queen not to stab him with the
dagger? Is he asking her not to go barter with the Mahananda?
I might not understand his whisper, but I understand his disquiet, for the
Crows have one mate, unlike the Shabbins, who have multiple, sometimes
at once. I learned this when I dropped by Priya’s bedchamber and found her
lounging on her floor pillows with two males and one female, all of them
disrobed.
After pressing a kiss to all three and wishing them a pleasant slumber,
she’d turned to me and suggested a walk through the palace gardens. It was
two nights after I’d shifted for the very first time. I remember sliding my
gaze over the Sahklare, aglow with phosphorescent algae, and wondering if
my kind mated for life like Crows, before remembering that I was the first
of my kind. That I didn’t have a kind. That I was the only Serpent shifter.
Unless there were others out there, waiting for me beyond the pink
ramparts…
I startle out of my contemplations when I see the queen follow Fallon
toward the Mahananda. And then I scream.
 Chapter 5
Zendaya

S
hock ripples through me as the Shabbin Queen buries the black stone
dagger inside Fallon’s chest.
The brutality of the act cinches my lungs, and I think I’ll never be
able to draw breath again, but I’m wrong, for a second horrified cry escapes
me as Fallon turns to stone and sinks. I slap the ward, claw at it, desperate
to find a breach so I can race over and dive into the Mahananda to retrieve
her.
If only my blood carried Shabbin magic, but all it does is stain. The only
part of me that possesses any power is my tongue. Useless, since it cannot
carry me through wards. Or can it? I lick the transparent barrier. Though it
captures the attention of Kanti, who grimaces as she stands, hand-in-
bleeding-hand, with the rest of the Akwale, it fails to soften the wall.
I freeze as Cathal’s earlier question tumbles back into me. He’d asked
what would happen to Fallon after she was stabbed, not if. After. I thought
he’d mistaken the two words. But he hadn’t. He’d known the queen was
going to stab Fallon.
I spin around, riffling through my mind for the words to ask how and
whether it had been Fallon’s choice to take Lorcan’s place. However deep I
dig, though, I cannot produce any intelligible sounds; they’ve all deserted
me.
Dádhi Cathal and Lorcan stand so still that I suddenly worry they, too,
have morphed to stone, but then Cathal’s throat bobs around a murmur that
makes the Crow King’s golden stare flare with rage and heartbreak.
 Cathal must sense me gaping, because he dips his chin and meets my
distraught stare. I wish he could perceive my interrogations and give me the
answers I so desperately crave, but his mouth remains unmoving. Only his
pupils move, retracting to the width of a seed.
For the first time in my existence, I feel pity for the male whose
daughter has vanished inside the Mahananda. His cheeks hollow as though
he senses my pity and loathes it more than the wait. Stomach spasming, I
spiral back toward the courtyard and peer past the tight circle of the Akwale
for signs of Fallon. She hasn’t emerged.
Where worry rucks the queen’s face, the members of her Akwale—
those whose faces I can see—seem unconcerned. Kanti is downright
grinning, lips curled around teeth that shine white in the gray light. Can she
see to the bottom? Is the Mahananda transforming Fallon from stone back
into skin? Is Fallon still stone?
What if…what if⁠—
I shut my eyes and give my head a harsh shake. How dare I so much as
contemplate this?
Warmth seeps into my cheeks as though the sun were blistering them,
but there’s no sun. Only hot coils of shame. I roll my fingers and retreat into
the farthest, darkest corner of the Kasha, so that the two males I’m trapped
with cannot spot how, for a fragile moment, I wished to curse Fallon with
scales.
The wait is so endless that I sidle down one of the stone walls and
gather my knees against my trembling chest. I don’t know how long I sit
there, hunched in the shadows, watching shards of candlelight dance on the
sunstone floor, but it feels endless. Like Lorcan’s earlier storm hasn’t just
beat the sun back beneath the ramparts of Shabbe but extinguished it
forever.
For the first time since my birth, I loathe the darkness.

F allon does not get scales . I should feel relief ; I don ’ t .

 When she returns from her dip in the Mahananda, her eyes are bright,
her cheeks even brighter. She exudes happiness. She is the only one who
does, though. Priya seems to have aged a century, Cathal is as grim as he
was when she left, and Lorcan…he is as taciturn as I am guilt-ridden.
His lips don’t even bend when Fallon skips through the ward, clutching
the dagger between her palms. She presents it to him. He doesn’t take it.
She turns toward her father and urges him to seize it…to try it. Lips flat,
jaw hard, he relieves her of the blade and rolls it between his palms, as
though to test its weight, before strangling the hilt with his huge fingers and
propelling the blade into his muscled thigh.
I suck in a breath.
I don’t expel it.
Even though I’m still crouched in the shadows, the fragrance of his
blood reaches me, wrapping itself around me until my tongue tingles with
the need to lap and seal his wounded flesh. I resist the urge. He is Crow. He
will heal on his own. He does not need me.
Yet I picture myself kneeling in front of him and licking at his torn
flesh. Would he grimace like Fallon’s friend, Sybille, the day I’d healed the
scrape she’d gotten on her palm while climbing out of the Amkhuti?
Priya scans the obscure Kasha, presumably for me. Sure enough, when
she spots my form, she takes off in my direction, asking Lorcan something
about his fallen Crows. Did they awaken? Awaken?
He nods, and then he does something I never imagined him capable of:
he walks right past Fallon and asks her not to follow him, before shifting
into five crows and taking to the steel-colored sky. The pink flush of delight
in Fallon’s cheeks recedes as she watches her mate leave. Cathal drapes his
arm around her curled shoulders and gathers her into his chest. His lips
move over a whisper, probably a reassurance that her mate will return.
Are Fallon and Lorcan still mates? He spoke aloud to her. Does that
mean⁠—
The Shabbin Queen’s shadow drapes over me. With a sigh, she murmurs
an apology for leaving me in the dark. Does she mean in the shadows of the
Kasha, or by not explaining what was about to happen? She tells me that
Fallon is safe. Unharmed. That she broke the Crows’ obsidian curse. Then
she crouches before me and lays her scarred palms on my knees. “EmMoti,
kaeneh shileh.”
 I frown because I do not know what she’s asking me not to do.
“Shileh?” I croak.
The sound of my voice makes her lids flutter. Her eyes begin to shine
and then her mouth begins to curve. She reaches over and touches my
cheek. And then she holds her fingertip in front of my eyes. It glistens with
moisture. “Shil.”
I palm my cheeks that are as wet as when I surface from my swims.
Where is this water coming from? Did my skin absorb the Amkhuti? I lick
the moisture…taste salt. Why is seawater dribbling from my eyes?
Priya must read my alarm because she offers me a gentle smile. And
then she takes my fingers and brings them to her cheek. I frown until I catch
a bead of moisture sliding out of the corner of her eye. “Shil.”
I blink, because she isn’t Serpent, yet the ocean also flows down her
cheeks.
She places a kiss inside my palm, then releases my wrist to glide her
hands on either side of my head. My mind fills with images of wet lashes.
Everyone, I hear her whisper, shileh.
She must mean all land creatures, for if serpents shed water from their
eyes, I’d have a word for it, and I don’t. She takes my hand once more, this
time to steer me back toward the others. Fallon’s crimson-veined eyes and
wet cheeks draw another sigh from Priya, who assures her that the male will
return. The queen presses a kiss to my forehead, then to Fallon’s, before
retreating to her chambers, flanked by her guards.
Fallon’s lips wobble. It hurts me to see her like this. “Soliya, Mádhi.”
Sorry, Maji.
Why is she apologizing to me? Before I can ask, she races out of the
Kasha.
Concern over the Lucin monarchs’ mating link takes precedence over
her apology. I turn toward Cathal and tap my forehead, pointing between
the blur of gold that’s his daughter and the gloomy sky. His eyebrows sink
toward his crooked nose. I should use words, but it’s suddenly so quiet that
I worry my voice will reach farther than just his ears.
“Foroshock,” he suddenly says.
Foroshock? What does that mean? He must be speaking in his tongue
again.
I push a lock of hair off my face, trying to wrangle it behind my ear, but
the strand refuses to cooperate. “Nahen behiboleh Crow.” No speak Crow.
 He dips his chin, pinning me with a look that makes heat tiptoe up my
neck and into my cheeks.
“Krehiya,” I add, feeling like adding the word please will soften his
irritation.
For a couple heartbeats, he just glares, and then his mouth curls and
laughter leaps out.
How dare he laugh at my diction, especially considering his accent. I
might not be entirely comfortable with the Shabbin tongue, but I can tell he
doesn’t speak it like Pink-eyes.
I plant my hands on my hips and narrow my eyes, and then in my best
Shabbin, I tell him not to laugh at me. He sobers instantly and mutters that
he wasn’t. Then why did he make that sound after I spoke?
He rubs his hand through his snarled midnight locks, then across the
growth on his jaw. He repeats what he’s just said, swapping the word not
for one that sounds similar but that is stronger, especially in his mouth—
never. And then he admits that he was speaking in Shabbin.
I feel like even more of a fool.
He nods to the sky and repeats his earlier word, breaking it into
syllables: “For roshock.”
I frown and repeat his words out loud. It takes them rolling off my own
tongue to make sense of them: “Phar rosha.” Still mates.
My cheeks must match my hair because the skin over them feels lit by
twin flames. I palm one, my thumb bumping into the thin scar that dips
from my left eye like a shil.
Dádhi Cathal’s mouth moves again. So focused am I on the blaze of my
cheeks that I’m not quick enough to snatch and iron out the syllables that
spool off his tongue. I don’t ask him to repeat himself since I’ve learned
that most Two-legs find this practice exasperating. Fallon and Asha are the
exception. Both will repeat words without me ever needing to ask. Aoife,
too, come to think of it, but she speaks almost exclusively in Crow. I’ve
decided not to try and learn another foreign tongue until I can express my
Serpent thoughts in Shabbin.
I moisten my lips with the tip of my tongue. “Fallon phar Crow?”
Fallon still Crow?
“Phar Crow,” he replies, enunciating the first word even though it still
sounds like he’s attached an ‘o’ to the end of it.
 I know he’s not mispronouncing it for my sake, but is it wrong of me to
appreciate that he does? That I’m not the only Two-legs maiming the
Shabbin tongue? He mentions that he will go check on her and asks me if I
want to accompany him. And I do, but Fallon’s his daughter. I’m certain
she’d much prefer to see him alone.
As I decline his invitation, I glance at his maimed thigh. The scent of his
blood has changed. Instead of wet metal, it now smells…not good. I almost
suggest taking a look at it, but I don’t care to remind him that beneath my
smooth Two-legs’ flesh, lurks a creature better suited for the deep.
Smoothing away my grimace, I stride toward my wing of the palace.
Abrax falls into step beside me and sighs. When I cock an eyebrow at him,
he tells me something that makes my footfalls falter and my heart stop
beating.
I halt and twist around. The Crow hasn’t moved from the threshold of
the Kasha.
As I stare at him and he stares back, my heart remains suspended like
the clouds over Shabbe, like the smoke around his limbs.
Now that their curse is broken, he’s leaving.
They’re all leaving.
I don’t realize I’m rubbing the skin over my heart until Abrax asks if
something’s wrong. Yes, I think. I will be even more alone now.
 Chapter 6
Zendaya

I
consider resting but cannot lie still, so after Abrax drops me off, I sneak
out of my private gardens and dive into the Amkhuti without any palace
sentry being the wiser. The instant my body meets water, I morph, and
then I swim hard and fast. When my muscles ache and my energy wanes, I
just float, barely flicking my tail. The clouds start to thin, the air grows
lighter, the world brighter.
Do clement skies mean Lorcan has calmed? Has he forgiven Fallon? He
must have if they are all leaving tonight. Unless she’s not going? What am I
thinking? Of course she will leave. Mates cannot live without one another. I
must drift off while mulling this over, because suddenly, my body bangs
against rock.
I startle awake. Though there’s no pain, my surprise is so great that I
wink out of my Serpent form and into my Two-legs’ one. I whisper Dádhi
Cathal’s favorite word: “Focá.” I’m not entirely certain what it means, but
since he uses it when something goes wrong, it seems appropriate. Not only
is the sun a burst of faded gold, but I also coasted all the way across the
channel that separates the palace from the rest of Shabbe. How didn’t I
notice the current snatching my body? Though a tad distressed, curiosity
tempers my alarm.
I paddle toward one of the liquid curtains that link the Amkhuti to every
river flowing through Shabbe and stick my palm in the wall of glistening
droplets. The pressure is strong, but is it strong enough to carry my body up
the steep cliff wall? Naturally, I test this out. No sooner have I penetrated
the liquid screen that I begin to rise. My marveling is cut short by a shrill
squawk.
I lurch sideways, flopping back into the Amkhuti. My body sinks, but
my heart…it feels like it’s scaling up my throat. Iron slices into the water,
followed by an enormous feathered body. I squeak and kick my feet to get
out of the creature’s way, but apparently, I am his way, since the giant bird
swims after me, using his wings like I use my limbs.
I twist around, recognizing Dádhi Cathal by the force of his glower. I
don’t think he’s ever stared at me with such absolute fury. Because I left my
quarters without warning anyone or because I just discovered how to
venture out of my gilded cage?
My lungs squeeze and a trickle of bubbles sneaks out of my mouth.
Though I can breathe underwater in this form, too, I swim back to the
surface. I mustn’t go fast enough to the Crow’s liking, however, for he
swoops beneath me, forcing my legs apart until I straddle his back.
I just have time to clutch the feathers at his neck before he carves out of
the water and into the sky, toward the Vahti, which sits like a frosted cake
on a golden platter. The air is sweet but so cold at this altitude that I shiver,
the dusky caps on my chest tightening into points that could surely whittle
sunstone.
In mere heartbeats, we’re landing in my private garden. Dádhi Cathal
crouches and I slide off. As I wring my hair, he shifts back into skin and
growls at me in Crow. Actually, not in Crow; in Shabbin. He’s asking if I’ve
lost my mind.
I frown, because minds are inside heads, and since mine is attached to
my shoulders, his question makes no sense.
But then he says something that makes a lot of sense. “I will kill Abrax
and Asha.”
I snap my rope of hair behind my shoulders, then stalk up to the Crow
and hiss, “If harm them, I kill you.”
That knocks his lips shut. It also knocks his eyebrows low. So low that
the black arcs of hair tangle with the swoop of his thick lashes.
I poke him in the chest with a finger—it feels like poking a wall—and
warn him that I’m serious, then toss my hands in the air and bellow, “Look
me. I safe!”
My exclamation gives me pause. In which language are we arguing? It’s
the first time the syllables pop so naturally off my tongue that I cannot tell.
 I stretch my lips over more words, speaking slower this time—not for
the Crow’s sake, but for my mind’s. “Glad you leave tonight.” Shabbin.
Definitely Shabbin.
It’s as though anger has made all the words I’ve learned layer
themselves over their Serpent equivalents.
I’m still reeling from this phenomenon when Cathal’s mouth slits into a
crooked smile that demolishes my wonder.
I fold my arms. “Why you smile?”
“Because, Príona”—he takes a step into my body, the leather cuirass he
wears over his long-sleeved black top punching into my little beads—“I’m
not going anywhere.” The corner of his mouth that hadn’t yet lifted flips
upward.
“But Abrax say all Crows⁠—”
“Except me.”
“But you second to King.”
“You hid your hand well, Daya.”
Though both my hands are buried beneath my elbows, I don’t
understand what their position has to do with our conversation.
“Barely one full moon cycle, and you’re fluent in Shabbin. Is that how
long it will take you to master Crow?”
I still don’t grasp the connection between my hands and my
understanding, but I choose to focus on a more pressing matter. “Why you
no leave?”
“Because I do not trust Asha and Abrax. Or you, for that matter.”
My arms tighten. “You no trust to what?”
“I don’t trust them to keep you safe, and I don’t trust you not to find a
way into the ocean.”
“I belong to ocean,” I remind him.
“No, you belong to—” He stops talking so suddenly that I peer around
the tall shrubs aglow with star blooms and phosphorescent moths, assuming
that we have company.
We don’t.
I cant my head. “Where I belong, Dádhi Cathal?”
He blinks. Then blinks again. And then he grimaces. “Dádhi?”
“Isn’t that name?”
His lids squeeze so hard that his lambent gaze becomes a striation on his
kohl-striped face, like those iridescent veins in sunstone. “It’s not a name
anyone but Fallon should be using.”
“Why?”
“Because it means Father in Crow.”
Oh.
I suddenly see how that is inappropriate, but it does beg the question:
“What she call me sound same.”
Like those marauding barracudas that taunt the smaller fish, his lips part
and then shut, part again before shutting again.
“What mean Mádhi in Crow?”
The spike in his throat jostles. I noticed only males have it. I heard they
were called after a fruit that doesn’t grow in Shabbe. I’ve yet to understand
why males store fruit in their necks and not females.
“So?”
“It means”—he rolls his neck, making it crack—“favorite older
female.”
I can feel my brow crinkle. “I old?”
“You’re, um…” He hooks a finger in his shirt collar and tugs. “Older
than my daughter.”
“How old me?”
“Your serpent was born a few moons before Fallon.”
“So I almost same age as daughter…”
“You’re—you’re—I suppose that yes, you are.” Is it me, or is his jaw
crimson?
“Why you red?”
“I’m not red,” he grumbles, snatching his hand away from his shirt and
smacking his leather pants. He winces as his fingers connect with his thigh,
springing that ripe, stomach-churning scent into the air between us.
“No heal?”
His eyebrows slant, so I gesture to his leg.
“Want me try?”
His chin lowers. “Try what?”
“Heal you.” I tap my lips. “With magic tongue.”
Although it seems impossible, his flush intensifies. “I—” He clears his
throat. “No. I’m a Crow. My body will repair itself.”
“But I repair fast.” I begin to kneel when he fractures into smoke and
reappears beside the farthest hedge.
 “Get dressed.” His tone is as cold as his stare. “You’re late for the
farewell supper.”
I cock an eyebrow as I straighten. “You odd male, Dádhi Cathal.”
He grumbles something about how I shouldn’t call him Dádhi because
he’s not my father.
I glance at him over my shoulder as I head to my bedchamber. “But you
say I same age as Fallon, so possible.”
“No. It’s not possible.” His skin now resembles a berry. “You’re not my
daughter,” he all but snarls.
His reaction strikes me as disproportionate. “I sorry I no understand
word.”
He cuts his gaze to my shimmering hedge. “Supper will start in thirty
minutes.” Even though his tone is flat, the throbbing vein at the base of his
neck betrays his jagged mood.
With a sigh, I climb up my balcony’s stone stairs, my hair still dripping
seawater into the runnel of my spine, and I think about what he confessed
before he got angry: that he isn’t leaving. Surely another Crow can relieve
him of his loathed guarding duties. Perhaps the one named Aodhan who
doesn’t hate me on sight.
As my bath fills, I practice the question I will ask the queen tonight,
then practice it some more as I massage nut oil into my skin and hair. I
speak it aloud one final time as I slip into the backless pink sheath that feels
like water against my skin.
I drag my fingers through the steam filming my mirror and articulate the
title she’s asked me to call her: “Taytah.” Mother of my mother. I suppose
it’s appropriate since she’s the Mahananda’s keeper and I’m its daughter,
though it admittedly feels a little odd to have a special word for her when
she insists everyone else—save for Fallon—call her Priya or Sumaca.
I start over: “Taytah, I no desire Cathal; I desire other Crow—Aodhan.”
I’ve noticed that if I add volume to my pitch, it abates my hissing, but
powering my words means making them ring louder.
Am I ready for Shabbe to hear my odd voice? No. But am I ready to be
rid of the male who doesn’t trust me? Yes.
 Chapter 7
Zendaya

T
he queen sits at one end of a long banquet table, Lorcan at the other.
Relief fills me when I glimpse Fallon at his side. Even though the
tendons in the male’s neck are strained and Fallon’s eyes shimmer
beneath her black stripes, the mated pair must’ve reconciled if they’re
sharing a meal.
I twist a greeting around my tongue, but a snatched glance around the
crowded table has me gulping it back. Every member of the Akwale has
been invited to dine, as well as every Crow from Lorcan’s Siorkahd.
A chorus of “Good evening, Rajka” pronounced in thick Crow accents
echoes off the tall sky-bloom hedges and glittery flagstones that hem in the
garden dining area. I’m tempted to reply with words, but my breastbone
grows hot and I smoosh my lips. I do, though, dip my head while folding
myself into the seat beside Priya’s.
Just as one of the Shabbin attendants tucks my chair close to the stone
table, Cathal makes his appearance and drops into the last empty seat,
which he scrapes in himself. The conversation, which hushed when I
arrived, resumes.
The Shabbin Queen leans forward and slides her elbows onto the table.
Her split sapphire sleeves, bound around her wrists by jeweled gold cuffs,
billow open around her sun-kissed arms. “You were saying, Lorcan? The
Crows in the forest…they still bleed?”
Fascinated once more by my flawless comprehension, I almost miss the
Sky King’s reply.
 “That’s correct. They awakened on their own, but their wounds won’t
seal.”
“Fallon’s did,” the Shabbin monarch replies, her pink eyes tangling with
Fallon’s violet.
“Fallon was in the Cauldron, Sumaca.” The reminder’s spoken by the
black-skinned, white-haired female who’s part of Lorcan’s inner circle.
I vaguely remember her attending my “rebirth,” but do not recall her
name. The single detail that did stick with me is that she mothered
Phoebus’s lover and grandmothered Reid, a male who comes often to
Shabbe.
Kanti, who loves little more than discussing people, says he travels here
to visit Fallon’s Faerie mother, Agrippina Rossi, who—still according to
Kanti—has a broken brain. I’m unsure what this means, besides the fact
that Kanti, who I’ve heard discuss my reptilian brain with the Akwale,
seems to have a fascination with the insides of heads.
“The Crows back in Luce…” Imogen—Aoife’s older sister and one of
the few people whose company Cathal enjoys—breaks off a piece of fried,
phosphorescent algae and nibbles on its corners. “Their wounds are
festering.” Though her coloring is the same as her sister’s, her features are
sharper—bladed.
“Have your injured Crows tried serpent healing?” Behati asks.
“The serpents won’t approach them.” Lorcan flexes his jaw. “You know
Crows and serpents have never been…” When he catches me sitting up
straighter, straining to hear his next words, he says, “We’re hoping that
Fallon will be able to weave relations between our two species.”
“Fallon and me,” Kanti says. “Have you forgotten that I’ll be joining
you in Luce?”
“How could we forget?” Fallon grimaces. “You’ve reminded us hourly
since Behati foresaw how instrumental you’ll be at seducing one of our
many enemies.”
“Have you foreseen which enemy, Behati?” Lorcan leans forward. “I
have so many…”
“The Mahananda hasn’t given me a name or shown me a face. It’s only
shown me that Kanti must head to Tarespagia.”
Two-legs’ politics is so tedious, everyone vying for power and control.
Why can’t the world above the ocean be as simple as the one beneath,
where minnows do not aspire to become barracudas, and barracudas do not
desire to duel me?
“Cathal, your wound? Has it improved?” Aza’s query makes the Crow’s
dark stare lift from his bare plate and settle on the strikingly beautiful
Shabbin with hair the same sapphire-black as Crow feathers.
“It hasn’t worsened,” he mutters to the youngest member of the Akwale.
Priya snaps her fingers. “Call for my healer.”
Two guards whirl and disappear behind a hedge.
“There are plenty of serpents in the Sahklare.” Aza’s expression is alight
with satisfaction, as though she’s singlehandedly solved the Crows’
tribulations. “You could go for a dip with your daughter while you wait.”
Cathal mutters something in Crow that makes the black-haired beauty
narrow her eyes. “It’s not a trick. We do not trick people. The Mahananda
does not trick.”
“If you believe it’s a trick, then perhaps Zendaya could lick your wound
better?” Kanti smiles at me. “After all, you trust her and she does so love
lapping blood, amongst other things.”
I frown, because one, Cathal does not trust me, and two, I’m no fan of
the taste of blood. Also, what else have I lapped? Is she referring to the
ward?
Cathal growls something in Crow that makes Kanti’s expression pinch.
“Careful, Crow”—Kanti squares her shoulders—“or I may reconsider
playing diplomat between your king and his enemy.”
Cathal’s eyes twitch as though it’s taking every last shred of his strength
to repress his reply. Or perhaps they twitch because Lorcan is asking him,
through the mind link, not to anger his future ally. “I’ll swim with the
serpents.”
The idea of someone else’s tongue on his skin hardens my insides, so I
push out of my chair and circle the table toward Cathal. When I start to
lower myself to my knees, he melts into smoke and reappears behind
Imogen’s chair.
Kanti drapes one arm around the back of her chair. “Huh. She really
does understand what we say.”
“She understands everything,” Fallon snaps.
“Pardon me for doubting it. She’s always so quiet.” Kanti wriggles a
hand. “Anyway, let’s see if it works.”
“No!” Cathal says.
 Kanti frowns. “Why not? Saves you from getting wet.”
“Because this could hurt her!” Cathal bellows. “Daya’s not just a
serpent; she’s a shifter.”
Is it truly my health he worries about, or is repugnance what keeps him
from letting me try?
The female healer I met the day after my rebirth as a Two-legs arrives in
the company of a silver-haired male twice her size, and with ears so broad
and pointy, they skim the top of his head. Though their appearance doesn’t
entirely smother the ambient tension, it seems to lower its volume. I
suppose that if a Shabbin crystal leads to Cathal’s full recovery, all will be
forgiven.
But what if neither crystal nor serpent can mend obsidian injuries? What
will happen to the relations between sorceresses and Crows?
“Soorya, one of our guests needs healing from a dagger wound.” The
queen nods to Cathal.
“Right away, Sumaca.” Soorya’s pink eyes roam over the shifter in a
way that makes me want to step between them.
I realize she’s probably seeking the wound in need of mending, but I
find her smile too bright, and her stare, too intrigued. When she looked me
over that first day, her expression was as bland as the tapioca pudding Kanti
eats every morning.
“Which part of your body needs healing, Cathal?” When he points to his
thigh, her slightly hooked nose wrinkles. “What did you stab yourself on?”
“Obsidian.”
The giant Faerie shadowing Soorya blinks. “Obsidian? But I thought—I
thought you were rid of your curse!”
“You and us all, Lazarus.” Erwin drags a freckled hand through his red
locks. I recall his name because, his hair, like mine is a flamboyant color
not worn by many. “Seems like obsidian remains toxic to our kind.”
Soorya’s layered necklace clinks as she hooks one of the six chains,
then runs her fingers over the gold baubles dangling from each link until
she feels out the appropriate medicinal crystal. According to Behati, they
hum to her.
“Kavari,” she says, twisting the ball until the bottom half comes loose. I
imagine it’s a land substance, for I don’t have an equivalent in Serpent. She
props it in front of Lazarus, who leans over and takes a long whiff. “It
counteracts toxins.” She rubs the tip of her index finger against the salve
until her skin is as green as a lizard’s. “Your wound, Cathal.”
The Crow grows out his talons and swipes them through the leather
cloaking his thigh. When Soorya kneels in front of him and pinches the
flap, I grit my teeth and hiss because the veins orbiting around his puckered
flesh are black.
“Great Mórrígan, how are you even walking, brother?” Lorcan
exclaims.
Soorya traces the extent of the infection with her gaze before tracing it
with her healing salve. I will the darkness in Cathal’s veins to seep out as
she collects more salve and spreads it over his flesh.
Lazarus crouches beside her. “How about turga?”
“Turga clots vessels. If anything, we need his wound to bleed.” Soorya
bites down on her upper lip. “May I try to slice you open with my blood,
Cathal?”
My nails aren’t talons, yet they score the skin of my palm just the same.
I do not want this female to butcher my sentry’s thigh with her magic. I do
not want her to harm him further.
“If you’re trying to widen the cut, Soorya, I’ve tried, but the skin
doesn’t tear.” Cathal’s complexion is as pearlescent as the inside of an
oyster shell. “Not even with obsidian.”
He’s used the dagger on himself a second time? How foolish is this
male? I might not have been part of the Two-legged world for long, but it
strikes me as absurd to employ the cause of the issue in the hopes that it’ll
have an adverse effect.
The Shabbin healer swipes her thumb over a serrated link in her chain,
then draws a line down the blackened skin with blood; it doesn’t penetrate.
Tongue tucked in the corner of her mouth, she widens the gap in the leather
sheathing his thigh and paints a noose around the black veins.
“The blood’s not penetrating,” Fallon murmurs, coming to stand beside
me. “Put some on his wound.”
He hisses as Soorya presses her cut to his, which makes my teeth grind
and my feet itch to squeeze in between them.
Soorya studies the circle of blood. “The blackness hasn’t receded.”
“Maybe it takes time?” Fallon proposes.
We wait, and wait. It feels like an entire day has come and gone before
anyone speaks again.
 “Perhaps your blood will work on him, Your Majesty?” Lazarus
suggests.
Fallon grabs a napkin from the table, saturates it with water, then wipes
down her father’s skin. And then she pricks her finger on her neck ornament
and circles the wound. Her blood, like Soorya’s, sits atop Cathal’s skin like
wet sand. Mouth twisted, she touches his cut. Another hiss drops from his
mouth.
She cranes her neck, tipping her face toward his. Though I can only see
the back of her head, I’ve no trouble picturing how tormented she must feel.
My abdomen hardens until it’s become as tight as the fingers I’ve balled at
my sides, fingers that grow infinitesimally tighter when Soorya glances
over her shoulder at Priya. Although they don’t exchange words, the
apprehension sizzling between the two females bites my spine like an icy
current.
“A trip to the Sahklare it’ll be,” Kanti chirrups, as though alluding to an
exciting jaunt instead of a last resort.
“Can you fly, Dádhi?” Fallon asks.
“I’m not infirm,” he grumbles. “Besides, it’s my leg. My wings are
fine.”
I think of the Crow from the vision the queen showed me before Fallon
went inside the Mahananda—the one with the arrow protruding from its
wing. Can it still fly?
As father and daughter shift, I take a step toward them, desirous to
accompany them in case…in case my fellow serpents prove unkind or
uncooperative.
“No, emMoti,” the queen’s voice is low but resonant.
I’m about to beg her to allow me to join them when a gust of air streaks
across my cheek and kicks up the ends of my hair. By the time I’ve spun
back, Fallon and Cathal have departed.
Without me.
I grind the ivory inside my mouth, wishing I had wings instead of fins.
“Good evening, Zendaya.” The mammoth Faerie, who accompanied
Soorya, is staring down at me with a kindly smile.
Although it doesn’t completely blow away my annoyance, it does
appease it.
“I hear you’ve mastered shifting from beast to human.”
I tilt my head, unsure how to answer since it isn’t a question.
 His amber gaze roams over my face, lingering on my retracted tusk. “A
serpent shifter.” He shakes his head, still smiling. “In my long years, I’ve
never seen anything quite as surprising as you. The Cauldron’s magic is
truly astounding.” He speaks of the Mahananda with stars in his eyes.
It may have split my scales, but it doesn’t only produce miracles.
Though, admittedly, if the serpents manage to heal Cathal, I may admire it
once more.
“I’m curious.” Lazarus tucks a long, silver strand behind his pointed ear
that shines with a dozen golden hoops embellished with Shabbin crystals.
“Can you communicate with them?” At my frown, he adds, “The serpents.”
A slender hand winds through mine. I know it’s Priya’s before I even
spot the blood-coated ring gracing her index finger. She says something to
Lazarus in his tongue before switching to Shabbin. “Will you be returning
to Luce with Lorcan and Fallon, Lazarus?”
“I was hoping you’d allow me to stay in Shabbe, Sumaca. I do not have
anyone to return to in Luce.”
“Ah, yes. Forgive me for forgetting about your loss. You’re welcome to
stay for as long as you wish. I hear you and Soorya are getting along
swimmingly.”
Swimmingly? Since I’ve never crossed paths with a Two-legs in the
Amkhuti, besides Fallon and her friends, I assume Lazarus must’ve bonded
with Soorya in the Sahklare.
“Your royal healer is a most wonderful teacher.”
Soorya sidles close to Lazarus, threading one of her brown arms around
his. “Only because you are a wonderful student.”
How can they jest at a time like this? I look up at the sky, hoping to spot
beating wings, but Cathal and Fallon don’t magically appear. Food does,
though. Well, not magically. The vibrant dishes must’ve been deposited
while Soorya melted crystals between her fingers.
“Enjoy your dinner, Sumaca.” Soorya nods before retreating with
Lazarus beyond the hedges.
The queen guides me back to my seat. As she regains her place at the
head of the table, she reaches for the spoon tucked into the wide-brimmed
terracotta bowl brimming with flame-broiled beans and warm grain and
serves herself. When I make no move to ladle any on my plate, too flustered
to eat, she reaches over and serves me. I push my food around, creating
shapes…letters. I suddenly wonder if my reading will have improved now
that my oral comprehension has clicked into place.
“Everything all right, emMoti?” Priya rubs her thumb over the diamond
tusks that protrude from her gold ring, a jeweled rendition of the Shabbin
crest and of the crown glimmering amidst her white strands—two serpents
coiled around a circlet that symbolizes the Mahananda.
Though many stares warm my cheeks, I decide to voice what I practiced
earlier. Just as my lips part, Behati releases her fork, and its clatter snatches
everyone’s attention.
“What is it, Taytah?” Kanti covers Behati’s hand with her own. “Was it
a vision of me again? Did you see who⁠—”
“Kanti, quiet,” the queen snaps. “We do not interrupt visions.”
Kanti herds her hand onto her lap, chastened by the queen’s reproof.
Several minutes slip by before Behati’s eyes clear of their white veil.
Nevertheless, her silence endures. I’ve come to learn that there exists many
types of silences in the world of Two-legs, some that are soothing and
others that are loud. The one that drapes over the palace gardens rings
louder than any scream.
Behati combs aside her pale bangs. “The Mahananda has changed its
terms.”
 Chapter 8
Zendaya

P
riya reaches for her wine glass and takes a slow swallow. “Do share the
Mahananda’s new terms, Behati.”
“Do they concern my seduction mission?” Kanti asks.
I don’t miss Imogen’s eye roll. Even Erwin seems to have trouble
keeping his eyeballs level.
“The Mahananda’s decided that the Crows’ immunity to obsidian will
be merit-based.”
“Excuse me?” Lorcan squeezes the handle of his knife with such vigor
that he manages to warp the metal. “Merit-based?”
A smirk tugs at Kanti’s lips. “Does this restore your faith in the
Mahananda, sisters?” Though she directs her question to all her fellow
Akwale members, she singles out one in particular with her gaze—Malka.
“There was nothing to restore, Kanti.” Though Malka’s brown cheeks
don’t deepen in color, her voice seems uncharacteristically strained. Not to
mention that her pink eyes flick to Priya, as though to check whether her
lover believes her. “I trust the Mahananda with all my heart.”
The Shabbin Queen seems too preoccupied to challenge her bedmate.
“Tell us more, Behati.”
“What I’ve gleaned from the vision is that Crows will not turn to stone
immediately—or to iron, in your case, Mórrgaht. The change will happen
gradually after an injury.”
Imogen’s cup teeters from her fingers and spills amber liquid across the
sunstone tabletop and onto Kanti, who pushes away with a screech, as
though the date wine had broiled her delicate lap.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” So many shadows lift off Lorcan’s skin
that he becomes a steel blur.
“Your mate’s cured, Lore.” The queen’s pitch is so abrupt it disturbs the
flames atop the long row of candles separating the monarchs. “If you do not
wish to jeopardize her immunity, then I’d suggest showing the Mahananda
a little gratitude.”
Thunder bangs over Shabbe with such robustness that it scatters the
glowing moths and extinguishes the stars. “Did you know this was a
possibility before you incited her to step into the Cauldron, Priya?” The Sky
King remains all-shadow.
The queen slits her eyes. “No one forced Fallon inside.”
Lorcan’s smoke funnels back underneath his skin and then he presses
away from the table. I think he’s about to stand, but he merely readjusts his
posture. “If the Mahananda”—for once, he uses the Shabbin term for it
instead of the other non-Shabbins favor—“doesn’t make mistakes, then
could your seer have misinterpreted the vision?”
Behati glowers at the Crow King but doesn’t speak. Perhaps she senses
that defending herself would only make her seem guilty.
Aza scoffs. “Our seer has never once deceived you, Ríhbiadh, for if she
had, she’d have lost her gift.”
He grips his bent knee with one hand and the armrest of his chair with
the other. “I’ve learned there’s always a first time for everything.”
The queen shoves back her chair so violently that the grind of its feet
rivals Lorcan’s thunder. “You’re mated to my flesh and blood, yet dare
question my intent?”
The sky flares with zigzags of lightning.
“Behati’s, actually,” Lorcan says with false calm.
My ribs clench as the monarchs keep glowering at one another, the rift
between them widening. Unease lends every being in attendance glass-
sharp edges that fray the tenuous relations between the shifters and the
Shabbins. For several heartbeats, I feel as though I’m teetering on the brink
of a war.
On what side of the battlefield would I end up? Beside the queen, or
with the other creatures shaped by the Mahananda? But more importantly,
did Behati deliberately betray Lorcan? Is that why I saw the queen stab
Lorcan’s chest in her vision?
 I yearn for Fallon and her father to return to restore the peace.
“How long will the Cauldron be out of sorts, Sumaca?” Erwin
scrutinizes the trail of wine that’s yet to be sopped up by the attendants. It
only strikes me then that most have scattered. Because of the tension, or did
someone command them to leave?
The guards are still here, forming a loose circle around us. I catch
Abrax’s stare, see his hand poised on the pommel of the sword belted at his
waist, smell the fresh blood pooling off Asha’s fingertip. I’m not sure when
she arrived, or why she’s on duty at the same time as Abrax, but her
presence is comforting.
“Because you believe it will welcome you after the king questioned its
keepers?” Priya shakes her head a great many times, dislodging strands
from her intricate, braided updo. “Show yourselves out of my queendom.”
And then she turns and hastens away.
My distress grows because I’ve never seen the queen rush anywhere. I
almost go after her, but Malka is already out of her seat, fisting her long
white gown to avoid tripping over it. The rest of the Akwale—save for
Kanti and Behati—stand and glower at the Crows.
Kanti coils a lock of her straight black hair around her finger. “Must I
still travel with them, Taytah?”
Behati disregards Kanti’s interrogation. “I saw snow fall on the obsidian
bodies of your injured, Mórrgaht.”
“Because the Cauldron abandons us?” Imogen asks. “Or because it will
stay sealed until the winter months?”
“I cannot tell.” Behati reaches for her cane, this one made of gold and
embedded with pink rubies.
While I wonder what snow is, the black-skinned female Crow sighs.
“So our injured have a month. Two, at best.”
“Kanti?” Behati stands, leaning heavily on her cane. Once her
granddaughter has risen, she takes ahold of her arm. “Which one of you will
fly my child out of Shabbe?”
The Crows exchange glances.
Finally, a pale-faced male with black eyes and no hair sighs. “I’ll take
her.”
“Contain your excitement.” Kanti wrinkles her nose. “On second
thought, I’ll sail there.”
 “No. You’ll go with Naoise so he can help you get sorted and settled.
And so he can introduce you to the Tarespagian governor,” Lorcan replies,
just as Fallon and Cathal finally reappear.
“What’s going on?” The swim has wiped away every last fleck of black
powder on her face.
On her father’s, too. Where her complexion is pink, Cathal’s is waxen.
“We were discussing travel arrangements for your cousin.” Lorcan nods
to Cathal’s thigh. “Did it help?”
“The serpents wouldn’t approach.” Fallon’s shoulders are hunched,
unlike Cathal’s that are as rigid as a pillar.
“So, only the Cauldron can heal us?” Reid’s grandmother murmurs,
while Erwin says, “If it deems us worthy of being healed, Iona.”
My insides feel cold, as though I’ve gulped down one of those cubes of
hardened water the attendants use to keep the fruit from spoiling.
“What if it doesn’t deem us worthy?” Iona murmurs. “Does that mean
we’ve lost our immortality?”
The air grows quiet and stiff. Unbreathable.
“So we’re just supposed to sit back and watch Dádhi transform into
obsidian?” Fallon’s cheeks glimmer with—what had Priya called them
again?—shil.
“What if he saws off the infected limb?” ever-practical Kanti suggests.
“I’m not fucking sawing off any of my limbs!”
Kanti rolls her large pink eyes. “Don’t bite my head off, Crow; it was
merely a suggestion.”
“And a sound one.” Behati raises her chin. “One which you should take
under consideration, Cathal.”
“Does the Cauldron have thoughts on amputation, Behati?” Imogen
asks.
“Not that I’ve foreseen, but once Priya calms, I’ll ask her to confer with
the Mahananda.”
“I should never have gone through with it.” Fallon wets her trembling
lips. “I made everything worse.” Her body flickers behind thickening
smoke. I think it’s hers until her mate materializes at her side and cloaks her
white-knuckled fist with his hand.
“Like Priya, I trust the Mahananda had its reasons,” Behati says,
lumbering toward the pathway on Kanti’s arm, cane clicking.
 “Yes. To keep the Crows weak and under Shabbe’s thumb,” Lorcan
murmurs just loud enough for us all to hear.
Behati’s pink eyes tighten on him. “Before you motivate the Mahananda
to lock itself up for another five centuries, Mórrgaht, take a second to turn
over what it’s done and its reasoning. Imagine if it had made your kind
immune to obsidian. Your species would’ve become infallible. And even
though you’ve proven yourself a noble leader, not all Crows are beyond
reproach.” Her rickety voice cuts across the moist air. “The same way not
all Shabbins are saintly. Beneath our magic, we all remain animated and
consumed by our desires.”
“I’m immensely grateful that it’s made my mate immune.” Lorcan lifts
Fallon’s hand to his lips. “Truly, I am,” he repeats, staring over Behati’s
shoulder, in the direction of the courtyard. “But I wish we’d been told of the
consequences. I wish we could’ve discussed it with our people and given
them the choice of whether to preserve our curse as it was or warp it.” His
eyes now rest on Cathal, who hasn’t uttered a single word since his earlier
outburst.
“What about my blood?” Fallon asks suddenly.
“It didn’t penetrate your father’s skin earlier,” Behati reminds her.
“What if he ingests it?”
“I’m not drinking your blood, ínon.” Cathal’s face is tense and pale, as
though the mere thought is turning his stomach.
“Perhaps it could help you.”
Behati’s lashes sweep low before rising anew. “A few drops may slow
the progression.”
The answer invigorates Fallon and makes her reach for the mollusk
dwelling she wears around her neck. After pricking her finger, she drips
blood into Lorcan’s wine goblet and tenders it to her father. “Drink.”
“No.” A drop of seawater glides down the side of Cathal’s face—or is it
perspiration?
“Please, Dádhi.”
“No.” I suppose the male, who already trusts almost no one, isn’t about
to trust the seer who set all of this in motion.
“We’ll test it on the others, Behach Éan.” Lorcan kisses Fallon’s temple
before murmuring, “Come. Let’s go home.”
More shils brim over Fallon’s lash line. Is she imagining the large male
gone from this world forever? Though he and I have our differences, the
possibility makes my fingers rise to my neck and trace my palpitating scar.
His love for his daughter and devotion to his king will make him worthy
in the Mahananda’s eyes…right?
 Chapter 9
Zendaya

I
hug Fallon tightly, my heart aching that she’s leaving me behind.
“I’ll come back any chance I get,” she says, before proceeding to
prove this to me with images that she pours into my mind.
I see us swimming together—in the Amkhuti. I see us lounging around
my garden and sharing meals around the table we’ve just vacated. Although
it should ease the ache behind my ribs, it doesn’t, because I don’t want to
only see Fallon in Shabbe. I want to see her in Luce.
I suddenly remember how the waterrise plucked my body from the
moat. How far could I swim before someone notices my absence and forces
me back to the Vahti? Could I reach the ramparts? Could the waterrise there
lift me over the isle’s fortified walls without anyone being the wiser?
The prospect buoys my trodden spirits. Even if I don’t reach the
ramparts, I’d meet other serpents. What if I could converse with them?
Maybe they could help me find my way out of Shabbe… What if they hate
me and gore me with their tusks?
“As soon as the Mahananda speaks to Priya, I will send word to you,”
Behati says, hand wrapped snugly around the pommel of her cane.
Fallon’s palms slip off my forehead as she twists toward her quiet
father, who stands in the trellised shadow of the courtyard, arms folded,
chin tipped low, gaze riveted to the Mahananda.
“How long before…?” Her voice drifts like Cathal’s stare.
“My guess is that it will take the Mahananda as long to recover as it did
between Zendaya’s and your dip,” Behati says. “Three weeks to a month.
Perhaps longer.”
Fallon returns her attention to the seer. “No, I meant Dádhi’s
transformation from skin to stone.”
Behati presses herself straighter, as though her arm aches from leaning
on her cane. “I suspect it depends on how fast his blood carries the toxin to
his heart.”
Fallon’s cheek dimples as though she were biting the inside of it.
“I understand you feel duped by what’s happened,” the seer says, “but
the Mahananda’s intent wasn’t to harm.”
The corner of Fallon’s eye twitches. “He’d have been unstoppable
without his curse.”
Behati inhales slowly, exhales even slower. “The Crows are our allies
and emissaries, Fallon.”
“Except you can travel freely now, so what need do you have for
emissaries?”
“We still need allies. Even though our ramparts are strong, you’ll find
that the world’s thirst to possess the Mahananda is stronger.” Behati cants
her head, sending the river of white and gold flowing over hunched
shoulders. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I believe everyone wants to own the source of all magic. What I have
my reservations about is the second thing. Sending me in his stead.”
“How can I dispel your doubts, child?”
“Blood-bind Lorcan and me.”
I frown.
“I’d need to ask Priya, but⁠—”
A resounding, “No,” slips from Lorcan’s tense lips.
Fallon swings her gaze his way. “Why not?”
“The Cauldron may interpret having access to your magic as greed and
refuse to break my curse.”
“It’s not greed if I give it to you willingly, Lore.”
He must refuse once more through their mind link, because Fallon
works her pointy jaw from side to side.
“How about I swear to bind you and Lorcan in Shabbin matrimony once
his curse is broken? Would that restore your faith in the Shabbins?” Behati
suggests.
Fallon’s lips part, and I think she’s about to say, “Yes,” but a sideways
glance at her mate quiets her. “Lore says no bargains, but thank you,
Behati.” She gives the seer a smile that unravels some of the tension
between the sorceresses and the Crows. “Let me go say goodbye to my
father.”
Goodbye? After everything that came to pass, I imagined Cathal
might’ve changed his mind about staying. Then again, if he’s going to turn
to obsidian, it’s probably best he remain in close proximity to the
Mahananda.
Behati stares after Fallon. “Do not turn her against Priya, Mórrgaht. She
is of her blood.”
“So was Meriam. Sorry. So is Meriam.”
I’ve heard that name susurrated parsimoniously around the Vahti. It’s
forever accompanied by a beat of weighted silence and a quick press of lips,
as though it isn’t a name but a curse. Sure enough, that’s exactly what
happens to Behati whose lips thin and pupils retract.
“A shame we cannot drain her,” Kanti chirrups from right over my
shoulder.
I jump, not having realized she’d crept so close, and shimmy away.
When shadows churn beside me, I startle again, settling when they take the
shape of my Crow guard.
“Geez”—Kanti blows air through lips slicked with a fresh coat of pink
—“it wasn’t a threat, Mórrgaht.”
Did he speak into her mind? Fallon mentioned he could pour words
inside the heads of non-Crows. Well, except into mine.
“I’m well aware of the reason the traitress must be kept alive,” Kanti
continues.
This is the most information I’ve gathered on this Meriam: she’s a
traitress of Priya’s bloodline.
Cathal fists his fingers, then stretches them, eliciting cracks. “In case
you ever forget the reason, I’ll be glad to remind you.”
“Now that sounded like a threat,” Kanti whines. “But are we sure the
spell endures? You know, since she doesn’t have blood magic?”
Meriam’s of Priya’s bloodline but doesn’t have magic? How’s that
possible?
“It’s not a risk we’re willing to take.” Lorcan’s timbre is so dark and
cold it thrusts a chill up my spine.
“Priya gave you an oath that no harm would befall Meriam, Mórrgaht.”
Behati’s reminder seems to ease the Sky King’s tension.
 “Are you ready?” he asks Kanti.
She flourishes a hand toward two giant trunks filled with her
belongings. “All packed.” She leans over to kiss Behati’s cheeks. “You’ll
have to send word of how tomorrow goes.” Her eyes flick to me. “Daya’s
first swim with⁠—”
“Kanti.” Behati’s eyes widen, a warning for her to hush.
The tempo of my heart peaks anew. My first swim with what? With
who?
“Oops.” Kanti shrugs and mentions how I surely have no clue what
she’s going on about. She’s right, nevertheless, it irks me. “Off to conquer
an enemy heart.” She flings me a smile that glows as bright as the moon
moths fluttering around the Vahti. “Farewell, scaly one.”
I will not miss her.
“Shall we depart, Lore? I’m simply dying to set my eyes upon your
kingdom!”
“Mórrgaht,” he says. “Not only am I your elder, but for the foreseeable
future, I’ll also be your ruler.”
Her white smile loses much of its vigor. “You’ll still be my elder once
I’m queen. Will you demand I call you by your title then, Mórrgaht?” She
rolls the ‘R’s in his name, snapping them out disdainfully.
Queen? Queen of what?
Lorcan’s golden eyes flick toward Behati. “I wasn’t aware Priya was
planning on abdicating.”
“Every good monarch needs to allow the next generation to rise at some
point,” Behati says.
“And Priya’s thinking of naming Kanti as her successor?” One of
Lorcan’s eyes spasms as though the news unsettles him.
I imagine it’s because it would mean the male Kanti’s destined to
seduce would rule alongside her. I might not understand every intricacy
about reigning, but I do understand that having an enemy guarding the
Mahananda cannot possibly please the Crow King. I suddenly worry that
sending her to Luce is a terrible idea. Especially since she knows what
obsidian can do to Crows.
“She knows Shabbe and its people better than any other blood relative
of Priya’s,” Behati says, her gaze drifting over a wing of the palace I’ve yet
to explore before settling over me.
 Kanti raises her chin, pride wafting off her sun-kissed skin like
fragranced oil.
Lorcan frowns. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Behati, but I thought the
incumbent queen could only volunteer a successor. Isn’t it ultimately the
Cauldron’s choice?”
“That’s correct.”
What a frightening, fascinating entity, this Mahananda…
After Kanti and the Crows depart, I mull over everything I learned
tonight. Because of this, I forget to corner Cathal. As I reach my
bedchamber door, I glance over my shoulder, but no large, brooding male
stands in the courtyard. I lift my gaze to the sky—full of constellations but
empty of birds. It’s possible Cathal’s injury drove him to retire in the guest
wing. How empty it must feel tonight. I could ask Asha to lead me to him,
but I suppose it can wait a day.
I try to sleep but my mind crackles with so many things that I toss the
sheets off my legs and open the doors to my garden, and then I plod down
the stone steps, through the lush palms and low brush toward the tall hedge
that keeps my quarters secluded from the rest of the royal gardens.
I haven’t lain all five fingers on the hedge before smoke billows before
me, thickening into the shape of a male.
“Going somewhere, Príona?”
 Chapter 10
Zendaya

I
’m about to tell Cathal I was going for a swim when an idea sparks. “I
look for mollusk dwelling. I drop it here.”
“A mollusk dwelling?”
“Seashell.” I twist my finger in the air to mimic a spiral. “Like
Fallon’s.”
“And you lost it in these hedges?”
“I not know where.” I fleetingly eye the torn leather at his thigh, before
moving my gaze to the ground beneath my sandaled feet.
I realize that I probably have one shot at tonguing his wound. Would
one lick suffice to heal the extent of the damage or would it only seal the
infection beneath his skin? What if I make it worse?
When I look back up, I find his stare fastened to my face. “Find shell,
Crow?”
“Crow?”
“Shell. Focus.” I snap my fingers in front of his face. “See it?” I point to
the grainy mixture of pink sand and umber earth.
The second Cathal’s gaze flicks off me, I drop into a crouch and wedge
the tip of my tongue against his wound. The muscle in his thigh tautens
before turning into air. When Cathal reappears at a distance from me, he
growls something in Crow. I might not understand the words but his
sentiment is clear—he’s furious.
I stay low but tip my head high. Unlike Shabbin and Lucin blood,
Cathal’s tastes like licking a dirty knife dragged through rotted fruit. I’m
tempted to wipe my tongue but decide to drench the taste with many
swallows instead, worried spitting might vex him some more.
“You cannot go around putting your tongue on people without their
consent, Daya!”
I lower until my knees hit earth, then sit back on my heels. “What is
consent?”
“Consent is saying yes.”
“I ask, but you no want try.”
“And for good reason!” At least, color stains his cheeks anew. “It could
get you sick.”
“I Serpent, not Crow.”
“For all we know, obsidian is toxic to all shifters.”
I frown, taking inventory of my body. “I feel same.”
“I didn’t feel sick at the beginning either. I still don’t feel sick,” he adds,
but his insistence makes me wonder if he speaks the truth.
“I’ll fetch something to rinse your mouth.”
“Rinse?”
“In case my blood is toxic to you.”
“I swallow already. I no die.”
The ball in his throat sharpens. “Go back to your chambers and wait for
me there.” Smoke seeps from his skin, but he stays in his Two-legs’ form
long enough to add, “I mean it, Daya. In your room. Now.”
I hate how his command makes me feel like I’ve done something
wicked. When he morphs into his bird, I climb to my feet and tread back to
my living area. My eyes sting, not with shame, but with annoyance. Now
that I think of it, I shouldn’t have tried to heal him. After all, if he turns to
stone, then he wouldn’t be able to shadow me everywhere.
I fling my terrace door shut and bolt it. Even though physically it cannot
keep him out, perhaps it’ll give him pause and make him leave.
Sure enough, he raps a fist against the glass. “Open up.”
I cross my arms. “No.”
His head rears back.
“I no want drink.”
He vanishes.
I almost think he’s gone, but of course, he’s not.
“Take one sip, and I leave.”
I cross my arms. “I say no. You still come inside. Against consent.”
 “It’s not the same.”
“You right. Not the same. I try heal you. You try drunk me.”
“For Mórrígan’s sake, I’m not trying to get you drunk,” he grouses.
“I’m trying to cleanse your stomach of any toxin.”
“My stomach fine.”
“It’ll be finer once you take a swig of this.”
“I no like this liquor.”
He scoffs. “You adore this liquor.”
“No,” I lie.
“Then why do you drink a glass of it every night at supper?”
“Because polite.”
“Oh, come the fuck on, Daya, each time you take a sip you fucking
rattle.”
I suck in a breath. Do I? I know I did it once, because it drew the
queen’s stare, but I try so hard to keep my Serpent reactions from bleeding
over my Two-legged ones. “Take off pants and I take drink.”
He chokes on air. “Wh-what?”
“You show wound; I drink.”
“You can see it just fine through the rip.”
“No. Rip too small. Take pants off.”
“No,” he grits out.
“Why?”
“Because…”
“Because what?”
He drags a hand through his hair. “Fine, don’t drink.”
“You prefer I die than show me legs?” I’m not certain why his reaction
tilts the corners of my lips, but it does. “You shy, Dádhi Crow?”
His nostrils flare. “I told you. Don’t call me that.”
“Show me legs, and I stop call you Dádhi and Crow.”
His eye twitches. “Actually, if I show you my legs, you will solemnly
swear to never approach a waterrise again, Zendaya of Shabbe.”
I frown.
“If you find our deal agreeable, then say, If I approach a waterrise,
Cathal Báeinach, I will owe you.”
My retracted tusk sinks deeper into my forehead’s furrows. “Why you
suddenly happy?”
 “Because I enjoy reaching agreements.” His gaze remains steady on
mine as he waits…and waits. “Fine. Don’t take my deal. Fallon left me a
vial of her blood that should last me until she returns.”
“Blood maybe slow, but blood no heal.”
“As long as it slows the infection long enough so that I am able to stand
at her side the day of her nuptials⁠—”
“Nuptials…?”
“Her wedding.” At my frown, he explains, “Even though Lore and
Fallon are mates, for her to be considered a queen by the humans and the
Fae of our kingdom, they will exchange vows in front of all.”
“When?”
“They were waiting until”—his tongue wets his lower lip—“until the
curse was broken.”
“But curse no broken.”
“Yes. I’m aware. But Luce needs its king, and its king needs his queen.”
“When marry?”
“Soon.”
“In Luce?”
“Yes.” Cathal must read my overwhelming desire to witness this
exchange of vows because he attaches it to his deal. He tells me that he will
let me see his legs and take me to Luce for the nuptials if I swear never to
approach the waterrises.
Even though I realize that his reasons for me not to go close to them is
to keep me from venturing out of the Vahti, I say, “Not just show. You will
consent I lick.”
His throat dips twice before he rasps, “All right.” He scrapes his palm
across his flushed jaw. “All right.” He repeats the deal with my addendum.
This time, I speak the promise he’s asked of me. When the words I
swear slip off my tongue, I hiss and grab the front of my dress, dragging
down the pink silk, because it feels like a bee’s just stung me. Although
there’s no bump, a dot glows on the swell of my right breast.
I touch it, then scrape it with my nail. It doesn’t go away. “What this?”
When Cathal doesn’t answer, I look up at him, find his eyes shut so
tight that the skin around them is rucked.
“Cathal, why dot?”
He cracks his knuckles, then his neck. “It’s the mark of a bargain.”
“Bargain?”
 “When two people with magical blood strike a deal, the deal inscribes
itself into our skin. The bargainer gets a dot atop their heart; the bargainee
gets a band around their bicep. If you try to approach a waterrise now, the
dot will burn to remind you of the promise you made me.”
My hands drift to my sides. “You fool me?”
“No.” His lids lift. “I assumed Fallon had explained how bargains
worked to you.” He jams a hand through his hair, then says some more
things that I don’t quite grasp since his words are running together, but I
sense he’s genuinely apologetic, so I sigh and tug on my dress’s cord,
settling it back on my shoulder to hide the glowing reminder that the world
still has many secrets from me.
“Daya, do not strike bargains with anyone, except for me, all right?”
“I learn lesson. No say I swear again.”
“I’m sorry. I⁠—”
“It fine. You promise to take me to nuptials, so I see world soon.” I
smile. When he doesn’t smile back, mine collapses. “You say swear, so
you⁠—”
“Yes, Príona. I will carry you outside these walls. Those are the terms of
our agreement.” He seems as thrilled to uphold his end of the bargain as
Fallon was to have Kanti tag along with them to Luce. “I appreciate you
trying to help, but everyone said serpent healing is useless.”
“They not know since no serpent lick. Besides, I special Serpent.”
His face softens a little. “You are.”
“Pants, Cathal.”
“Not tonight, Príona.”
“But you say⁠—”
“I said I’d let you. I didn’t say when.”
I bite down so hard the ivory in my mouth clicks. “Why wait?”
“Because you need to rest before tomorrow.” Under his breath, he adds,
“And so do I.”
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow, you swim with the serpents.”
 Chapter 11
Zendaya

M
y blood rushes like the minnows swarming beneath the surface of
the Amkhuti as the queen signals for Behati to transform one of the
waterrises into a waterfall. The silent air suddenly fills with the
crush of water and I startle.
“Shh, abi djhara.” The queen strokes the base of my spine. “You’ll be
swimming with no more than one other serpent. And I’ll be inside the water
with you at all times.”
A crow-shaped shadow swathes me. It steals the warmth of the
afternoon sun but fills my veins with comfort. Before shifting, Cathal
warned both the queen and me that he wouldn’t hesitate to snatch me from
the moat if the serpent gave any sign of aggression.
I pray to the Mahananda that my scaled companion will prove kind. And
that he or she be small. My prayers must not land for the yellow body that
flops from the Sahklare into the Amkhuti is colossal, with a tusk as long as
my leg. It sinks out of sight before goring the surface as the animal ribbons
toward us with great flexes of its body.
The queen smiles at the advancing serpent as though glad to see him. Or
is it a her? How does one tell? Does something dangle from his abdomen
like male Two-legs’? “Well, hello, Sun Warrior.”
I imagine that’s the creature’s name. Does the queen have names for
every serpent?
“Do not be intimidated, Daya. Sun Warrior’s the gentlest giant in my
realm.”
 My stomach feels as hard as the rock beneath my bare toes. I press my
palm against it, eyes riveted to the tusk shearing through foam.
“I’ll go in first. You dive in as soon as you feel ready.”
I’ve been yearning to meet others, so why am I contemplating whirling
on my heel and bolting back to my bedchamber?
“Ready, emMoti?” The queen sheds her flowy skirt but retains the fitted
bodice.
I wear a similar outfit today. The queen brought it into my chambers
when she came to wake me only to find me up and pacing. Though I’d
flopped across my bed at some point between Cathal’s departure and Priya’s
arrival, my mind had been so abuzz that I hadn’t even attempted to sleep.
The queen takes my face between her hands, the callused tips of her
fingers resting lightly on my skin. “Everything will be fine.”
“What if Sun Warrior try eat me?” I ask.
The queen’s eyes begin to glitter. I realize it’s with shils when one spills
over her lashes and trundles down her cheek. “How well you speak…” Her
voice shimmies with the same emotion that wets her cheeks. “Who else has
heard your voice?”
“My Crow sentry.”
“Your Crow sentry?”
I roll my eyes skyward.
She sighs. “Though, admittedly, the male does guard you like a feral
creature, he isn’t your guard, Daya.”
I frown. “You not choose he?”
“No. The only people I’ve appointed to watch over you are Asha and
Abrax.”
“Then why he always with me?”
The queen releases my face and turns toward the Amkhuti. “How about
that swim? Look how eager Sun Warrior is to meet you.”
Lid-to-lid black orbs roll over me. Though I’ve caught glimpses of
myself in the air bubbles trapped beneath the Amkhuti’s stone shelves, until
now, I hadn’t realized just how beastlike I truly am. Save for my coloring,
do I resemble this creature in every way? Is my tusk as massive, my eyes as
bulbous, my nostrils that slitted? Do my scales shine like his? Is my dorsal
fin as sheer and ruffled? I cannot decide if I find the serpent hideous or
beautiful.
 He whips the surface with his tail, plucking me out of my
contemplation. Do I ever flick my tail? Besides when I swim? Does it mean
something?
I’m about to ask the queen when I catch her striping her neck with
blood in order to breathe underwater. And then she’s diving, hands extended
in front of her head, spine arced. I rush to the edge, almost toppling right
over. I’m aware the queen’s immortal, but hitting the water from so high up
always stings my feet. Won’t it fracture her fingers or fissure her skull?
She slides in like a needle through silk and sinks out of sight.
I wait for the serpent to dive after her, but he waits. And waits. When
the queen still hasn’t surfaced, I jump. The instant my body hits water, I
shift. And then I hunt the clear depths for her white hair. Although I sense
the other serpent swimming parallel to me, I don’t pay him any mind,
wholly centered on Shabbe’s ruler. I find her kneeling on the pale sand, one
arm outstretched, fingers waving like the green sea fan beside her. I nuzzle
her forehead on the hunt for an injury. When I don’t scent broken flesh, my
pulse begins to quiet.
Something hits my body. Hard.
I recoil, whirling my face toward the yellow serpent, whose nostrils
flare. And not in a pleasure to make your acquaintance way but in a back
up way. The queen flutters her feet and rises between us. She clutches Sun
Warrior’s head. I assume it’s to prevent him from goring me with his tusk
until his eyes glaze and I realize she’s pouring pictures into his mind. As I
watch them, I suddenly think of all the words lodged inside my head, the
ones I assumed were Serpent because they didn’t belong to any other
tongues. How do I shape them underwater?
I part my lips and try to push some out, but all that does is send a rush
of brine down my throat. How do serpents communicate? Do they press
their heads against one another? Why didn’t I think to ask the queen before
diving in?
A strident bleating jerks my body and tautens the already tight coils of
my body. It takes Sun Warrior reproducing the sound a second time for me
to realize it came from him. Why is he…screeching?
The queen smiles at me expectantly. Is she waiting for me to replicate
the sound? I roll my lips a few times before managing a weak wheeze that
creates more bubbles than sound. Priya claps while the serpent cants his big
head, clearly not impressed by my communication skills.
 Suddenly a terrible smell permeates the water. Sun Warrior swivels his
head, then hissing, backs away in a haze of foam. Once the bubbles clear, I
spot the intruder.
The queen’s gaze cuts to my Crow sentry. Not my sentry, I remind
myself.
Although she cannot use words beneath the water, her snappy hand
gesture conveys her irritation. She points to the surface. Cathal follows her
command, but I soon realize, it’s only to take a breath. The second he’s
filled his lungs, he kicks back down toward us.
Sun Warrior’s stopped retreating and dangles like a vine between sky
and sand. His slitted nostrils flaring like mine. This must’ve been why the
other serpents wouldn’t approach last night…because the water somehow
amplifies the noxious scent.
Although my stomach clenches, I edge closer to Cathal, to the black
ooze that lifts from the flap in the leather. The odor, like wilted blooms
dusted in cold ash, grows so pungent, so sour, that my head jerks, and I
sink.
I’m suddenly furious with myself for retreating. I’m stronger than this.
Stronger than a regular serpent. I dart back up, shooting straight for the
injured Crow, but I’m bounced off course by a hard jab to the abdomen. I
blink, trying to grasp what’s happened when I feel something lace snugly
around my body and yank.
Something covered in yellow scales.
Sun Warrior releases another bleat, this one so shrill it vibrates the water
and stabs my eardrums, as he drags me away from Crow and Queen.
 Chapter 12
Zendaya

S
un Warrior swims so fast that the ocean froths and whitens. By the time
I’ve gotten over my surprise at being violently bundled and carted
away, the queen and Cathal are mere dots bobbing on the surface.
I try to wriggle out of Sun Warrior’s grasp, but his body is far more
muscled than mine. I hiss. He doesn’t let go. I try to growl my discontent,
but none of the sounds scrolling through my head spool out. Whatever
language I think in mustn’t be Serpent speech since I cannot, for the life of
me, craft intelligible sound in this form.
I resort to nipping at his scales with my teeth. Although stunted, they’re
sharp and more numerous in this form than when I am Two-legs. Sun
Warrior freezes, his spherical eyes rolling over the blood puffing off his
scales like grains of burnt sand. As he swipes his forked, black tongue
against my bitemark, healing the puncture wounds instantly, he sends me a
scathing look.
I narrow my gaze right back on him, demanding, without words, what
came over him. The only answer I get in response is a low hiss. As
brusquely as he wrapped himself around me, he releases me, pitching me
far and deep.
I watch him swim away before heading toward the queen and Cathal.
I’m tempted to lash the Crow’s thigh with my tongue, but remember our
talk about consent. I will wait for him to be ready. Besides, considering how
my stomach lurches as I drift nearer, I suspect I’ll need to be in my other
form, the one where my senses aren’t as heightened.
 Right before I crest the surface, I hear Priya mutter, “My child’s no
longer your mate, Cathal.”
The word mate stills both my thoughts and ascent. Cathal has a mate, or
rather, had one, and she is Priya’s child? Who is her child, and why is she
no longer Cathal’s mate? I linger just beneath their fluttering feet in the
hopes I’ll hear more on the subject, but the next thing out of the queen’s
mouth is a threat to banish the Crow from Shabbe if he ever intercedes with
my lessons again.
I will my body to shift, and it does, right before I crest the surface. I
can’t even rejoice that I’m getting better at swapping forms, too agitated am
I over the animosity that ripples around me.
When my head pops out, my caregivers both turn. Where Cathal doesn’t
even attempt to mask his anger, Priya curls her lips into a smile that is
clearly just for show, for it hides all her teeth.
“Already done?” she asks.
I nod.
“How was it? Were you able to communicate?”
I shake my head.
“Maybe next time.”
I doubt it since he speaks in resonances instead of syllables.
“Would you like me to remove him from the Amkhuti or would you like
for him to stay so you can meet up later?”
Cathal mutters something in Crow that is as incomprehensible to me as
Serpent bleating. The queen slices her gaze toward him, comprehending
him just fine.
“Cathal, understand birds that no shift?” My question redirects the
queen’s stare.
“No. I do not. Lore can transfer images into their minds through
thought, but we possess no common tongue, so why Priya imagines you’ll
share one with an animal baffles me.”
“I was hoping Daya would find comfort in her fellow creature’s
company.”
“Shifters are her fellow creatures,” he growls. “Not animals.”
“You may share the power to shift forms, but Daya isn’t one of you.”
“How Crow made?” I suddenly ask.
“They mate the same way humans do,” Priya huffs. “In bare flesh.”
I frown.
 “She asked how they were made, Sumaca,” Cathal grumbles, “not how
they fucked.”
The queen blinks, but then recovers and says, “Technically, it’s one and
the same, is it not? The original Crows were created by the Mahananda, but
new Crows can only be made through coupling.”
The slant of my brows deepens.
Cathal’s chin dips but his lips stay above the waterline. “I take it you
haven’t discussed the birds and the bees yet.”
Birds couple with bees? Shifter-sized birds?
The queen takes a deep breath. “Let’s get out of the water. We’ll talk in
my chambers when we’re dry.” When she reaches the stone wall, instead of
grabbing ahold of my ladder, she draws a sigil that slants the rock and
makes it reshape itself. “Come before my staircase washes away, emMoti.”
I glance at Cathal, wondering whether he will attend this talk I am to
have with the queen. Before I can ask, he shifts into his Crow and takes to
the sky, then hovers, shadowing my body until I’m back on dry land. Why
does he act like my guard when he isn’t?
I end up asking the queen after I’ve changed into dry clothing and
joined her in her wing of the palace.
“Because he’s stubborn and stuck in a past that no longer exists.” Her
answer does nothing to quell my confusion.
I take her wrists and raise her palms to my forehead. “Explain with
picture.”
The servants in attendance inhale sharply and gawk, evidently surprised
I can talk.
The queen’s palms don’t settle. They hover. “That story will be for
another day. What I will show you today is how babes are made.”
“Babes?”
“New Crows. And new humans.”
When her fingers land, I get flashes of a male and a female rubbing the
front of their bodies together, followed by the image of the female’s body
rounding and reshaping itself like the cliff earlier. The last image that
illuminates my lids is a miniature Two-legs screeching in the crook of the
female’s arms.
As the queen lowers her hands, she says, “Coupling is like growing
flowers, Daya. The male plants his seed inside the female’s soil, and nine
moons later, a small version of them sprouts from the female’s body.”
 “What job have bees?”
A vertical groove forms above her nose. “Bees? They pollenate and
make honey.”
“Honey is babe?”
The groove deepens. “I’m sorry but I’m not sure I follow.”
“Cathal speak birds and bees.”
The queen stares at me stunned, but then she breaks out into great peals
of laughter. “Birds and bees is an expression, emMoti.”
“Expression?”
“An expression is an idiomatic…” She stops talking. “Simply put, it’s a
phrase used by way of another.”
Forget confused…I’m lost.
“For example, in Shabbe, we’ll say the serpent is in your river when we
want to convey that it’s someone else’s turn, or as thick as serpents, which
means to be very close and share many secrets.”
I doubt I will ever be able to use that one.
“Straddle the ward is another. It means to avoid taking sides. Though
truth be told, that expression irks many because Shabbe was imprisoned for
five hundred years. Best not to use it, actually.”
“Imprisoned?”
“One of our people betrayed us.”
“Meriam?”
Her pink stare widens. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Kanti,” I say, even though I didn’t hear it from her. At least, not at first.
“That girl…”
“Meriam family?” I point to the queen.
“No.” Her response is so abrupt that it makes me wonder if I misheard
Lorcan last night. “Let’s not talk of her anymore. It spoils my mood. What
other questions do you have for me?”
“How serpent make babies, Taytah?”
She blinks at me, then murmurs, “Taytah.” She presses her palm against
her chest. “I don’t think you understand what it means to me to hear you
call me that.”
“Why? It’s name of mother of mother, no?”
Her long lashes sweep low. “It is.”
I point to me. “Mahananda is mother of me.” I point to her. “You mother
of it.”
 A beat of hesitation echoes before she says, “Yes.” She folds her legs
beneath her on the cushion. “So serpent babies… The male’s reproductive
organ emerges from a hollow at the base of his abdomen and penetrates the
hollow at the base of the female’s abdomen.”
“Hollow?”
“A hole.”
I look down at myself even though I’m not in scales. “Do I have
hollow?”
“I must admit, I didn’t look, Daya. I imagine you do, though.”
I make a note to inspect myself during my next shift.
“However, I imagine you will couple in your human form like Crows?”
“Human?”
She nods to my body.
Ah…so this is what this two-legged form is called—human.
“I could be wrong since you’re the same size as real serpents, whereas
Crows are so much larger than the birds the Mahananda shaped them after.
It’s possible you could reproduce with a serpent.”
I suddenly picture Sun Warrior trying to rub his body against mine. I
don’t like the image. I want to pluck it from my mind and pitch it beyond
Shabbe’s fortified walls.
“Since we’re on the subject, you failed to answer my question earlier.
What do you want me to do with Sun Warrior? Should I let him stay in the
Amkhuti or send him back into the Sahklare?”
I roll the seafoam silk of my dress between my fingers. “He no like
me.”
The queen props her elbow on the low cushion at her back. “That’s not
true, emMoti. He didn’t appreciate Cathal’s intrusion, but that’s because
serpents are sensitive beings who can feel when someone dislikes them, and
that Crow likes neither humans nor animals. The only people he tolerates
are his fellow Crows.”
Does that mean he dislikes me? “Taytah, who is child?”
One of her servants slips a cup of date wine inside her hand. “Anyone
below the age of puberty.”
Again, she’s lost me. Though I want to know about this puberty, I
decide to rephrase my question so as not to veer off course. I point to her
stomach. “You child.”
 She coughs out her swallow of wine, which dribbles down her chin.
Though the attendant who handed her the cup produces a piece of cloth
from his pocket, Priya uses the back of her hand to wipe her face. “My
child?”
I nod.
She stares at the shivering fronds swaying against her tall, arched
windows. “My child is dead.”
“But—” I tilt my head. “But Shabbin live always, no?”
“No. We’re not immortal. We’re merely harder to kill than others.”
How incredibly heartbreaking. No wonder Cathal’s mood is pitiful.
“Your child was Crow?”
The queen purses her lips. “No.”
So Cathal Báeinach once loved a being who wasn’t a Crow… I
suddenly wonder if that’s the reason he stays in Shabbe. Because this land
reminds him of her. Though that’s even more tragic.
I may still not understand why he’s so determined to guard me, but at
least, now I understand why he’s forever discontent. My hands have left my
skirt to settle on my neck, on the strip of fabric that buttons around it and
holds the rest of my dress up thanks to thin chains made of pearls and cyan
gems.
I knead the skin that my aching heart makes flutter. “That so sad,
Taytah.”
She shrugs. “Such is life.”
Behati bustles in then and settles on another cushion on the queen’s
floor. We discuss my swim—again—then Sun Warrior’s presence in the
Amkhuti—again.
I wrinkle my nose when Behati says it would be good for me to keep
him close so he can teach me the way of serpents. “I no want Sun Warrior
as mate,” I say, sitting up.
Behati’s pink eyes go as wide as the supper plates that servants are
setting on the table.
“Yes. Zendaya speaks,” Priya muses.
Behati pales, becoming almost as insipid as the queen’s locks. “Since
when?”
“I only heard her today, but perhaps my granddaughter’s spoken
before?”
 “I no want baby with Sun Warrior.” It seems more important to drive
this point in than to explain when and to whom I first spoke.
The queen’s lips curve gently. “You do not have to couple with any
being you do not desire. One’s partner needs to be one’s choice.”
I’m greatly reassured.
“May I speak with you in private, Priya?” Behati asks.
“Once I’m done speaking with Zendaya.”
Though I’m grateful Priya chooses me over her advisor, I get to my feet.
I’ve taken up enough of her time. Besides, she’s given me much to think
about.
After bending my forehead to receive her kiss, I depart for my rooms,
Asha’s sandals slapping the stone right beside me.
“I cannot believe I had to learn you could speak at the same time as the
queen’s entourage.” With a pout, Asha adds, “I thought I was special.”
“You special. Plus, you know before Abrax.”
“That is true. Oh, how I’ll rub it in his face.” Her grin is so wide, it
glows brighter than the moon moth that’s landed on her shoulder.
“Rub what in face?” At her frown, I deduce it must be an expression.
“What mean?”
“Ah. It means to tell him—repeatedly—that I knew it before he did.”
“He no like that.”
“Nope. He will certainly not like that.”
Her delight lures a smile to my lips. “You a little wicked.”
“Very wicked, but wicked nice. Unless someone tries to hurt you. Then
you can bet your royal ass I will be wicked mean.”
Bet my royal ass? My ass is royal? But more importantly…or rather, as
importantly, people gamble their backsides? At what? Those card and pawn
games so many play?
I graze the back of her hand. “Thank you, Asha, for being friend to me.”
Her lower lip overtakes her upper lip and then she’s blinking a little
hurriedly.
“Why shileh?”
“I’m getting tearful because I’m touched.”
Tearful. Huh. So Serpents do have a word for wet eyes since my mind
translated the word.
I roll the word around my tongue. Tearful. Fearful means full of fear.
Meaningful means full of meaning. Does tearful mean full of tears? Could
shil’s translation be tears?
“Daya,” she says as I pass the door one of the guards has propped open
for me, “if you feel like going for a swim, can you please come get me or
Abrax? We’d prefer to avoid another lecture from Cathal.”
“He no harm you, right?”
“Sticks and stones, Rajka.”
“He hit you!” Gone is my good humor.
She blinks, then shakes her head, sending her thick black braid swinging
like a chain. “No. It’s an expression. Sticks and stone may break my bones,
but words will never hurt me.”
The breath I blow out the corner of my mouth sounds like a small
growl. I really hate expressions. Why must people replace adequate words
with inadequate ones?
She must think I’m not reassured, because she adds, “Big Bird didn’t
hurt me. Promise.”
“All right.”
“But I appreciate that you’d care. Now off to bed. Your undereye circles
have undereye circles.”
I trace my lash line as I finally enter my bedchamber, which flickers
with candlelight, then raise my gaze to the silver squares tiling the ceiling to
check my appearance. All I see is starlight, the intended effect of the domed
mirrors—or so explained Asha. It had been Queen Mara’s idea. After gluing
them to the ceiling over her bed, she’d had them added everywhere in the
Vahti.
Since I’m looking up, and the mirrors reflect only flames, I fail to spot
that there’s a person in my path and bump right into them.
Cathal’s arm snaps up and out, snaring my waist to keep me from
stumbling backwards. “Had a pleasant conversation, Príona?”
 Chapter 13
Zendaya

M
y palms remain flush with the leather gloving Cathal’s chest. I
wonder if he’ll go back to wearing armor now that obsidian can still
harm him. Then again, he’s already harmed. “Why here, Cathal?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“To check how you were faring.”
My gaze locks on his thigh. “How you faring?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I not hurt.”
“I was talking emotionally, not physically, Daya. How do you feel after
having met another serpent?”
I shrug. “I feel not serpent.”
His jaw tightens, flexes, like the line of his shoulders. Like all the lines
on his body. Unlike serpents that are all curves, the Crow before me is all
edges. “So you’re not champing at the bit to rendezvous with Mister Yellow
again?”
I have no clue what champing at the bit means. What I do have a clue
about is who Mister Yellow could be. “No. I no want see Mister Yellow.”
My lips twitch at the name Cathal gives Sun Warrior. “Call me Mister Pink
now?”
He snorts. “No Miss Pink in your future. I’ll stick to calling you
Princess.”
“Princess? You call me Príona.”
 “That’s how we say Princess in Crow.”
“Ah. I think it mean Fish.”
A small smile titillates the corners of his mouth. “Fish? If I was going
with an original moniker, I would’ve chosen a more fitting one: Sífair.
Serpent.”
“You call me Serpent, I call you Crow.” I push away from him with a
smile. “Enough chat. Take off pants.”
His cheeks color as though Asha has rubbed rouge into them.
“You say I swear. Bargain,” I remind him when his fingers still haven’t
inched closer to the waistband of his trousers.
“You must be exhausted from your swim.”
“I no tired.” I add a headshake in case he isn’t convinced.
“Daya, I’ve—I don’t—” He grimaces, then mutters words I don’t
understand. I think he must be in pain because his hands tremble as they
finally grip the cord that secures his trousers over his hips and fusses with
the knot.
As he upholds his end of the bargain, I pray to my mother, the
Mahananda, that I will be able to help, because I’d like to have a useful
power.
Cathal’s throat jostles as he finally pushes down his pants. The crimson
flush on his face doesn’t extend to his thighs, which are moon-white
beneath the sprinkling of black hair. Manifestly, the Crows do not wax. Is
that why he didn’t want to show me his legs?
In case that was his concern, I say, “I no have wax in room, Cathal, so
no need afraid.”
He blinks. “Wax?”
I gesture to his legs, then drag my long skirt up to display my hairless
shins. “You scared wax, no?”
His eyes grow infinitesimally larger.
I tilt my head. “Reason you red. You scared…no?”
His mouth curves with a full-blown smile that transforms into a rough,
marvelous boom. Although his laughter has neither color nor temperature, it
feels golden and warm like sunshine dripping through water…like a drizzle
of syrup.
He rubs at his mouth as though to force his lips to flatten. “I do not fear
an impromptu waxing session, Príona.”
“Then what you fear?”
 “I…I…” He sighs. “I just…I’m not used to pulling my pants down in
front of people.”
“I am not people, Cathal.”
He swallows, and his lashes sweep low.
“I am healer.” I bite my lip. Let it go. “Maybe.”
The extra limb between his legs bounces as I kneel, and then it juts out
and to the side as though demanding I pay it some attention, so I do. And
my heart misses a beat because… “Did poison dagger go inside there?”
“What?” he croaks.
“There.” I skim my finger over the puffed, purple tip. “Little leg is
swollen.” My fingertip comes back wet with something transparent and
sticky. “And ooze.” I carry my finger to my nose, then dart my tongue over
the spot of wetness. It does not taste bad like his blood. It tastes like the
ocean.
He asks Mórrígan for strength. Is the pain so great that he has trouble
standing?
“If you weak, you need sit or you fall.”
“I do not feel weak.” He chafes the growth on his jaw. “And to set your
mind at ease, I did not stab myself in the cock.”
“Cock?”
He grumbles in Crow, then addresses Mórrígan once more. “That is the
word for my ‘little leg.’ Didn’t Priya teach you about this yet?”
“Cock,” I repeat, moving my head back a little because his cock is
growing very long, like my horn. Is he about to shift into his other form? I
sweep my gaze over his legs, but neither smoke nor feathers obscure his
skin. “Why get bigger?”
“Because it’s sensitive,” he mumbles.
“So it swell? Like when I bump head?”
“When did you bump your head?”
“No important this, Cathal. What important is⁠—”
One of his hand settles on the back of my head, then combs through the
thick mass of pink. His touch sends a shiver down my spine…many shivers.
Although I rattle, it’s Cathal’s breathing that seems to intensify. Because his
fingers are distracting, I seize his wrist and carry it away from my head.
“It gone. It was small lump.” I jut my chin toward his cock. “You have
big lump.”
 “It’s not a—I didn’t run into anything.” The muscles along his stomach
clench. “I can’t believe I’m about to offer to have this conversation with
you.” He purses his lips, which deepens the hollows beneath his
cheekbones. “It’s probably retribution for being a block of stone when
Fallon needed to learn about how bodies worked.”
I sit back on my heels, head tilted sideways.
“I need a drink. Or ten.” He pulls his pants back up and then walks
toward the tufted chair, his strides so long and rushed they make every
flame on the way shiver.
I stand and follow at a slower pace, the bare soles of my feet whispering
over the heated stone. “After you drink and talk, I heal. We bargain.”
I take a seat on the sofa cushions across from him and tuck my legs
underneath me. The date wine he brought to my chambers last night is
already tipped to his lips. The ball in his throat bobs many times before he
lowers the bottle and plants his elbows on his wide knees. “All right.” He
rolls the slender glass neck between his palms. “So…”
“So?”
“So males have cocks, and females do not.”
“I know.”
“The same way females have breasts and males do not.”
“Phoebus has little beads on breasts too.”
Cathal coughs, then rakes his throat. Is it possible he swallowed an
insect? “Those are called nipples.”
I touch mine, and their points sharpen. “Why males flat under nipples?”
“Because it’s the females who store the milk for babes.”
I glance down at my breasts. “I have milk in body?”
“Not yet. But if you ever grow a babe, then yes, chances are you will
produce milk.”
“Sybille grow babe. Mattia plant seed inside.”
His gaze flips off the neck of the bottle. “You know about the male
seed?”
I nod enthusiastically. “Taytah show me that female and male rub front
together until seed come out.”
Even though a table rests between us, I see his pupils dilating, the black
chewing through the brown but not spilling over. “Did she show you
exactly where the seed came from?”
“From male.”
 “I meant, from—focá.” One of his hands slicks back his hair while the
other tilts the bottle to his mouth for another drink. Once he’s swallowed
and swiped his tongue over his lips a few times, he says, “What oozed from
my cock”—he grimaces, his gaze going to the forever-filled water carafe
—“that is a male’s seed. That is what we plant inside a female’s womb to
grow a babe.” Another pass of his fingers through his hair. Another gulp of
wine.
“I lick it from finger.”
“I know.” His lids slam shut. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve—I should’ve
explained things before. I thought…I assumed⁠—”
My pulse picks up speed. “I grow babe now?”
He hangs his head low, then rubs his nape as though it aches. “No. You
only grow a babe if the seed enters another cavity in your body.”
“Which cavity?”
“A hole located between your legs.”
I untuck my legs from beneath me and grip my dress’s hem to lift it
when Cathal lets out a strangled, “Please, Daya, this is hard enough as it is.
Don’t—” He swallows. “Please inspect your body after I’m gone, all
right?” His eyes are bright, but not with mirth; they’re bright with pain.
I wonder why, but decide not to ask. He’s already answered so many of
my questions. “Thank you for talk.”
He goes back to rolling the bottle. “You’re welcome.”
I stand and go toward him. “I promise I no touch cock this time.”
When I reach him, he cranes his neck and stares at me, his expression a
mixture of so many emotions that I cannot pinpoint one in particular.
“I look only at wound.” I unscrew the bottle from his fingers and set it
down beside the water carafe. “Pants.”
Reluctantly, he stands, towering over me, and pushes his trousers back
down. His cock has shrunk again, but the second I kneel, it starts to expand.
I assume it’s because he’s cold since my nipples grow stiff when the air is
brisk. I become convinced that’s the reason when he shells it with his
fingers and pins it to his abdomen.
I study the wound. It’s deep and black, as though the stone left a layer of
dust that’s climbing into his veins. “Pain?”
He swallows.
“Cathal?”
He shakes his head.
 “You consent I touch leg?”
The tendons in his neck strain. “Yes.”
I lightly grip the outer edge of his thigh, making sure not to touch the
infected skin. The muscle is so hard and jagged, it feels like a ledge. As I
bring my head closer, my stomach spasms because the smell… It is terrible.
You are better than those serpents, Daya. You can do this.
I curl my tongue and jam it into the oozing wound. The dreadful savor
makes my throat clench with the need to retch, but I sense doing so will
make Cathal cancel our bargain, so I pool more saliva onto my tongue and
into the wound.
“Focá.” His thigh trembles like the surface of the Amkhuti after I dive
into it.
I lift my head and look up into his face. “What?”
“Burns.”
I stare at the wound, at the trickle of deep crimson that oozes down his
pale skin and mattes the black hair. Did my saliva make him bleed? I swipe
it with my fingertips and rub. The texture is grainy, as though sand has
mixed with his blood.
“I make ooze more.”
“Yes, but I think… Do it again, Daya.”
What is it he thinks? That it’s helping?
I spear my tongue back inside the narrow crevasse. This time, I cannot
swallow. I reach for the small bowl beside the fruit basket, the one filled
with water and a citrus wedge. I spit. Cathal’s grainy blood stains the water
black.
His mouth twists. Before he can change his mind, I penetrate the wound
with my tongue again, and…is it me or has it become shallower? I spit, lick,
fill the gap with my tongue, then wipe the trickle of spit and blood. My
heart begins to beat faster when I note that the web surrounding his wound
has receded. I think it’s working but don’t dare share my impression with
Cathal, for it would be cruel to give him hope if I’m wrong.
I lick and spit until my tongue barely pokes past the surface of his skin
and his blood becomes silky and sweet. The muscle in his thigh remains
hard, but the tremors have quieted. I flatten my tongue over his skin once
more, heart lancing in my jaw when the puckered flesh smooths like the
buffed sunstone beneath my knees.
Could I have managed to break the Crows’ new curse?
 Chapter 14
Zendaya

I
seize the hem of my dress and ball it to wipe down Cathal’s leg. The
wound has sealed, and the only hints of black on his thigh are the dark
hairs peppering it. “How feel, Cathal?”
When he remains quiet, I crane my head to look up at him. His eyes are
incandescent in the candlelit darkness, shinier than the wax stalks burning
down to stumps, and glitterier than the ceiling with its myriad of mirrors.
“Cathal, how you⁠—”
The hand not warming his cock cups my jaw. “How do you feel?” He
thumbs my chin, probably to clear it of any lingering unsightly smudge.
“I not one sick; you⁠—”
He releases himself and hikes up his pants, the leather whispering over
his healed skin, then drops into a crouch in front of me, his fingers still
cocooning my face. “Does your head feel light? Do your lips tingle?”
My lips buzz. My head, too. And my stomach churns.
“No,” I lie. When the skin around my tusk begins to tingle, I realize that
my body is about to betray me. “I need swim.” The room spins. My
forehead now burns. The Serpent within is overpowering my Human.
“Cathal⁠—”
Arms scoop me up and carry me to my garden, then lay me gently down
on the gritty soil. And then I’m floating. The brisk air makes my long hair
flog my overheated cheeks. Is it the obsidian that’s clouding the careful
control I have over my body, or is it Crow blood?
 The instant liquid gloves my fiery skin, the pressure in my veins
releases and my tusk shoots out. The transformation is so fierce and fast that
my vision goes black and I sink, hitting the sandy bottom of the Amkhuti
with a heavy thump.
The chill of the deep coats my scales and caresses my fins. It strokes the
sensitive flesh around my tusk and sweeps down the length of my nose.
Murmured words land against my buzzing ears like whispered promises
spoken in the middle of a deafening storm.
I try to make sense of them, but they echo and skip without penetrating,
echo and skip, echo and…

“E m M oti ?” A callused hand smooths across my cheek . “W ake up .”

It must be the queen, since she’s the only person who calls me that. Her
voice thins before growing thick and raucous with a growl that includes
Cathal’s name.
She must speak in Crow, because I cannot grasp what she says to him or
about him. Is he even still there?
There…
Where am I?
Her palms sweep faster down my cheeks, her desire for me to awaken,
urgent. “Wake up, emMoti. Wake up.”
I try, but my lids are heavy.
Too heavy.

I inhale . G ag . M y throat closes around a swallow of liquid salt . I

shove up onto my forearms so fast that my fingers sink into wet sand. I
cough, desperate to ease the burn.
 A hand grips my hair and spins it into a rope. “Deep breath, Príona.”
I inhale through my nose, then clear my throat and spit out a glob that
foams against the damp, pink sand. There are no beaches in the Vahti,
which means…which means I must’ve swam out of Shabbe.
I crane my neck. Before me looms a shimmering sunstone wall. It
reaches so high it melts into the cloudless blue. Are those the ramparts? Did
Cathal carry me out of⁠—
Why is there another wall behind us?
I push into sitting, my gaze skipping over the curved beach, surrounded
by curved walls.
“Priya drained the Amkhuti because she didn’t trust me to fly you out of
it.” Shadows squirm across the jagged edges of Cathal’s face, not all of
them created by the white sheet snapping over us.
I trail the sheet to four wooden posts planted inside the sand, then squint
because…where are all the fish? Where is Sun Warrior?
Cathal must read my anguish because he says something about the
Akwale herding the animals into the Sahklare.
The queen drained the moat. What an extreme measure to reach me.
“You’ve been asleep for days, Daya,” Cathal says, releasing my hair but
remaining in a low crouch.
I turn toward him, taking in his purple-rimmed eyes. “Days?”
He nods, sliding his tongue over his lips that are pale with salt and
peeling skin. I reach up and touch them. Cathal stiffens but doesn’t move.
Though his lips aren’t ample like mine, they feel gritty and taut.
“Need water.” My voice is no more than a thin croak.
“I’ve got some right here.” He reaches around him for a jug and offers it
to me.
Though I need some, too, I push the jug toward him. “You.”
His lashes flutter.
“Drink,” I command.
He does, but his sip is reluctant, as though I were forcing him to ingest
something rank. Which reminds me… I drop my attention to his leather-
clad thigh. The trousers are either new or have been hemmed seeing that
there’s no more tear in them.
“How infection?”
He presses the jug into my hands, but keeps his palm on the bottom of
it. “Small sips,” he instructs, right before murmuring, “Gone.” And then,
because I sit there in shock, he lifts the jug and proceeds to feed me the
sweet water.
My throat burns, and I cough.
“Sips, Príona.”
My next mouthful is tiny.
He splashes water into his palms, then rubs it across my brow, but my
skin is caked in so much sand that his attempt at cleaning it is surely
pointless. Still, I appreciate his little act of kindness.
“Zendaya!” the queen’s voice makes me twist. She traipses down stairs
of her blood’s making, Behati on her arm. Once she reaches the bottom and
Behati is stable on her cane, the queen lets go of the seer and streaks toward
me.
My Crow’s jaw flexes. “I told them heartbreak was keeping you from
shifting back.” At my frown, he adds, “Fallon’s departure. I didn’t want to
tell them that you broke our new curse because…because, Mórrígan forgive
me, but I’m not entirely certain whether I trust they didn’t inflict it upon us
in the first place.”
I stare at him.
“I won’t keep you from telling them, but possibly…wait? I’d like us to
discuss this with Lore and Fallon. Would you mind waiting?”
I shake my head.
He mouths a silent thank you as he straightens, the top of his head
brushing against the canopy.
The lilac silk gloving the queen’s body coils around her legs like
windblown petals. “I want you to promise me to never again stay in scales
for so long. I thought…I thought you’d ventured up one of the waterrises to
follow Fallon until Cathal explained you were moping down here.”
I push my sandy ropes of hair over my shoulder, working hard on
keeping my gaze from straying to the Crow, who’s backed up to allow the
Shabbin Queen through.
“I understand your heart hurts that Fallon’s left, but she said she’d
return soon, emMoti.”
Cathal crosses his arms. “I believe a trip to Luce would settle her,
Sumaca.”
Without taking her eyes off mine, she says, “No.”
A startled breath leaps out of me, eliciting a renewed bout of coughing.
She didn’t even pause to consider the suggestion.
 “She isn’t ready,” Priya says.
“I’ll keep her safe, if that’s what concerns you.” Cathal’s posture is as
rigid as the post next to which he stands.
“She’s not yours to keep safe,” the queen growls, her pink gaze roving
over his thigh. “For Mahananda’s sake, Cathal, she’s not yours anymore!”
Anymore? Did I once belong to the Crow? And if so, in what way, since
he insisted, a great many times, that I wasn’t his daughter? Most
importantly, though, why does no one believe I can keep myself safe? How
wicked is the world beyond the Amkhuti?
I push myself to stand, done being kept down by all of them. “I keep me
safe.”
Cathal tilts his chin a little higher, as though proud how my impudent
remark widens the women’s stares.
“Fallon nuptials.” I slip a finger under the ocean-hardened silk around
my neck and dust off the sand digging into my skin. “I go.”
“Fallon’s nuptials? How did you hear of them? Let me guess…”
Considering she looks straight at Cathal, Priya must have no trouble
guessing. “Abi djhara, the vows Fallon will speak in front of the Lucins are
only for show.”
I’m not certain what she means by that, but I remain steadfast. “I go,
Taytah. Cathal take me.” I’m about to add that it’s part of our bargain, but
decide not to divulge this in case it cancels the bargain.
The queen draws her gaze down his thigh. “Not in his state.”
“Thanks to Fallon’s blood, my state has improved. I thank you for your
concern, though.” I frown because the queen didn’t sound concerned.
Lips pinched so hard their corners tremble, she extends her hand to help
me up. “If anyone takes Daya to the lands where serpents are still
slaughtered, it will be me.”
Though I still hold her hand, I teeter from how fast I spin my head
toward Cathal.
“Did your Crow companion fail to mention how serpents are treated
outside of Shabbe, Zendaya?” Behati sounds almost smug about her
question.
Before I can ask Cathal if this is true, the queen brackets my head and
pours images of gored scales, quartered flesh, and ripped tusks stacked in
wooden chests. Water—tears bleed from my eyes and down my cheeks,
carving into the salt and sand, eroding my desire to step out of this fortress
of sunstone and blood magic.
I clasp Priya’s wrists and tug. And then I step back and back, away from
her and everyone, wincing when my foot sinks onto a jagged coral. “Why
Lorcan no stop slaughter?” I squint as black rivulets of my blood flow
through the coral’s yellow folds.
“He has,” Cathal grits out. “Anyone who so much as harms a serpent
with a weapon or magic is immediately punished. Anyone who kills them
meets immediate death at our talons.”
“What happens if the Lucins go after Zendaya, Cathal?” the queen asks
him.
“I’d kill them.”
“Of course you would.” Behati pops the bottom of her cane out of the
sand and props it against a coral. “Crows so love beheading Faeries.”
He narrows his gaze on the Shabbin advisor, which leads me to think
that beheading must be something truly evil. “So what’s your plan,
Sumaca? Imprisoning Daya like you’ve imprisoned your daughter?”
My heart lurches, because…what? Priya imprisoned her daughter…
Cathal’s mate? Why? And when? I thought her daughter was dead? Did she
die in prison?
The queen’s shoulders sharpen as she twirls to face Cathal and growls
something at him in Crow. The only word I make out is a name: Meriam.
The name that causes everyone to either hush or scowl. “Meriam is
daughter, Taytah?”
Silence stretches and stretches in the chasm of Priya’s making,
reverberating against every beached coral and ruffled stone shelf.
The queen hisses at Cathal in Crow. So much blood has risen into her
cheeks that even her irises appear crimson.
“I think it’s time, Priya.” Behati keeps her voice soft, as though she
senses that speaking any louder will make her monarch rage. “Especially if
we are taking her out of Shabbe.”
“I’ve changed my mind about the trip. She stays here.” The queen takes
off toward the steps still jutting from the sandstone wall.
Cathal’s arms fold a little more snugly over the black top that clings to
his broad chest like sand clings to mine. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be
possible for I struck a bargain with Daya the other day.”
She swings around. “You did what?”
 “She figured out how the waterrises operated, so I bargained for her to
never approach one in exchange for which I’d fly her out of Luce for
Fallon’s nuptials.”
The queen’s full lips are a pale slash on her tanned face.
Cathal fixes her with his penetrating stare. “You know as well as anyone
that one cannot renege on a bargain.”
Though I follow their discussion, a part of me remains stuck to the
question Priya failed to answer. I repeat it, because I want an answer. I need
one.
“Yes.” It’s Cathal who replies. Not Priya. Priya’s too busy glowering at
him.
Meriam is Cathal’s mate.
Meriam, who isn’t dead.
No wonder the Crow stayed in Shabbe if his mate is here. And no
wonder he loathes the queen if she imprisoned her. The only thing I do still
wonder is why he spends so much time with m⁠—
Oh.
The answer drips over me like the coolest water—it pebbles my skin
and chills my spine. Not even the sunlight baking the land manages to reach
me. I clutch my elbows and glare hard at the male who pretends to care,
even though all he truly cares about is securing a stay in the queendom to
remain near his imprisoned mate.
“You trick me again, Crow.” I shake my head. And then I turn and stalk
past a confounded Priya, leaving black footprints in my wake, ones Cathal
Báeinach better not follow.
But he does, for when I storm into my bedchamber, there the male is.
 Chapter 15
Zendaya

et out,” I snarl.
“G “Not until you tell me why you’re so livid.”
“I no want talk to you. I want bathe.” I streak into my bathroom
and slam the door.
Nevertheless, the Crow swirls underneath the door.
After spinning the faucet, I whirl on him and smack his chest with both
palms. “I heal you. Go home.” I try to shove him away, but his boots remain
firmly planted on the stone.
“Like I said, Príona, I’m not leaving until you enlighten me about this
mood you’re in, of which I seem to be the cause.”
I grip his shirt, sad I cannot shift into a bird for I would love to sprout
talons and shred the fabric like he shredded my trust. “You use me, Crow!”
His thick black eyebrows dip over his craggy nose. “You offered to heal
me, Daya.”
“I no talk about infection. I talk about stay in Shabbe.”
His frown deepens.
“You not my sentry. Queen no employ you! She say to me this.”
He dips his chin. “This is what angers you? That I appointed myself as
your guard?”
“No, Cathal. What anger me is—is…” I side-eye the steam rising from
the golden tub. It must engulf my lids, because they burn.
“Is what, Daya?”
“Is you hide true reason why you stay!”
 “How exactly was I supposed to tell you when Priya refuses that we
speak about your past?”
“My past?”
He cants his head. “Daya, what reason do you think I have for staying in
Shabbe?”
“Your mate.”
His neck snaps straight. “I don’t have a mate. Not anymore.”
This time, I’m the one who frowns. “Fallon say Crows mate forever.”
“That’s usually the case…yes.”
“But you and Meriam not mate anymore?”
His head rears back. “Meriam?”
“I hear Taytah say child is mate.”
“Oh, Daya.” His lids slip shut.
“What, oh, Daya?” Did I misunderstand something? Is he trying to fool
me again?
He lowers his face, burying his lips and nose into my hair as though his
head were too heavy for his shoulders and he has to rest it on mine.
I don’t push him away. Merely repeat, “What, oh, Daya?”
“Meriam was never my mate, Príona.”
“But Taytah say⁠—”
“Her daughter was.”
I roll my head, dislodging his in order to look at him. “Meriam have
daughter?”
His wary eyes open and lock on mine. “Yes.”
“Where?” I swallow, my throat as parched as the Amkhuti. “Where is
daughter?”
“Dead. Meriam slayed her.”
I blink hard. “That why prison?”
“No. She did other bad things.”
“She kill mate, Cathal. What worse?”
He tips me the saddest, most forlorn smile.
“I sorry I shout.”
“You had every right to shout at me. I deceived you by keeping quiet
about my reasons for remaining in Shabbe.”
I release his shirt and ball my fingers at my sides. “You stay to kill
Meriam?”
 He runs his thumb up my cheekbone, lingering at its apex where Crows
wear an inked feather. “Take your bath.”
I frown and am about to tell him that my bath can wait, that I’d prefer to
discuss his intentions, but the male fades to smoke and withdraws beneath
my door. Why is he always there when I don’t want him to be, yet leaves
when I want him to stay?
I sigh as I knead the skin over my heart to ease the harsh beats beneath,
but instead, the press of my fingers seems to make my heart leaven with
more pain.
Pain for Cathal and his impossible loss, and pain for Priya who had to
imprison her own daughter.
Neither steeping in warm water, nor scrubbing scented oil into my skin
manages to dislodge any of it. When I emerge from my bathing chamber, I
expect—hope—to set eyes on the Crow, but his face isn’t the one I see.
 Chapter 16
Zendaya

B
ehati must hear the door opening because she turns away from the
spectacle of the monkeys swinging from branch to branch in my
garden. “Are you feeling better, Zendaya?”
I shrug. My body does, but my heart…my heart hurts, and I don’t
understand why. “Why here, Behati?”
“Because Priya refuses to be.” Her pink gaze shines darkly amidst the
sweeps of white-gold. “Cathal’s right. Now that you understand everything,
it’s only a matter of time until you learn all of it. Especially since you’ll be
traveling to Luce tomorrow.”
“I go?”
“Yes.”
“Taytah go?” My hair bleeds water into my white silk sleeping gown.
“Naturally.”
“She still mad?”
“Yes and no. She’s not angry with you, though.”
“Only with Cathal?”
Behati presses her lips together. I’m taking that as a yes.
“You go Luce also?”
Her mouth curves, which makes the outer corners of her eyes crinkle
like crushed parchment. “Someone has to stay to guard the Mahananda.”
I wonder if the Mahananda, like me, ever feels annoyed that no one
believes it can take care of itself.
 Cane clicking, Behati walks over to the sofa and lowers herself onto one
of the floor cushions, then pats the spot beside her. “Come close, Daya.”
I don’t especially want to sit, but I do want to hear about Meriam, so I
plod over and take a seat on the wide, coral-hued cushion.
For a long moment, all Behati does is stare at me.
“I listen,” I say to remind her to speak.
“Priya is your grandmother.”
“Yes. I know.”
“Grandmother means the mother of one’s mother.”
“I know, too.”
“I thought…” Her lashes flutter in surprise. “I thought you weren’t
aware that Meriam was your mother. Did Cathal tell you?”
My heart holds so still that I think it’s stopped beating. “Meriam? No.
Mahananda mother me.” Silence. “No?”
Behati inhales a breath that makes her narrow ribs dig into her crimson
robe. “Yes and…no.”
“What mean yes and no?”
“It means that the Mahananda had a hand in making you, but so did
Meriam.”
“Mahananda make me with Meriam?”
“Yes.”
“Mahananda is father?” My question comes out as an exclamation.
“Not exactly. You had a father, but he no longer lives.”
My eyebrows draw so close on my forehead that they jostle the root of
my tusk. “I lost, Behati.”
“I imagined as much. Your past is quite…thorny.”
It must be another expression, because the past isn’t flora or fauna.
“What I meant by that is that your past is a complicated thing to grasp,
like a stalk full of thorns.”
“Stalk full of thorns make bleed. My past make bleed?”
“In a way, yes.” The curve of her lips holds such melancholy that it
dims the air. “Your past made many hearts bleed, most of all Priya’s. It
filled her with such pain that she contemplated slumbering in the
Mahananda.”
I frown. “I no see bed when I went; only darkness.” It had enveloped
me like the ocean, swathing me in complete and utter tranquility.
 A small laugh traipses from Behati’s lips. “Slumbering in the
Mahananda is the expression we use when we are ready to return our magic
to the Mahananda. It’s one of the only ways we, Shabbin women, can end
our lives.”
Oh. I make a note to stay wide awake if I’m ever submerged in the
Mahananda again. “Why Taytah so sad?”
“For you to understand this, I’d need to start at the beginning. Well, at
your beginning. Five centuries ago, Meriam had a baby with a Shabbin
male. That baby was you. When you were very young—around four or five
—your mother fell in love with a Lucin, a Faerie named Costa Regio, who
was Lorcan’s general.”
I’ve heard the name Regio. Like Meriam’s, turbulent silence ensues its
mention.
“Costa betrayed Lore and, aided by Meriam, managed to subdue him by
staking him with obsidian. You may now have an understanding of what
obsidian does to regular Crows, but to their king, it transforms him to iron
and knocks down all his people. In other words, if Lore is immobilized, so
are all his shifters. This sparked the first Great War in Luce—the
Magnabellum—after which Costa crowned himself king.”
I feel like asking for a quill to squiggle all these names and events
down, but obviously I do not…for I cannot. I stare at my hands, which are
as useless as the blood inside them, and fold my fingers over one another in
my lap.
“For years, we thought he’d made Meriam his queen, but then the
serpents started arriving on our shores, carrying banished Lucins, who
explained Meriam had disappeared.”
“Disappear? Where?”
“No one knew at the time.”
I imagine they have the answer now, and although I’d like to learn it,
something else feels more essential: “Why you not go Luce and save
Lorcan?”
“Because your mother had erected wards around Shabbe that kept us
locked in. For five hundred years.”
My mind feels as snarled as the tresses atop my head before my bath. If
she left when I was four and this is five centuries later, then… “Why I no
remember?”
 “Because, when the Mahananda brought you back as a Serpent
shifter”—Behati runs her finger along the seam of the velvet cushion
against which she reclines—“it erased your memory.”
“Why?”
She stares straight ahead at the prickly fruit with curved leaves that
lords over the rest of the fruit like a juice-filled king. “We don’t question the
Mahananda, Daya.”
Perhaps, we should. I wonder if I could ask it for my memories back.
Do I even want them? “What about dead sister?”
“Hmm.” Behati returns her attention to me. “Dead sister? Who’s sister?”
“My.”
Behati’s thin eyebrows writhe beneath the stroke of hair. “You’re
Meriam’s only daughter.”
The pulsing beneath my ribs quiets again. If I’m Meriam’s only
daughter, then that means…
That means…
“How far did you get in Daya’s history?” Cathal leans against one of the
pillars holding up my ceiling, arms folded beneath a fresh shirt, his hair
slicked back from a bath of his own, black stripes fresh and dark against his
pale skin.
“I cannot tell her everything at once, Cathal,” Behati says. “It would
overwhelm her.”
The Crow didn’t stay behind to avenge his mate; he stayed because I am
his mate.
 Chapter 17
Zendaya

I
am Cathal Báeinach’s mate.
I have a mate.
Does that mean that Fallon is ours, or did he have her with that other
female she refers to as Mamma?
My fingers pace the scar around my neck, back and forth, back and
forth. Cathal said Meriam killed her daughter. If my mother killed me, then
how⁠—
The Mahananda! That’s what Behati meant when she said it had
brought me back. She meant it had resurrected me.
The scars that blemish my skin and scales must be remnants of
Meriam’s attack. How brutal was my death?
I spring my hand off the paler band of flesh and onto the cushion
beneath me as I try to recover from the blow of Behati’s words. I feel
drained and laid bare like the Amkhuti, unrecognizable yet composed of the
same bones, a trench instead of a river, a wasteland instead of a thriving
milieu.
Heat bursts through my chest at the sudden realization of all I’ve lost. It
claws up my ribs and grips my heart before moving farther upward to
throttle my throat. I want to rage and scream. I want to run through the
courtyard to the Mahananda’s edge and demand why it had to steal my past
when it breathed human life into my scales.
But I don’t.
 I just sit there, motionless, my lungs barely filling, my heart barely
beating, strangled by shock and horror and—and devastation.
I had a daughter.
I had a mate.
I had a life.
The heat seeps into my face, into my cheeks, into my eyes before
collapsing out of me, draining me some more.
“What exactly did you tell her, Behati?” Cathal’s voice booms against
my buzzing eardrums like waves crushing stone, and then smoke sweeps up
my trembling arms, becoming more solid as it strokes and enfolds.
“I only told her what Meriam did to Shabbe and to her as a child.”
“Daya, look at me.”
I can’t. Not yet.
“What else did you fucking tell her, Behati?”
“Great Mahananda, you have no manners.”
“For fuck’s sake⁠—”
“The last thing I told her was that she didn’t have a dead sister. I don’t
know why she’d even ask me that. Did you tell her she had a sister?”
“Leave,” Cathal growls.
“Pardon me?” Behati wheezes.
“Please. Please leave us.”
The cushion beneath me shifts. “Zendaya, would you like me to stay?
Because I will if you don’t want to be left alone with Cathal.”
I’ve neither enough air to breathe out an answer nor enough energy to
shake my head.
“Zendaya?”
“She and Fallon are my only reasons for existing, so if you think I’m
going to harm her, then⁠—”
“I do not stay because I fear you will harm her, Cathal. I stay because I
worry you’ll take advantage of her.”
The silence that ensues is so terrible that it makes my lids snap up.
Although Cathal’s hands are on my body, his incendiary gaze is on Behati.
“Planning on draining me of blood, Crow?”
“Leave,” he says. “If you ever imply that I might take advantage of
Daya, so help me Mórrígan⁠—”
“Mara,” Behati snaps. “Not Mórrígan. And I’ll leave only if Zendaya
wants me gone, otherwise⁠—”
 “Go, Behati.” My voice is as thin as a sea fan. “I no want anyone get
hurt.”
Cathal’s next breath is abrupt.
“I don’t fear him, Zendaya.” She tries to reach for my hand but retracts
her fingers when she encounters smoke.
“Thank you for truth, Behati, but you go now. I deal with…mate.”
Her lips purse while Cathal’s part around a sigh. It’s almost as though
the word has tugged at some thread keeping them stitched shut.
Behati stands, smoothing her robes. “Walk me to the door of your
chambers?”
I look up, and then nod. My legs prickle as I stand. Cathal must sense it
because his grip on my arms tightens.
“Alone,” Behati says.
“Is this some trick?” Cathal glares at my grandmother’s advisor.
My flesh and blood grandmother…
“No. We Shabbins don’t trick people. Unlike the Faeries. Unlike the
non-Shabbins.”
The accusation—unlike you—glimmers in the air between them. I
suppose Cathal does merit this, for he did trick me, but didn’t they all in
some way?
“It’s my only condition for leaving her here alone with you.”
“Is all right, Cathal.” I shrug his hands off my arms.
Though his reluctance to let me go is whittled into every line and
hollow of his face, when I walk Behati to the door, he stays put.
Right before she reaches for the handle, she slashes her finger on the
back of her pearl earring. “I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might
have. I fathom you have many.”
Since I imagine this isn’t what she stole me away from Cathal to say, I
remain quiet as she paints a sigil on my door—the one to slip through walls.
Sure enough, before pressing her palm to it, she leans over to kiss me on
both cheeks, except she doesn’t do it to wish me farewell but to disguise a
whisper. “That male isn’t your mate. Not anymore.” She moves her mouth
to my other cheek, brushes her lips against it, and adds, “I had a vision.”
And then she presses her palms to my forehead. The scene plays out in
devastating detail.
For long seconds after she leaves, I stare at the door, at the bloodied
drips of the cross circled in more blood.
 I didn’t think anything could stun me more than learning I had a life
before this one, but I was evidently mistaken, for her last confession has
rooted my feet to the stone and the air to my lungs. I close my eyes to
gather my bearings, but all that does is drive her vision back to the forefront
of my skull.
“What did that woman say to you, Príona?” Cathal’s voice strokes over
my forehead.
I startle and winch my neck. Anger exudes from his stare like smoke
from his pores. In silence, he watches me and I watch him back. It’s become
so quiet that I can hear my white nightgown move over my pounding chest
as though it were crafted from rows of pearls instead of silk and lace.
I sense his shadows wanting to devour the distance between our bodies,
the same way I sense him restraining them.
“What did she show you?” he grits out. “Why have you lost all color in
your cheeks?”
His anger used to scare me, but not anymore. Not now that I understand
its source. Mates are sacred to Crows, and he lost his.
“In past, we mind-speak?” I twirl my finger to indicate him and me.
“Yes.”
“Is it?”
He frowns. “Is it what?”
“What make mates? Mind link only? No mark on skin? Or…” I shrug.
“Or other?”
“The mind link is the most obvious sign.”
“What else?”
He takes a step toward me, but I hold up my palm to keep him at bay.
“Mates cannot live without one another, Daya. When my sister-in-law
was killed, my brother—” His voice breaks, but then he repairs it with a
deep inhalation. “My brother asked Lorcan to end his life.”
“When Meriam kill me, you ask die?”
“I—I…”
I wait, not even certain why I want to know this. What does it matter
anymore?
“I didn’t know she’d…I didn’t know what…” He balls his fingers as
though he wants to strike some invisible wall. “I felt you were still alive,
Daya. And there was Fallon to consider. My brother didn’t have a child to
live for.”
 That’s fair. My mother may have picked her lover over her child, but
she also ended my Shabbin life. Cathal doesn’t strike me as the sort of man
who’d ever inflict harm on his daughter. Speaking of which. “Is Fallon…
our?”
“Yes.”
I want to weep again. I don’t. “Why she no say?”
“She tried, at the beginning. But then, once we realized you didn’t
remember your life…us…we decided to wait.”
“For what?”
He hangs his head and palms the back of it, mussing his—for once—
tamed locks. “For you to understand our tongue, our customs, the way the
world worked. We were afraid that telling you too soon would confuse and
frighten you.”
It still does. I am confused and I am frightened because I’m not sure
what to do. How to act. What is expected of me now? Does Fallon even
want a mother? She’s all grown up. Not to mention that I don’t even know
what being a mother entails. I imagine it’s loving your child and not killing
her.
I have a child.
Yet something keeps niggling me. “What Mamma mean?”
“It’s the Lucin way of saying Amma or Mádhi in Crow. Why?”
“Fallon call Agrippina Mamma.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“Yes…?” I prompt, when he still doesn’t shed light as to why Fallon
would call someone, who didn’t give birth to her, Mamma.
“Agrippina and Ceres raised Fallon.”
Because I couldn’t. Because my mother ended my life.
I didn’t get to raise my child because of Meriam. Cathal didn’t either.
I swallow, suddenly mad, but not at Meriam. Mad at myself for not
realizing who Fallon was. My hands land on that place on my body that the
queen showed me rounding when a female grows a babe. I feel hollow, like
a shell that’s lost its dweller.
“I’m so sorry.” Cathal’s fingers sink deeper into his black locks.
I, too, am sorry. Sorry that Meriam stole so many years of his life.
“Maybe, if ask kindly, Mahananda give me back memories.”
His face lifts, his gaze filling with surprise, but also hope. “You’d want
them back?”
 “I forgot daughter and Taytah. I forgot”—you—“Meriam.” Her name
tastes foul upon my tongue, but speaking his will only feed the flames
crackling between us. Besides, do I really want to recall my life with this
man when I am destined for⁠—
“If the Cauldron doesn’t give you back your memories, Príona, I’d be
glad to fill in all the gaps. I’d be glad to tell you about us.”
“No.”
“No?” he repeats.
“No tell me, Cathal.” If he reminds me of all the ways he loved me and
I loved him back, because I imagine we must’ve loved each other a great
deal if I bore a child, I might not leave for Luce in the morning. I might
stray from the new path the Mahananda has traced for me.
A fissure forms along my heart, a hairline fracture that cracks farther
apart when I catch Cathal’s eyelashes batting as wildly as his wings when
he’s in his other form.
“You are free, Cathal,” I tell him to unshackle him from his past and
from me.
 Chapter 18
Zendaya

A
ship bobs on the Amkhuti which the queen and the Akwale have filled
once more. And not just halfway, but to the very brim. The limpid
water that abuts the stone is smooth like a mirror, casting the illusion
that one could step onto it without falling through.
As the guards load trunks onto the vessel, I stand on the rocky cliff
turned shore beside my grandmother whose face looks carved out of the
same sunstone as her land this morning. Although the skin around her eyes
isn’t rimmed with fatigue, the shadows are there, crowding her expression,
reddening her irises, ruffling the skin around her lids and mouth.
I try to locate a shred of excitement for this trip that I’ve longed to take
since I learned there was a world beyond Shabbe’s walls, but the emotion
filling me isn’t warm and light; it’s cold and heavy and sits atop my chest
like a boulder.
I don’t think I’ve taken a proper breath since I woke up drenched and
gasping for breath, clutching at my chest, convinced a sword protruded
from my scales. Not only was I not in Serpent form, but also no weapon had
sliced through my white gown. What stuck the silk to my skin wasn’t blood,
but perspiration.
Though my heart had raced for some time after rousing, I’d flopped
back onto my pillow, the words not real clinging to my trembling lips. The
scene had been a product of my imagination. A—what had Fallon called it?
—night terror. One made of the images my grandmother and Behati had
shown me the day before.
 A shudder races up my spine and clacks the ivory inside my mouth as I
picture the slaughtered serpents again. Another shiver follows suit when I
picture the mate I’m about to meet. And yet another tremor racks my body
when I recall the aggrieved shock and fierce hurt that warped Cathal’s
features when I asked him to keep our past in the past.
I curl my fingers until my nails bite crescents into my skin. I suddenly
don’t want to leave the safety of Shabbe’s walls. I don’t want to meet a
stranger. I take a step back. “No go.”
The queen pivots her stare off the large auburn ship that bears the
Shabbin crest of two golden serpents, complete with tusks created in
mother-of-pearl.
I shake my head, which shakes my body. Or maybe my body hasn’t
stopped shaking since I awakened. “I no ready.”
The queen’s black eyebrows lower. “What changed?”
“No want die.” I say, even though that’s only one reason. Granted, a
good one.
“EmMoti, no one will harm you.” She catches one of my fists and
forces my fingers to open to wind hers through. Once she succeeds, she
squeezes our palms together.
“But you say Faeries hate serpents. I Serpent, Taytah.”
“No one knows this but us.”
I blink in surprise, but then realize this isn’t the truth. “Many Crow
know.”
“Lorcan has sworn his people to secrecy.”
I try to step back. Her grip around my fingers tightens. Here I thought
she’d been offering me comfort, when actually, she’s holding on so I cannot
race back into the palace. “Why you want me go now?”
“Because that is your destiny.”
My skin coats in tiny bumps. Did Behati tell her about the vision, or did
the Mahananda inform her?
“Although I would’ve preferred for the Mahananda to let you steer your
heart, I’m not surprised it has found you a mate, for you are a shifter, and
that is the way of shifters.”
I’ve stopped shaking, but not because my shock has lessened. The
tremors have stopped because the cold has spread and hardened me like ice.
“I know how alone you’ve felt, Daya. Perhaps that is why the
Mahananda chose your mate.”
 “I no alone. I have Fallon and you, Taytah.” I also have Cathal. Well…I
had him. I very much doubt he’ll want to remain my friend after the way we
parted.
Maybe if the Mahananda found him a new mate also… The thought is a
fiery burst against the ice, one that keeps burning long after it’s thawed me.
What is this emotion? Why does it make my jaw clench and my heart ache?
“Fallon has Lore, and I have Shabbe,” Priya is saying. “You need
someone who’s wholly yours.”
I squint at the sky with its blistering midday sun. This must be why I
feel like I’m gloved in flames. Because I’m not used to being out during the
day. A violent splash carries my attention back to the Amkhuti and to the
scales whitening the glassy surface with foam. I spy yellow ones, but also
blue and purple and orange.
Although no water droplets sprinkle my skin, the fire ravaging me
snuffs out, leaving behind trenches of cold ash. Though the serpents’ show
is mesmerizing, it is also—and especially—painful, for it thrusts my
loneliness deep.
As deep as the dream sword plunged through my chest.
My skin prickles with the need to slip into scales, but I force my Serpent
away, sensing that if I jumped in, I’d spook the others. Until I learn their
tongue and their ways, I will stay an outcast. But what if I can’t learn their
tongue and ways?
Cathal said shifters cannot communicate with the species they were
molded from. Until I have a babe, I will be alone. This must be why the
Mahananda picked a mate for me: to aid me in creating a small version of
myself.
Fallon’s face swims before my eyes. To think that she was mine before
becoming Lorcan’s. If only she could’ve been mine after the Mahananda
turned me into a shifter. Perhaps then, she could’ve taken my shape instead
of her father’s.
As though Cathal sensed my thoughts, he appears, not in skin but in
feathers. Admittedly, it could be someone else, someone tasked to escort us
to Lorcan’s realm. Though why would a vessel filled with seafaring,
bloodcasters require an escort?
Shabbin females, according to what I’ve cobbled together, are the most
feared people in the realm, because they hold the most power. Crows come
second. Faeries next. Then humans. Where does a lone female with a
magical tongue end up on this pyramid of power? With her fellow shifters,
or somewhere between human and Faerie?
The Crow glides over the ship, casting it in full shadow since his
wingspan is as broad as the vessel is long.
“We are ready to embark, Sumaca.” Abrax’s voice tears my gaze off the
sky.
I wondered where he was when I didn’t see him amongst my guards this
morning. He must’ve been getting ready for the voyage. Though the male’s
eyes aren’t colored by blood magic, he has a sword which, according to
Asha, he’s terribly good at wielding. I imagine she’s watched him train, or
maybe even trained with him. I hear some female guards study swordfight
since sigils take concentration and time to draw. Unless she knows how
Abrax fights because she’s watched him fight off an enemy? Do the
Shabbins have enemies within their walls? Besides my mother, that is.
I look over my shoulder at the palace with its eight wings shaped like
flower petals. Is the female who made me before unmaking me imprisoned
in one of them? “Where keep Meriam, Taytah?”
“Somewhere she cannot reach you, emMoti.”
“But here, in Shabbe?”
“Yes.”
This time, when the queen leads me closer to the smooth wood that
glows amber as though lit from within, I offer no resistance. The world
beyond the sandstone walls may scare me, but suddenly, the idea of being
trapped on an isle with a murderess frightens me far more.
 Chapter 19
Zendaya

A
brax comes to stand beside me at the helm. He watches me watch the
queendom. Everyone aboard the ship watches me. The same way the
Shabbins crowding the shores of the Sahklare watch. Except, they
cannot see the real me, for the queen gave me another’s face—a female
with eyes as pink as her own, skin the hue of toasted seeds, and hair the
color of molten cocoa.
As she painted the transformation sigil on my forehead, Priya explained
that she or Asha would refresh it as soon as it faded, so I need not be
alarmed once we crossed into Lucin waters. No one would know I was
amongst the procession attending Fallon’s nuptials.
When I asked her why I needed a disguise since no one knew about me,
she’d answered: “So you can reveal yourself when you feel ready.”
Her reply had lengthened my breaths. That is, until the vessel ground to
a halt and bumped into an embankment. Once I realized we’d stopped to
pick up two new travelers—Ceres and Agrippina Rossi—the pressure in my
lungs eased, however the one around my heart tightened. I was grateful to
these women for having reared and loved Fallon, but dear Mahananda, how
I ached with envy.
“So, what do you think of your queendom, Rajka?” Ceres asks, coming
to stand beside me. Did she figure out who I was on her own, or did
someone divulge my identity?
“Please refrain from using her title, Shrima Rossi,” Asha murmurs.
 “Forgive me,” Ceres murmurs, her accent thick like Cathal’s, but
melodic, unlike his.
I smile to show her that she’s forgiven, then say, “Great beauty,
Shabbe.”
“I think so as well.”
“Fallon say Luce great beauty, too.”
Ceres’s emerald stare acquires both shadow and shine. “Yes. I suppose it
is quite beautiful if you overlook its people.”
I frown, not certain I understand what she means by this. When she
doesn’t elaborate, I say, “You home for good?”
“No.” Ceres casts a look at her daughter, who sits on a chair that Abrax
helped carry aboard and that Asha affixed to the deck with her blood. “Not
until…”
“Until…?”
“Until Agrippina’s ready to leave Shabbe.”
Here I’d imagined she’d want nothing more than to leave now that the
girl she and her mother raised had moved back to Luce. “Agrippina love
here so much?”
Ceres’s knuckles whiten around the railing as though she fears the ship’s
angle may send her toppling over. “Yes,” she finally says. “We are both
happy here.”
“Yet you mate live in Luce.”
Her black eyebrows spring up. “My mate?”
“General Rossi is mate, no?”
“Ah. Justus and I haven’t been mates for a while now.” She turns to
look at her daughter.
I do as well. Abrax stands beside the redheaded female, pointing out
birds and telling her their names. Apparently she’s a great fan of birds. Or
was, back before she took a knife to her ears to protest her lineage. I
shudder at the idea of carving through one’s own flesh.
Ceres watches me stroke my throat, something I do often, I realize. I
wonder why I reach for my scar. Do I hope to coax a memory from my
injured flesh, or does it offer me solace to know that I healed…that I
survived?
“You no love old mate?” I ask.
“It’s complicated.” She pushes a lock of black hair behind her long ears.
 To think I mistook her for Fallon’s true grandmother. To think I mistook
Agrippina for her mother. These two women look nothing like my daughter.
Then again, both are here, sailing back to Luce to be at her side during the
ceremony.
When my chest burns hot with that ugly feeling, I refocus on the wide,
crystalline river that bursts with not only serpents and fish, but also with
curious Shabbins out for a swim and tiny boats brimming with fresh
produce.
Little by little, the heat swamping my chest climbs into my eyes and
spills over. “Thank you,” I croak, knuckling away a tear.
Ceres frowns. “For what, Rajka?”
“For raise Fallon. For love her.” I knuckle away another tear, then heave
a deep breath and concentrate on the land and its people.
“She was easy to love.” With an easy smile, Ceres adds, “Not as easy to
raise.”
I laugh.
“Anytime you want stories, come to me and I will fill your ears with
your daughter’s penchant for misadventure.”
With a grin, I say, “I ready to hear all.”
So Ceres begins to recount Fallon’s childhood while I watch the
landscape tighten into slimmer dwellings and slighter gardens the farther up
we sail. By the time we reach the tiniest abodes, I feel like I’ve salvaged
some of the years of which I was robbed.
“The Queen!” a diminutive Shabbin yells, rushing to the embankment
and diving in. Dozens more follow. Where many kick their legs and thrust
their arms, a few grab onto tusks in order to keep up with our brisk cruising
speed.
Ceres interrupts her storytelling when my grandmother approaches and
opens one of the four trunks that were hefted aboard. The sun catches on a
mound of gold coins stamped with the Shabbin crest.
“Have a blessed journey, Sumaca!” one of the swimmers yells as their
body is dragged parallel to our vessel by a serpent as large as Sun Warrior.
The queen thanks the small Two-legs with a majestic smile and a
sprinkle of gold coins that makes them release the tusk and dive to pocket
them.
Another glistening face pops out in the foamy wake of our ship. A small
female with pink eyes and a coin tucked inside each hand. She displays her
loot with great pride.
“What wrong with mouth?” I ask.
Ceres frowns.
But Asha comprehends my question. “Children lose their teeth before
regrowing adult-sized ones.”
Of course. Children. That is why they’re so small.
Asha puffs out a laugh when a juvenile serpent bumps his tusk—more
of a nub, really—into one of the little girl’s hands, making her coin slip.
The child scowls at the serpent, then mutters an, “Oh, no you don’t,”
before plunging after it to retrieve her prize.
“That’s something you won’t see in Luce,” Ceres says. “No one swims
there.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because they fear…” Asha must give her a look, because Ceres purses
her lips. Even though she ends up saying, “Because they aren’t taught,” I
know the reason the Lucins do not swim.
They fear serpents.
They kill them.
Like my mood, the air darkens. I think it’s because of the Crow’s
shadows but soon find out the darkness isn’t of any giant bird’s making. No,
what casts us in shade are the queendom’s walls.
The trunk, now empty of coins, is clapped shut and carried away. No
new one is brought out. Probably because no Shabbin splashes in the water
here. A glance around reveals that not a single dwelling dots the tangle of
trees and shrubs.
“Welcome to the Chayagali, where only the wildest prowl.” Asha
gestures to the eerie hoop of vegetation that races around the whole
queendom.
According to my daily lessons with Behati, the Shadow Forest is the
only part of the isle that never gets sunlight. As the vessel glides deeper into
the darkness, lambent eyes peer at us from the obscurity and branches
crack, trodden on by furred land beasts. Though they fight amongst
themselves, they don’t attack Pink-eyes. They do, however, occasionally
attack serpents.
Little bumps rise over my skin. Though magic cloaks me, does it cloak
my true nature, or can the beasts sense me like I can sense them? Movement
on the shore of the Sahklare snares my attention. A beast in fur the same
shade as the abounding shrubs, and with eyes full-black like mine,
shoulders its way to the cliff overlooking the river and sniffs the air with its
flat nose.
“The tendu better not try and jump aboard,” Abrax mutters, reaching for
his short sword.
I was so engrossed by the shifting landscape that I didn’t even realize
he’d swapped places with Ceres.
“Have no fear, Abrax,” Asha singsongs. “Pink-eyes are near.”
Tendus are the rulers of the Chayagali, and serpents’ only predators in
Shabbe. They’re fearsome creatures with a single mortal flaw—sunlight.
The faintest ray will singe their hide and boil their blood, so they never
venture out from the shadows they rule.
The creature’s eyes lock on mine, and it crouches with a low growl, its
bladed shoulders digging into its fur. I spring my fingers off the railing. If
only the Akwale could steer the boat away from the shore, but the river here
is so narrow, and our ship so wide, that we’d bump into the opposite
embankment.
“Periculo,” Agrippina suddenly says, proceeding to repeat the word
over and over. “Periculo. Periculo.”
“What mean periculo?” I croak.
“Danger. But it won’t attack. Not with the queen aboard,” Asha says
while Agrippina repeats that single word.
Over and over and over. With each reiteration, my heart clamors louder.
She’s right. There is danger. I can sense the tendu’s malicious intent the
same way it can surely sense my fear. It licks its wide mouth, flattening the
fur around it. It isn’t my fear it scents; it’s the Serpent squirming beneath
my skin.
The tendu leaps.
I stumble backward and bang into Asha.
The creature squeals. What I take to be a battle cry turns out to be a
howl of pain, for only half of its body lands on the deck. Something severed
it in half. I soon realize what that something is when iron talons dripping
blood materialize out of thin air. The Crow accompanying us swoops low,
squawking a warning to the rest of the predators lurking in the shadows that
the same fate awaits them if they try to board our ship.
“We should get you inside the hull.” Asha plucks my clammy hand and
starts to tug me toward the front of the vessel where the Akwale are adding
blood to the sigil that seals our ship to the flowing waterway when a bolt of
smoke pounds into the deck.
“Corvo,” Agrippina gasps.
Ceres nods. “Si, mi cuori. Corvo.”
“Accipe me a Luce. Accipe me a Luce.”
Ceres shakes her head, then replies something with a nod in my
direction, but it doesn’t seem to quiet Agrippina, who keeps repeating the
same four words.
“What she say?” I murmur as Cathal growls something at Priya in
Crow.
“That the Crow takes her to Luce. I think she believes Cathal is here for
her.”
My lips flatten. Why would she think this? Because he’s Fallon’s father
and she considers herself Fallon’s mother? The Crow isn’t here for her. He’s
here for me. I know it even before I become the object of his scorching
glower.
The male is furious. Because of yesterday? Because of the tendu?
Because of something else that has nothing to do with me? Has his infection
returned? I drop my stare to his thigh and try to concentrate on his scent
when he snaps, “Help Zendaya climb onto my back. She’ll be flying the rest
of the way.”
I blink as he shifts and crouches like the tendu. I’m going to fly? My
heartbeats quicken and remain elevated as I peer over his shifting body
toward my grandmother, waiting for her assent. It’s slow to come, but she
nods. Because she senses more tendu attacks?
“You land back on board before we reach Tarecuori so I have time to
refresh her sigil. Understood?”
The Crow nods as Asha and Abrax help me scale his massive form.
“Hold on to his neck,” Abrax instructs me, which makes me think he
must’ve already ridden a Crow.
I do as I’m told.
Cathal stands and steps gingerly toward the railing, his talons clicking
against the wood. And then he jumps off the stern of the ship. For a
heartbeat, we’re in freefall, but then his wings fan out and we soar. My
fingers tremble, but not with fear this time, with exhilaration. He rises
slowly, as though to give me time to drink in the beauty spilling around us
—a pink jewel veined with liquid silver and vibrant greens with a
shimmering heart, no larger than a dot, that holds more power than the
world it hatched.
If only the Mahananda had given me⁠—
I press the ungracious thought away before it’s fully-formed. The
Mahananda gave me the power to shift from scales to skin. How dare I
complain.
Cathal whirls away from the land of my birth and rebirth and flies up
the length of the waterrise. The angle of his climb is so vertiginous that I
flatten my torso against his spine and strangle him with both my arms and
thighs. I must hurt him for he rights his body.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
I squint past his plumage at the ship that bobs like a tree nut down the
sinuous shadows. How long will it take it to reach the top? And once they
do reach it, will the ocean be right there? I find out the answer to my second
interrogation before the boat penetrates the waterrise: the ocean isn’t right
there. The ocean is far below. Not as far down as Shabbe, but still…
Even though the sun is hot on my skin, a shiver courses down my spine.
Cathal does one more loop of the sky above Shabbe before cresting the
shimmering pink walls. My lungs slacken around a gasp as I lay my eyes on
the world beyond—a bolt of sapphire capped with golden foam that
stretches and bleeds into sky on one end and land on the other.
Luce.
A land I’ve traveled to in the past but of which I’ve no recollection. A
land where I awakened a dormant king and gave birth to a violet-eyed child.
A land where I met my first mate and will now meet my second.
Instead of smooth beats, the pounding in my chest is erratic and causes
me to tremble. Cathal must feel it for he twists his face toward me. I
swallow and try to smile, but it won’t hold.
Why do I feel so…so…restless? Why do my lids burn and my heart
ache? Because I’ve lost my grip on the past, or because I fear the future?
The pink sand, that rings the sunstone walls like a stroke of paint, blurs. I
blink back my tears before Cathal can see them carve down my cheeks.
A wave claps the ramparts and swallows the sand, then remains there,
lapping at the stone as it darkens, blackens. I frown until something
shimmers out of the blemish: the ship. Is the channel always there or did the
Akwale make it appear? And if it is the latter, how do serpents come and
go? If I ask, will I be told?
 Cathal shoots forward with such speed that Luce comes into sharper
focus, a rolling land of green and gray. My Crow sentry—not my sentry—
hasn’t, to my knowledge, gone home since I stepped out of the Mahananda.
How eager he must be to return to his friends and sleep in his rock chamber
in the clouds.
“Cathal?”
He slows and rolls his head.
“Put me on boat.”
Though he has no eyebrows, I can sense them slant.
“So you can home.” I nod to the rising gray rock which Fallon
explained houses Lorcan’s castle.
I tighten my grip around Cathal’s neck, expecting he will dip now, but
instead, he beats his great wings, sending us careening forward, straight for
the tower of rock and clouds.
Did the wind distort my words or did Cathal Báeinach decide to squeeze
in a visit of his home? I glance over my shoulder, and although I cannot see
Taytah Priya, I can feel her glower cutting through the growing distance
between us and them.
When we swoop over jagged rock, I stop looking back and begin to
look ahead. Might as well, since I’m at Cathal’s mercy and will be going
wherever it is that he goes. Perhaps Lorcan instructed him to bring me to
the Sky Kingdom before the nuptials?
I soon find out that the Crow King had no hand in Cathal’s decision.
 Chapter 20
Zendaya

A
fter plunging into a notch in the rock, we soar down a hallway wide
enough to accommodate Crows in their beast form. Torches grip the
walls, splashing an amber glow over the gray. Below us, Crows
traipse in human form, toting baskets filled with produce and soaps and
cloth as though they’ve just come from a market or are heading to one.
A small Crow jabs a finger our way, and then he’s racing underneath us,
repeating Cathal’s name and the word Shabbin. Cathal slows and swoops
low, allowing the child to catch up. And the juvenile does, which earns him
a brush of Cathal’s wingtip. Like the little girl in the Sahklare, the boy
smiles, revealing a mouth full of missing teeth.
I relax my hold on Cathal’s neck and straighten, and then I curve my
lips. The small Crow blinks, then pushes a lock of black hair off a face still
bare of feather tattoo and gapes at me. I assume it’s my temporary pink eyes
that are giving the child pause, but a glance at the braid that’s slipped over
my shoulder reveals it’s the sight of my uncommon hair color.
Did my grandmother’s magic wane already?
When more Crows begin to gather and gape, I sink my fingers into the
feathers of Cathal’s neck. Cathal must sense my anxiety for he rises and
increases his speed, leaving the crowd behind. We fly for long minutes
before he drops again. This time, his talons click against stone.
He morphs into smoke before I can climb down, then winks into skin
and encloses me in his arms. For a long moment, he doesn’t speak, just
stares, and I stare back. So distracted by the tendu’s attack, I hadn’t paid
attention to the Crow’s appearance. He looks ravaged by fatigue. His hair
pokes out in black tangles that halo a face as pale as the child’s, but
smudged with purple. What holds my attention isn’t so much his pallor, but
the crimson veining the whites of his eyes.
“Is infection back?”
With a frown, he sets me on my feet. “No. Why?”
“Eyes very red.”
His throat moves over a swallow as sharp as the serrated peaks of
Monteluce. Without replying, he turns and shoves open a large wooden
door, then nods to the room beyond. I slip ahead of him, squinting into the
obscurity. It is a cavern with many armchairs set around a metal table that
appears wrought from the same metal as Crow talons. It shines darkly in the
faint light cutting into the room through slits in the walls. I pad closer, my
lids lifting at the sight spilling before me—rolling rock covered in trees like
none I’ve ever seen before. Their leaves are fiery—a medley of gold and
orange sprinkled through with green.
The air stirs as Cathal comes to stand beside me. “Autumn has come
early.”
I glance up at him, at the sunrays carving into the darkness of his face,
making his features starker instead of brighter.
He gestures toward the trees. “I can tell by the color of the forest.” At
my frown, he explains, “When the weather grows cold, the trees here
change hue before losing their leaves. They’ll remain bare throughout
winter, then sprout new leaves during spring. It’s called seasons. You do not
have them in Shabbe.” He turns fully toward me now, his gaze stroking
over my face, as if hoping to locate a shred of memory. “When you arrived
in Luce, the first time we met⁠—”
Though I suddenly want to hear all about it, I shut him down with an
abrupt, “No talk of past,” for I know it will hurt us both. Especially him. I
don’t add this out loud, sensing the male might take offence at being found
weak in any way. “Where Fallon and Lore?”
“It was winter when we met. There was snow everywhere. When you
noticed it, your eyes grew fucking huge because it was the first time you
had ever seen some.” And then he stalks past me and throws open a set of
wooden doors.
I wedge my lips together, because I want to know more about this snow
and why my eyes widened, but if I dip a single toe into my past, it’ll create
ripples, and those ripples are bound to have consequences.
I follow him past the doors, repeating, “Where Fallon and⁠—”
The male’s tossed off his shirt. His skin, although shades paler than
mine, is riddled with the same puckered flesh as mine—scars.
I touch the one around my neck. “What doing?”
“I’m getting a change of clothes.”
I stare around me, suddenly understanding where it is we are. “You cave
this?”
He snorts as he drops down onto the large bed to remove his boots. He
tosses them aside before standing and pushing down his pants in one fell
swoop. No color stains his cheekbones this time.
I find my hand floating to the doorframe as he pivots toward his
armoire, the muscles beneath his skin roiling and clenching as he moves.
Even though I’m uncertain how it’s possible, he seems so much broader
without his leathers.
He turns and catches me staring.
Since he’s stared his fill of me every time I’ve swam in the Amkhuti, it
feels fair to study his front, which is just as muscled as his rear. The only
remotely soft spot on this male’s body is the cock that hangs between his
legs, but even that begins to harden as I stare.
“It’s our cave, Daya. The one you picked for us to live in as a family.
You and me and”—there’s a hitch in his breathing—“our child.”
My heart emits a beat that is so bladed it gores me.
“You loved the snow so much that you wanted to live in the north.” He
throws on a black shirt that clings to his skin like my swallow clings to my
throat. “With me.”
I roll my lips, pushing down the lump that’s making it difficult to
breathe. He needs to stop living in the past. For both our sakes.
I turn toward the living area. “Where Fallon?”
“She’s already in Isolacuori.”
I faintly remember Phoebus telling me that this was where the kings of
old had made their home in Luce. “So why we here?”
“Because”—leather whispers up legs, boots clunk—“like I said, I
needed a change of clothes”—metal grinds and clicks—“and my armor.”
“Why no leave me on boat?”
“Your safety is my number one priority, Príona.” His voice is so near
that I whirl back around.
 “I safe with Taytah and Akwale.”
“Didn’t look it when that tendu tried to maul you.”
“I pink eyes on the boat.” I almost jab my finger into them to drive my
point in. “Tendu no harm Pink-eyes.”
He dips his face low. “They should’ve known better than to trust that
the spell was enough to disguise your scent.” His nostrils flare. “I could
smell you from the skies, Sífair.”
I swallow, my saliva gliding right through this time. “How I smell?”
“Like the ocean. Mach mo moannan.” Mok mo meanan.
I know the last word, but what does mok mo mean? I purse my lips,
wishing I understood his language so he could stop using it to confuse me.
He tilts his face, waiting for me to ask for a translation…daring me.
I don’t take his bait. We’ve been gone long enough. “You done dress?”
He nods.
“So we go.” I start toward the door.
Cathal doesn’t follow. He just stands there, arms crossed over an iron
breastplate. “You and I aren’t going anywhere until you share with me what
it was that Behati told you before leaving your chambers.”
I cast my eyes on the leather armchairs. “No.”
“Then I guess we’ll miss our daughter’s nuptials.”
I glower at him. “You no want to know. Trust me.”
“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t be asking, now, would I?”
My jaw grinds from how hard I now clench it. “Just vision.”
“Of?”
“Of me. No concern you, Crow.”
He cracks his knuckles. “Yet I feel concerned, so do tell me more,
Sífair.”
“Cathal, please. Go.”
“The instant you tell me, I’ll take you to Isolacuori.”
Since I don’t feel the prick of a bargain, I suspect this isn’t one.
The stubborn Crow continues to push. “If it doesn’t concern me, then I
really don’t see why you’re so reticent about⁠—”
“Behati see new mate!” I feel winded shouting the words. “You happy
now, Crow?”
I can tell from the nerve jumping in his jaw that he’s anything but
pleased. Well, too bad for him. Perhaps it’ll teach him not to pry into
someone else’s business.
 “I tell you. We go. Now.” I march toward the door. “Do I need drag you
or you come?” I perch my palms on my hips. When he makes no move to
follow, I huff a “Fine” and retrace my steps, clasp his wrist and yank.
Futile. Unless he chooses to move, he won’t.
“Please, Cathal.”
“So impatient to meet your new mate?” His voice is as cold as his stare.
“No. I impatient see Fallon! I impatient heal wounded Crows! I
impatient get sigil before everyone see pink hair!”
Icy umber meets blazing black. “Who?”
“Who what?” I snap.
“Who is to be your new mate?” He bites out the word as though it now
tastes foul.
“I not know him.”
“But, perhaps, I do? Who?”
“Why you want know?”
“Call it morbid fascination.”
I don’t understand what that means, but I say, “I meet him on beach
tonight. He no hair.”
“Did he have a feather? Stripes?”
I dig into my memory. “No. Face bare.”
His lips curl.
“Why you smile?”
He walks toward the door and opens it.
“Cathal Báeinach, why you smile?”
“Because your mate is not one of my brothers.”
My eyebrows glance against one another. I hadn’t even considered the
Mahananda mating me to another Crow.
“Come, mo Sífair.”
The word serpent, I understand, but not mo. That’s twice that he’s used
it. “What mean mo?”
The impossible, mercurial male grins wider, so wide that it makes my
heart hold still before bumping like a tossed pebble. He flings open his
cave’s door and waits. It’s only as I step past him that he murmurs, “My.”
He shifts before I can remind him that I’m not his. I suppose he’ll only
understand this once he sees me with my new mate. I suddenly picture how
this will go and the expression that’ll score his face. It’s best if he never
lays eyes on the male, for Cathal might decide to also lay a talon on him,
and since the male the Mahananda chose for me won’t be a shifter, a talon
would hurt him.
My breath suddenly seizes, and not because we hurtle out of the Sky
Castle, but because I finally grasp the cause of Cathal’s dusky smile. Had
my mate been a shifter, nothing could’ve harmed him, neither the Crow I
ride, nor a weapon made of obsidian, thanks to my healing tongue.
If my mate is human…
Oh, Great and Powerful Mahananda…
What will Cathal Báeinach do to him?
 Chapter 21
Zendaya

I
’m still running through the terms of the bargain I’ve concocted inside
my mind when Cathal flaps his wings and pivots. Instead of heading
toward a patch of water crawling with boats and Crows, we arrow
toward a lone ship that bobs just off a beach of black sand. Even without its
blood-red flag, I would’ve known it was Priya’s vessel from the number of
frolicking serp⁠—
Black sand.
I snap my gaze off the undulating scaled bodies and onto the beach.
That was the color of the sand in Behati’s vision.
I’m still scrutinizing it when Cathal lands. I dismount from the Crow to
the sound of Priya’s frustrated diatribe, entirely aimed at Cathal, and walk
on gummy legs toward the stern of the ship.
“Are you all right, Rajka?” Abrax asks, coming to stand beside me.
“Black sand,” I murmur.
“Yes. Not exactly inviting, is it?”
Not a single soul wanders on the beach, yet I can smell burning wood
and baking bread, which leads me to think there must be dwellings inside
the neighboring forest. “All beach in Luce black?”
“No. Only this one.” Abrax says something about the rock being
volcanic, then proceeds to explain what it means, but I cannot concentrate
on a word he says, because he’s just confirmed that this is where I will meet
him.
 What if I keep my distance from that beach? What happens then? Will
the Mahananda change the location of our encounter?
Someone grazes my elbow—Asha. “Your grandmother is calling you.”
I blink at her, then float back to where Cathal stands, casting shadows
on everyone but my grandmother. Her finger is already bleeding by the time
I come within arm’s reach of her. In quick strokes, she darkens my hair and
brightens my eyes, making me other.
I think of the bargain I decided to strike with Cathal, and consider
striking it then and there. But the male is so proud, that if I ask him in front
of an audience, odds are that he will scoff, and it’ll fan his desire to keep me
from the human I’m not entirely certain I want to meet in the first place.
Great Mahananda, what do I even want?
I want to see Fallon. I want that. “Nuptials when?”
“Now. We’re just waiting for our escort. Ah, here is Justus Rossi now.”
The queen turns toward a cloud of gleaming vessels crafted from wood as
black as the sand on the fateful beach. “Generali!” she calls out in greeting.
“Sumaca. Welcome.” Lorcan’s Fae general bows deep, the sun
burnishing the long orange and silver braid that rests against his Crow-black
uniform.
The soldiers, too, wear black. They all gape at our ship filled with Pink-
eyes. Though the Shabbins have ventured out of the queendom since the
wards have come down, they apparently remain an arresting sight. I
suppose it’ll take centuries to repair the damage that my mother reaped.
“May I lend you some air-Fae, Sumaca?” Rossi asks. “Though there’s
no hurry, it’ll make your trip to Isolacuori swifter.”
After Priya nods, one of the ships sidles up to ours, which allows two
men and one woman to hop aboard—all of them have gray irises like
Sybille.
Fallon once explained that magic colors Faerie eyes like blood-magic
colors Shabbin eyes. Gray irises master wind; red, fire; blue, water; and
green, nature.
Rossi yells orders in Lucin to the soldiers, and then we’re off, clipping
the waves at a speed that makes me cling to the mast for fear of being
blown away. The wind is loud and cool, the air, rife with sun and salt and
gyrating Crows. For a heartbeat, my lids close and my worries melt with the
thrill and heat of the journey.
 But then Cathal’s muttering makes them open anew. He’s glaring at the
dense throng of vessels bobbing on the stretch of limpid water that
separates a tiny atoll of white marble and gold from a rainbow city built
around thin waterways. Isolacuori and Tarecuori. The latter is where my
daughter grew up. Where she swam and befriended a serpent she named
Minimus—me. Where she laughed and ran amok with Phoebus and Sybille.
Where she worked inside a tavern called Bottom of the Jug, owned by
Sybille’s family.
As I watch the splendor of Lorcan’s kingdom, sorrow curdles my heart
for all the bygone years. “Fallon know?”
“Know what, Príona?”
I meet his gaze that is still enflamed by exhaustion and anger. “That I
know she ours.”
A muscle jumps beside Cathal’s temple. “No. I thought you might want
to tell her.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
The air-Fae must snuff out their magic for the sails shrivel and our ship
slows.
“Cathal, I bargain for you.”
He turns toward me, his expression wavering between amusement and
doubt. “I’m listening.”
“Shabbins have many mate.”
“No.”
I gasp. “I no say bargain.”
“You’re going to bargain with me to let you run into the arms of your
new mate in exchange for which you’ll string me along. Am I correct?”
I release the mast and fold my arms. “I Shabbin.”
“You’re a shifter.”
“Not Crow.”
He turns more fully toward me, eclipsing everything and everyone.
“Perhaps, but I’m a Crow, and Crows have one mate, Daya. And they don’t
share.”
“I no choose this new male.”
“But you can. You can choose him, or you can choose me.” Cathal, in
that moment, resembles the craggy peaks of his mountain home, where few
can thrive—least of all a serpent. “You cannot have us both.” He searches
the face that isn’t mine for an answer that will be mine.
 “What if Mahananda pick new mate for you, Cathal. What you do?”
His rough hand cups my cheek with the utmost tenderness. “Zendaya of
Shabbe, you are and will always be my one and only.”
My chest heats. At first, I think it’s because I must’ve struck another
bargain, but when the heat spreads, I realize it doesn’t stem from magic but
from how powerfully my heart beats for Cathal.
I am a breath away from promising him that I will never venture toward
the black beach when the air churns with smoke right beside us. Smoke that
turns into the most beautiful girl in the world, wearing a gown made of
violet stones that shimmer like the trapped bubbles in the Amkhuti.
Fallon glowers at the hand resting on my cheek. “What the fuck,
Dádhi?”
My breath skips, and I take a step back, making his arm fall. Was she
not informed I’d come? Was I not supposed to be here?
Cathal sighs, then in Crow, he murmurs something that widens Fallon’s
mouth and softens her stare. When I catch the word Mádhi, I realize the
reason for Fallon’s outburst: she thought her father was touching some
stranger’s face.
She says something in Crow that makes the tough male crack a grin as
lopsided as his nose. Cathal reminds me of my beloved moat—full of stone
shelves, each one hiding a world of color and life amidst the shadow of
another. He also feels like the Amkhuti—like a haven, a place in which I
can exist without fear and explore without haste.
“I so happy see you, Fallon.” I reach out to take her hands. “Miss you so
much.”
Fallon gulps in a shaky breath. “I knew you’d learn to speak Shabbin
fast, Daya.”
The sound of my given name on her lips shrivels my joy. “Mádhi. No
Daya.”
“I…” She licks her lips. “All right.” She glances up at her father, but his
eyes remain fastened to my face. I know what she’s seeking—whether I
understand what that word means.
“Behati say history to me. I know I make you”—I meet Cathal’s eyes
—“with mate.”
His chest lifts with a long, slow breath.
I know what I want. I want him. I want Fallon. I want my old life, not a
new one.
 I choose you. You and Fallon. I choose never to visit that black beach.
As I stare at him, his face dims and becomes another’s, as though my
conscience isn’t pleased with my decision. I squeeze my eyes shut to chase
away the image of my intended mate, but it clings to my lids like the
Shabbin children had held on to their gold coins.
Go away.
Behati’s vision unspools in greater detail until I think I could pick the
male out in a crowd: his nose is long, his lips almost as full as my own, his
jaw, smooth, and his shorn hair…his shorn hair shines an odd shade of
emerald.
“I feel like I’ve missed so much,” Fallon murmurs.
Though I take her in my arms and focus on her, he keeps haunting me.
Go away, I repeat in my thoughts, clasping my lids as tightly as I clasp
my daughter. This time, his image fades but the odd hue of his hair lingers. I
decide it must be a trick of the moonlight, because as far as I’ve heard and
seen, no one has hair the color of leaves.
 Chapter 22
Zendaya

he Glacin galleon just pulled in. It’s time,” Fallon says. “Will you
“T both come stand by my side?”
“Yes.” The answer rushes from my lips at the same time as
Cathal says, “We better not, sweetheart.”
“But no one will know who she is since she is concealed.”
“They’ll wonder—like you did—why I’m standing beside a stranger.”
“They’ll assume you fell for a Shabbin during our month-long stay.”
“I would never.” Cathal balls his fingers, which makes the leather he’s
wrapped around his forearms creak.
Fallon rolls her eyes. “I know this, but the Fae don’t understand much
about our customs, Dádhi.”
“I will not risk it.”
As Fallon’s smile slips, I say, “Cathal, you go. I stay on ship with
Taytah.”
“I—” He stares at our daughter, then at me, then back at our daughter.
“I⁠—”
“Important to Fallon. Go.” I squeeze her hand once more. “I hear Taytah
call me.”
I don’t. I imagine they both know I lie since their hearing is as sharp as
my sense of smell. I sidestep the beast with the sad eyes and our beautiful,
grown-up child to join my grandmother. She’s chatting with a woman on a
neighboring vessel that’s as white as my tusk. When I approach my
grandmother, the Faerie’s gaze slides over me. I can tell she wonders who I
am. The Shabbin Queen does not make introductions, but the Faerie’s
identity is easy to guess from the ornate crown she wears, a composition of
cut emeralds as green as her eyes arranged around a crest depicting a maple
leaf—the Queen of Nebba.
She must be Eponine, the sympathetic daughter of the monster who
recently lost his life. Fallon despised him but likes her, so I like her by
default. I like her even more when I spy Fallon’s friend Sybille aboard the
white ship, bracketed by an older male and female with brown skin and
gray irises. Her parents, I presume? And the woman with the halo of dark
curls standing in Eponine’s shadow must be Sybille’s sister, the one
Eponine chose as her foreign advisor. Her features and stare are as sharp as
Eponine’s ears, a stark contrast to her younger sibling, who’s all curves and
laughter.
I’m trying to recall her name when my gaze clocks a mammoth vessel
pulling in beside us, flanked by a myriad of other ships. All of them fly pale
blue flags adorned with the Glacin crest—a white snowflake. Its sight steals
my breath for it represents what past-me had apparently adored: snow.
Asha arches her eyebrows and snorts. “Did the northerners’ invitation
mention a war instead of a wedding?”
“They come fight?” I murmur.
The queen clasps my hand. “No, emMoti. King Vladimir merely enjoys
having an entourage.”
“And the largest ship,” Asha says. “Probably to compensate for what
rests between his legs.”
I squint to make out what rests between his legs but spot only something
resting on his shoulder—a slumbering white-furred beast.
Wait…does legs mean shoulders? Did I confuse the words?
As I contemplate this, I study the monarch whose hair is the same white
as my grandmother’s, the same shade as the male standing right behind him.
I imagine it’s his son, just like I imagine the two young females framing
him must be his daughters. I’m struck by how much the girls resemble one
another. It’s as though they are one and the same.
Music suddenly rises from the ocean. Well, not from the ocean, but from
little boats garlanded in roses in full bloom where males in great regalia are
stroking instruments made of wood and strings. The melody is lovely,
delicate, like a warm, lulling breeze that dances through leaves and flutters
petals.
 It casts a deep tranquility over Lorcan’s land. One that is only disturbed
by the swivel of heads as everyone looks between the sky and a large
wooden raft shaded by an arbor festooned with black ribbons and crimson
roses in full bloom. Next to one of the four slender pillars stands Cathal and
a woman with silver-black hair wearing Crow stripes—Arin.
When I’d first met her at my “rebirth,” I assumed she was Phoebus’s
mother from how affectionate they were, but then Fallon had explained that
Arin was Lorcan’s mother, and that she and Phoebus had bonded when he’d
moved into the Sky Castle.
A deep voice suddenly rolls over the string music, matching the subtle
notes, before strengthening and overpowering them. Though I don’t grasp
the words, their unctuous beauty coaxes little bumps over my skin and
carries Arin’s hand to her lashes.
Two more people join Arin and Cathal on the floating platform—Justus
Rossi and…and Ceres.
I turn toward Priya. “Why Ceres and no you, Taytah?”
“Because I’d rather watch over them from here with you, emMoti.” She
squeezes my fingers, drawing them to her lips for a kiss.
The gesture catches Sybille’s sister’s eye, who seems to be the only one
not waiting with bated breath for the arrival of the Lucin King and his mate.
I can feel her giving me another long once-over. Will she figure out who I
am or will she assume I’m one of the Shabbin Queen’s lovers? I realize I
don’t much care, for I like Sybille and she loves her sister. I’ve nothing to
fear from them.
My thoughts evaporate when five streaks of darkness strike the platform
and knit into the shape of Lorcan Ríhbiadh. Like Cathal, he wears leather
and iron. Like all the other monarchs, he wears a crown, though his is so
thin and simple, it gets lost in his wind-tossed black locks. He extends his
hand toward the sky. A Crow sweeps low before becoming smoke and
finally flesh.
Fallon’s appearance causes another wave of goosebumps to dash across
my skin. It also causes the water to churn and foam around the platform. I
think an air-Fae must be blowing on the bobbing platform, which agitates
my heart, but soon realize the commotion isn’t Faerie-made.
Dozens of serpents rise and slap the water around Fallon, all of them
seeking her attention, which she gives them in spades. While she crouches
to stroke their tusks and the skin around them, Lorcan speaks words in
Lucin to his people. I don’t even attempt to glean what he’s saying, my skin
tightening and tightening.
“Taytah,” I whisper.
“What is it, emMoti?”
“I need⁠—”
“What do you need?”
My fingers jerk out of hers. “I need—I need shift.”
“Right now? You cannot repress…”
I shake my head, my vision crackling at the edges, my bones aching. If I
don’t dive into the water, I will shift right here on the deck and everyone
will see what Priya took such care to hide.
Her warning about Faeries slaughtering serpents brightens my mind.
What if one of them tries to kill me? What if the Nebban queen grows vines
and trusses me up in them? Could she squeeze the air from my lungs?
Could she kill me?
My ears buzz. My jaw clenches. A blaze pricks my forehead.
“Asha, dive with her,” Priya murmurs.
Asha removes her weapon’s belt and tosses it at Abrax.
“And do not let her wander.”
“I won’t leave her side, Sumaca,” Asha promises, already painting the
stripes along her neck that will help her breathe underwater.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, my lips tingling as hard as the rest of me.
Asha grins. “I was getting too hot, anyway.”
She jumps in before me, which garners quite a lot of attention.
“What if…?” I side-eye the serpents around the wedding platform, but
the more I stare at them, the more my desire to shift becomes pressing.
The queen brackets my cheeks. “Every serpent in the ocean is your
friend, emMoti. You are safe.”
I blink away the heat creeping under my lashes.
“You—are—safe,” she repeats, and then she kisses my forehead that
tingles so hard, I push away from her before I spear her mouth and jump in
after Asha.
The instant my skin connects with the ocean’s salt, my scales pop free.
For a moment, I’m overwhelmed by bliss, as though my human flesh had
been compressing all of my organs, but then I catch sight of the whirlwind
of serpents ringing the wooden platform upon which my daughter stands. I
snap into movement and muscle past them. Although they hiss and bleat, I
shove them aside, using both my tusk and body, which are significantly
larger than theirs.
And then I spring my face out of the water. It is only once my gaze
meets Fallon’s that I calm. She blinks at me, then glances over her shoulder
at the Shabbin ship as though to ascertain that I’m missing from it. At
Priya’s nod, her face spins back toward me. Cathal’s, too. Where Fallon
smiles, he scowls and pops his fingers into fists.
Fallon presses her lips to the slit that is my ear in this form and
murmurs, “Mádhi, I will always love you most.”
I gobble down her words, hissing when a blue serpent attempts to steal
Fallon’s attention.
She kisses my nose before standing. I stare as Justus hands Lorcan a
golden crown that isn’t the same as his. Though simple, it’s composed of
sticks of gold that stick up like my tusk. The king speaks a few words
before slipping the crown into Fallon’s braided hair. And then he molds her
waist with his palms and slants his mouth over hers.
The music slows, coming to a standstill before picking up in both
volume and speed when Fallon and Lorcan break apart under a thunder of
smacking palms that has me twisting around and around.
It’s all so loud, so pungent, so much. My crazed gaze snares Cathal’s a
second before I topple back, and my place is usurped by another serpent
craving Fallon’s attention.
A rattling tail slaps me across the face, and I blink. Sink. Something
grazes my scales. I whirl to find Asha’s pink eyes steady on my rounded
ones. She tries to press her palms to my forehead, but I don’t want her
thoughts.
My thoughts are already too much.
Too much.
I roll away, head spinning, heart galloping. The water beneath me is so
murky that I think night has fallen, but a glance above reveals a glimmering
cyan striated with foam and⁠—
Something large and dark carves into the water. I think it’s a sinking
ship, but then I spy feathers, a metal beak, and black eyes that shrink into
brown ones. Bubbles snake out of Cathal’s nose as he flutters his feet and
windmills his arms to reach me, but the deeper he dives, the deeper I drop,
until my body hits something so sharp it tears a shriek from my mouth.
 I crane my neck and wring my body until I’ve managed to unhook
myself from whatever coral impaled me. I jerk around, then recoil when I
meet a giant, vacant stare. Arms band around me, clasp me from behind,
and then a hand snares my tusk, pink eyes replacing the colorless ones.
Asha sets one palm on my forehead, then slowly unwraps her other
hand from my tusk. As she smooths it across my forehead, my gaze snicks
on the giant’s eyes again. They belong to a bloodless face that’s topped with
a crown made of sticks like Fallon’s, only these are as tall as Cathal and
pure white, save for a black smear on top of one.
Suddenly the giant’s face fades and I see my human self walking in the
palace’s Shabbin gardens, pink hair bouncing against my hot nape, sunshine
glinting against my retracted tusk. Hands clasp mine, squeeze. And then
Fallon’s face materializes before mine and she says, “Shift, Zendaya.”
I blink. I don’t want her to call me by my name. I want her to call me
Mádhi. I want to be her mother.
“Shift,” she repeats. And then another voice, a deep raucous one,
garbles the very same word.
My throat clenches as I wrench my face from Asha’s and twirl. Two tiny
bubbles pop from Cathal’s lips. And then his eyes roll and his strength
wanes, the knot of his arms slipping.
Air. He needs air. I coil my aching tail around his large body and grip
him. And then I shoot upward, swimming fast in spite of the weight I carry.
Asha swims beside me, propelling herself using her arms.
When I reach the surface, I sweep my tail and bowl Cathal’s body
upward. Asha snares him around the torso. The ocean suddenly flickers,
darkens, and my body shudders. When light fans across the obscurity, I find
that my tail has split.
I give a hard kick. Pain flares down my leg. I hook the pink fabric of my
gown and pluck it from my skin, finding a deep gouge weeping black
blood. I squint at the ocean floor, toward that spot of white, but get
distracted by the long, indigo slit and the scaled bodies undulating over it.
A few serpents look up. Their nostrils flare. A juvenile darts toward me
but halts, scrutinizes me, then curls in on itself like a millipede, before
dashing toward the underwater trench. I’m still staring after it when two
rough palms seize my cheeks and hinge my neck back.
Cathal nods to the surface, to the only place where we can coexist. I use
my arms to avoid jostling my legs, but stretching my arms shortens my
breaths and stokes the fire engulfing my upper thigh. The second we break
the surface, I gulp in the warm, bright air as though my lungs had been
stripped of it since I dove off my grandmother’s ship.
Cathal’s thumbs arc across my cheekbones. “Shh.”
Asha murmurs a word which the Shabbins use when something not
good happens. One glance upward reveals the reason for her word. We’ve
emerged right beside the Glacin galleon, and everyone aboard is peering
down at us.
At me.
 Chapter 23
Cathal

K
ing Vladimir stands at the railing of his galleon, his silver eyes
stroking over Daya’s features in a way that shakes her body with
shudders. “Now, what have you fished out of the deep, Cathal
Báeinach?” he asks in Glacin.
“Is that a mermaid?” one of his twins shrills.
“Mermaids only exist in those terrible books you read, Izolda,” her
sister quips.
Though I realize I cannot shield Daya entirely, one of my hands slips
into her pink braid and presses her face into the crook of my neck, while the
other curls around her waist.
“They’re great books,” Izolda mutters just as Daya releases a small
whimper.
I faze the Glacins out and murmur in Shabbin, “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Though she clenches her teeth, I catch a second whimper.
Evidently, it’s not nothing.
“Would you like us to toss you a buoy?” As Vladimir caresses the dead
fox ornament draped over his shoulder, his ivory bangles clink together.
That must be the reason for Zendaya’s whimper: because she recognizes
his bracelets’ provenance. I want to rip them off his arms.
“Can you fly her back to our ship, Cathal?” Asha asks, not bothering to
answer the Glacin King.
I will fly her out of Filiaserpens, but not onto any vessel. I cannot risk
her jumping into the ocean again. I don’t think my heart or lungs could take
another fevered swim.
“Príona, get on my back and hold on to my neck,” I whisper into her
ear.
Once she does, I allow my body to swell. With a snap of my wings, I
soar off the ocean’s surface and past the gawping crowd.
Lore, please tell my daughter that I’m sorry for leaving.
Is everything all right?
It is now. Oh, and inform Priya that I’m bringing Daya home.
Which home?
Mine.
He snorts. Cannot wait for that conversation.
Daya is my mate.
Lorcan’s silent, but it’s a wrought silence. One that feels loaded with
warnings not to get reattached. It’s too late for that. Our minds may no
longer be linked, but Zendaya’s become the axis along which spins my
entire world.
The metallic tinge of fear that washed over me when I realized the pink
serpent was Daya… When her head vanished beneath the surface…
When…
I beat my wings, hastening to outrun my fear, but it adheres to me like
the woman on my back. When I feel her cheek press into my nape and her
body relax against mine, my nerves stop crackling. Which isn’t to say I
calm—because I don’t. As we crest over swamp, forest, and hill, tension
bites at my marrow and nips at my muscles.
It’s only once I swoop through the northern hatch of the Sky Kingdom
hours later that a sense of ease washes through me. My journey down the
hallway is slow and steady, my transformation, on the other hand, is short
and abrupt. The second I am flesh, I whirl and snatch Zendaya’s body
before her feet can even graze the ground.
I thought she was sleeping but find her lashes lifted. I carry her over the
threshold. I should probably set her down, but since she doesn’t ask this of
me yet, I transport her all the way to my bed. My relief winks out of
existence when I notice the black stain on her dress. I crouch and grow out
my talons to shred the dried fabric and get a clear picture of what I’m
contending with. My gums ache when I spot a deep cut on her upper thigh.
If only I could lick her wound clo— I raise my hand to her mouth,
hoping that the Sky Kingdom’s walls won’t block her healing ability. After
all, it doesn’t block Shabbin crystals. “Spit.”
“What?”
“So you can heal yourself with that extraordinary saliva, mo Sífair.”
Her cheeks pinken. I hope it’s because of my new nickname, and not
because she’s embarrassed to spit.
“My tongue heal, Cathal. Not water in mouth.”
“Let’s try it anyway.”
As she props herself up onto one forearm, her cheeks hollow and she
spits. I carefully drip the transparent salve into her cut.
I wait with bated breath for the skin to seal, but Zendaya’s saliva merely
pools in the wound before dribbling out, carrying along a streak of her
black blood.
“I tell you. Tongue. And I no can reach in this form.” She sticks out her
tongue and hinges at the waist to demonstrate.
“But in your serpent form you could…”
“Yes.”
“Do you need water to shift?”
She shrugs. “I need ocean, I think. I no turn Serpent in bath.” She must
sense my reticence to carry her back out of the castle and into the sea,
because she grazes my cheek. “No hurt. I heal fast.”
“Give me a second.” I stand, throw off my armor and vambraces.
“Don’t move.”
She stares up at me with those unfathomable eyes, made larger and
blacker by the thick rim of her lashes. I wait for her nod before turning into
smoke and streaking toward the healing quarters, which Arin stocks with
salves that she pulps and brews herself, thanks to her flourishing herb
garden.
I gather gauze, a safety pin, and a bottle labeled: “Staunches bleeding.”
I tuck everything inside my trousers’ waistband, then shift and return to
my injured mate.
Who is not in my bed.
I’m about to storm the castle to locate her when I hear the water running
in my bathing chamber. I step inside to find her standing naked in my
shower with her face tipped up and her eyes closed. I pull my healing
paraphernalia from my waistband and lay it out on the dark stone sink top.
Zendaya must sense my presence because she glances over her shoulder
at me and sighs. “No work.”
 “What”—I swallow—“doesn’t work?” I clear my throat that’s grown
husky at the sight of her glistening, tanned flesh. It isn’t the first time I’ve
laid eyes on her naked form, but it’s the first time she stands naked in a
space that is mine, knowing full well how fucking attracted I am to her.
“Shift to Serpent.” She spins the dial on the wall. I’m surprised she even
knew how it worked considering they don’t have showers in her homeland,
though they do have pipes and levers.
I rub the back of my neck and attempt to keep my gaze leveled on her
face as she takes a towel and pats her skin dry, avoiding her gash.
“What you bring?” She is now rubbing the towel over her hair while the
rest of her…the rest of her is bare.
“What?” I blink at her.
A small smile plays on her lips as she nods to my sink top.
“Ointment to stop the bleeding and a bandage to wrap around your
thigh.” My heart begins to racket as I picture wrapping the dressing and,
holy fuck…I should probably suggest she do it herself. My leather breeches
are suddenly so tight that I half expect to burst through the laces.
She’s hurt, you fucking creep, I chide my cock that keeps swelling.
I close my eyes, nostrils flaring as I try to calm down before I put my
hands on her body and play doctor.
“Cathal?” Her bright voice agitates my blood some more.
When I feel her hand on my jaw, I snap my lids up.
She flinches and lowers her arm. I want to snatch her wrist and carry her
palm back to my cheek. I want her to touch me again. Instead, I snatch the
bottle of ointment and unscrew the lid, and then I sprinkle the elixir onto
my fingers and carefully slather the wound. Her hiss catches on my earlobe.
“Bearable?”
Teeth denting her bottom lip, she nods. Arin’s ointment works like a
charm. Although it doesn’t magically seal Zendaya’s wound, the black
essence that runs through her veins no longer dribbles out.
My hand shakes as I set the bottle back down and seize the gauze. “I—
um…I…”
She tilts her head.
“I’m going to wrap this around your, uh, leg.”
She nods.
I step to the side before crouching, because unlike when she crouched
before me, I’ve not an ounce of innocence. If I crouch in front of her
mound, or in front of her ass…Mórrígan have mercy on my soul.
Keeping my gaze locked on the gash and the bruised skin ringing it, I
unroll the gauze and begin to wrap it. Too low. I tug the strip up until it
shelters the wound, then loop it once more, a little more snugly this time. As
I pass the roll between her legs, my knuckle grazes her slit which causes a
shallow breath to leave her lips and a ragged one to leave mine.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” I glower at her wound. “Touch you
there.”
Her throat clenches. “Like Fallon say, fair and square now.”
“Let’s not talk about our daughter right now.”
“Why?”
“Because, Daya”—I tuck the safety pin through the gauze—“I’m
having very unfatherly thoughts at the moment.”
“Like what?”
I tip my head back to meet her stare. “Like how I’d like to touch you
everywhere.”
Her throat dips. “I have question.”
I sit back on my heels, spinning the gauze bobbin between my fingers to
keep them at bay.
“Do I look like old Zendaya?”
“Identical.”
“Except hair, eyes, and forehead.” She pokes at the pearl.
“Yes. And scars. You got those when you became a serpent.”
“So, skin was more pretty before?”
“No. Your skin is fucking beautiful now.” As I stand, I smooth my
fingers over the bandage, then allow them to drift higher, over the marked
indent of her waist and the flared ladder of her ribs, before skimming them
toward her spine. How I long to feel it bend like it would when she’d ride
my dick. My balls tighten and my cock…it weeps for this new version of
my mate. “Any lingering pain?”
When she shakes her head, I chuck the gauze aside, then wash my hands
with soap that I end up scrubbing over my ugly face.
“Taytah angry that everyone see me?” she asks, winding the towel
around herself.
“They would’ve eventually seen you, Daya. Besides, you’ve nothing to
fear from any of them, for if they so much as caused your heart to beat out
of rhythm, I’d kill them. And Lorcan would sanctify the killing since no one
threatens a Crow’s mate.”
Her silence irks me. Is she thinking of that human the Cauldron foresaw
her with? The mere thought of him has my innards cramping.
I will her to shatter the quiet. In her past life, she was so vocal and
vibrant. Full of confidence and laughter. Mórrígan, how she could laugh. It
would roll over the old stones of this castle and illuminate the dimmest
hearts, especially mine. Always mine.
“Is Fallon angry I ruin nuptials?”
“You didn’t ruin anything. Besides, like your grandmother said, the
ceremony was all for show.”
“Do Crows no marry?”
“We do.”
“Before, we…marry?”
“No. We were in the middle of a war. Marriage wasn’t exactly on our
minds. Besides, we were mates with a child on the way.” After toweling my
face dry, I grab the block of charcoal and baste my fingers before painting
fresh stripes. “We didn’t need to prove we were together by exchanging
vows in front of a crowd. In our case, the only thing marriage would’ve
changed was my status, since you were slated to inherit the Shabbin
throne.”
She watches my blackened fingers drag from the shattered bridge of my
nose to my throbbing temples. “Kanti want crown.”
“She may want it, but it’s still yours by birthright.”
“Do you want crown, Cathal?”
Slowly, I turn and lean back. “I’ve never cared about crowns. The only
thing I’ve ever given a damn about is my family.”
I don’t clarify who my family consists of, worried she may feel
pressured to feel a certain way toward me since I still consider her my mate.
“Where you go?”
I frown. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then why draw on face?” She flutters her fingers in the direction of
my cheekbones.
I smile. “Because I’m a creature of habit.”
“What is habit?”
“It’s doing the same thing over and over.”
“What habit else you have?”
 “My life has always been so centered on fighting and keeping the Sky
Kingdom safe that I never really developed other habits.”
“You no read books like Phoebus?”
“Occasionally.”
She tucks her tongue into the corner of her pillowy lips, making my
attention taper there. “What do when no fighting or staring at me?”
I choke on a swallow, then cough.
She smiles. “You pink again, Cathal Báeinach.”
I cross my arms.
“Why color change?”
“Because you make my heart beat erratically, which tosses the blood in
my veins, causing it to converge in my face”—I nod to my crotch—“and
lower.”
She frowns.
I readjust myself.
Her eyes jump to mine. “I make cock pink?”
“You make my cock hard.”
Her forehead scrunches. “I no understand. I thought cock hard when
male is cold.”
I balk but then laugh. “The opposite happens when a man’s cold,
actually. It retracts.”
“Like tusk!” She says this excitedly, as though the parallel enchants her.
I smile gently. “How did you come to the conclusion of temperature?”
“When I cold, nipples get hard.”
And now I’m staring at her breasts and those pretty beads presently
digging into her towel. Fuck. She must be freezing. I push away from the
sink, walk into my room, and bang open the door of my closet, coming up
with a long-sleeved shirt.
When I turn, she’s standing on the other side of the bed. “Until I find
you more appropriate apparel”—I tread toward her—“here.”
“Thank you.” She unwinds the towel, exposing her perfect body to my
depraved eyes before garbing herself with my shirt, and Great Mórrígan, I
didn’t think she could look sexier than she does naked or in her Shabbin
gowns, but the way my shirt clings to her curves…
I refuse to believe that she isn’t my mate. The pull I feel toward her is
far too great.
She sits on the edge of the bed and wrings her hair. “I like room.”
 “Good, because it’s yours.”
She peeks at me over her shoulder.
“If you want it to be…” I add, praying she does.
“I want little Serpent.” She strokes her flat abdomen. “I need seed to
make babe. You have seed.”
My heart misses a beat. Is she saying— “You want me for my seed?”
She blinks at my brash timbre. “Why this make mad?”
My throat contracts around a pissed-off swallow. “Because here I was,
foolishly hoping you still felt something for me.”
She keeps studying me, and it feels like she’s plucking me feather by
feather, laying me bare. Finally, she asks, “You no want babe, Cathal, or
you no want babe with me?”
I stab my hair. “I’m a Crow, Daya. Odds are, any child of mine will be a
Crow. Like Fallon.”
She stares down at the hem of my black shirt that hits her mid-thigh.
“Didn’t consider that, did you?” I say gruffly.
She flinches.
“I’m guessing you don’t want my seed now.”
I will her lips to part and tell me that it doesn’t matter. That she still
wants me and my Crow seed. But she doesn’t. Because it does fucking
matter.
“I need to fly,” I mutter.
Her onyx stare rises back to my face. I don’t expect her to ask me to
stay. I don’t expect her to tell me that it isn’t only my seed that she wants.
I’ve no expectations yet I’m disappointed all the same when she doesn’t call
me back or ask how long I’ll be gone.
If only my brother were still alive. I would’ve filled his ears with my
pathetic anguish, but my brother can no longer give me advice, and my best
friend is too busy convincing a bunch of idiot Faeries that he’s the righteous
ruler of this land. My annoyance is mine alone to carry and sort through.
I stalk out of the apartment, the wooden door groaning as I slam it shut
in my wake. I don’t shift immediately, preferring to pummel the stone with
my boots. It’s only once I’ve reached the hatch that I allow my blood to turn
me into a beast.
Perhaps that’s the reason the Cauldron didn’t mate us in this lifetime…
Because her intended is capable of giving her a baby Serpent.
 I soar over the Sky Kingdom until stars prick the heavens and clarity
pricks my mind. I may always belong to her, but in this lifetime, she doesn’t
belong to me. When I step back into the apartment, a dress I’ve borrowed
from my daughter’s closet slung over my forearm, an indigo veil has fallen
over Luce and steeped my chambers in shadows.
My heart expels a pained beat as I take in the spillover of pink strands
on the padded leather arm of the club chair Zendaya dragged toward the
window. Was she watching for me? I shake my head at the selfish thought.
The only reason anyone ever looks out is because they find their
surroundings lacking.
Though my throat feels wadded with wool, I call out her name to warn
her of my return. She doesn’t stir so I set the dress down on the sofa and
round the chair. Her cheek is pressed to the leather, her mouth parted around
slow, rhythmic breaths, her lashes fanned out over her bronzed skin. Save
for that pale dot in the middle of her forehead, with her eyes closed, she’s
the doppelganger of the woman Meriam robbed me of. How cruel. Why
couldn’t the Cauldron have given Daya another face?
With a sigh, I scoop her up and lay her on my bed, and then I stretch out
beside her.
Tomorrow, I’ll set her free.
 Chapter 24
Zendaya

C
athal is sprawled out beside me. I don’t know what his return means,
the same way I don’t know how I climbed inside his bed. Did I
sleepwalk or did he carry me? If it was the latter, does that mean he
doesn’t loathe me for desiring his seed?
I tuck my hands between my cheek and pillow and watch him like he’s
watched me since I stepped out of the Mahananda. He must sense my
attention because his lashes snap up and he pivots his head toward me. A
tussled strand collapses into his eyes. I reach out and smooth it back. He
goes so still that even his chest no longer skips with breaths.
Unlike mine. “Why you leave, Crow?”
His lashes drop, shielding his still reddened stare. “I went to collect a
dress from Fallon’s closet since yours is ruined.”
“You leave to get dress?”
“No.” His eyes shut completely. He must squeeze them for the skin
around their outer edge grooves. “I left because I needed space to think.”
I wait for him to elaborate, to tell me what he thought about. When
silence stretches between us, I begin to worry he doesn’t speak them
because he intuits they will make me sad. The wayward strand falls again.
Again I press it back, threading my fingers through the rumpled mass,
which elicits a low rumble from the male. When he doesn’t clasp my wrist
and push it back, I conclude that he mustn’t hate my touch.
“What decide, Cathal Báeinach?”
 His lids come up in slow motion, as though the weight of his thoughts
sits atop them. “In the vision that Behati shared with you, do you see where
you meet him?”
My fingers freeze. “Why?”
“Because I need to take you there.”
I curl my fingers and tow them back toward my chest that aches from an
upsurge of thuds. “You no want me?”
The tendons in his throat roil beneath his pale skin. “You are not—you
are not meant for me, Zendaya.” The Crow’s eyes are glossy in the
leavening dawn. I might not be meant for him, but he evidently wishes I
were. Instead of keeping me away, the fissure of heartbreak makes me
shuffle nearer, lay my head on his shoulder and drape an arm over his chest.
For a long moment, he stays motionless, but then he curls his own arm
around my waist and tucks me close.
“This isn’t helping, Daya,” he murmurs into my hair, but he doesn’t
push me away.
“If this about babe, I change mind. I no⁠—”
“You deserve to have another child. One like you.”
“Fallon enough.” I shrug. “Beside, she same as old-me. Magic in
blood.”
“But she also took after me.” His gentle voice warms my forehead. “We
may manage to produce another child together, but what sort of monster
would we create? A Serpent with feathers? A Crow with scales? If the
Cauldron foresaw you with another male, then that—” His lips flatten,
disappearing into the coarse hair bordering them. “Then that is who you
need to lay with.” A deep shudder rolls through him and into me.
I crane my neck to stare up into his face, but his eyes are shut once
more, and he’s pinching the bridge of his nose, croaking a, “Focá.”
I lift the hand I have on his chest and cup his cheek, and then I’m
pivoting his face, driving my fingers through his hair to snare the back of
his head and carry it lower, closer to mine. “Cathal, consent I kiss?”
His lids come up so fast I feel the rush of air from his lashes.
“Yes?”
“Príona…it’s a terrible idea.”
“Why?”
“Because how the fuck am I supposed to let you go if I get a taste of
you?”
 I hope a taste will be enough, for I’m terribly fond of the vigor of his
arms and the heat of his eyes. I love his fragrance and his scratchy timbre. I
like how deeply possessive he is of me, how attentive, how considerate,
how gentle.
Even though my bandaged thigh smarts, I climb atop him. His stare is
wild, his breathing chaotic. Only his hands on my waist are steady.
“Daya…” he rasps.
I take his bristly jaw between my palms and lean over, and then I slant
my mouth over his like I’ve seen embracing couples do. His lips are as hard
as bone. His exhale, scorching like a flame.
Though my heart pounds, I find the act a little underwhelming and
suddenly wonder why so many do it. Sure, the connection is intimate, but
it’s hardly worth moaning over. I start to pull away when one of his hands
all but claps the back of my head, and then his lips are moving against
mine, and his tongue…it sweeps and plunders. Like a fishing lure, it hooks
my rushing exhales, dragging them out of me in the form of an infinite
gasp. One which transforms into a moan, and oh, Sweet Mahananda, I
finally understand everyone’s fondness for kissing.
It’s…it’s a coming together of so much more than lips and tongues; it’s
a merging of breaths and heartbeats. One that sweeps through the body like
a wave, stirring everything in its wake. It’s a current that envelops and tows
toward the deep. That could drown souls if one were to give in too often
and too long.
I want often. I want long. I want to drown against Cathal’s mouth. I
think he wants that, too. But I’m wrong, because he flips me onto my back,
then pulls away as though I’d bitten him. In case I did, I hunt his lips for a
trickle of blood. Though flushed and pulsating, there are no crimson slicks.
“Never.” He growls, palms flat against my pillow, knees flush with the
side of my knees. I think he’s about to warn me that this can never happen
again, but then he says, “You can never fucking leave me now. Not for your
true mate. Not for the ocean. I won’t survive losing you again.” He brings
one of his hands to my face. His knuckles shake as he skates them across
my cheek, across my forehead, across that pale bead that marks me as other.
“Swear it, Zendaya of Shabbe. Swear you’ll be mine, always.”
“New bargain, Cathal of the Sky Kingdom?”
“Just a vow. Just for me. Not a bargain.”
“Like marriage vow?”
 His throat clenches and I hear him swallow. “Not today. But perhaps
you’ll do me the honor someday?”
His desire for me dispatches the beats of my heart into every corner of
my being and ferries a smile to my mouth that glosses his eyes with new
emotion. I raise my arms and curl them around his neck. “I be yours as long
as I exist, Cathal of the Sky Kingdom.”
His breath clips past his trembling lips. “You will exist forever.
Forever.”
I’m not certain how he will go about convincing the Mahananda to
make me immortal, but I like the dream of this always he promises, so I
reword my vow. “I always be yours, Crow.”
Though no magical dot singes my heart, my skin blazes all the same. I
once heard Phoebus say that he burned for his lover. I hadn’t understood
what he meant, but I do now. Cathal has ignited my body and warmed my
heart to the point of melting. If he pressed his chest to mine, I’m not
entirely convinced our bodies wouldn’t weld together.
“But only if kiss me again.”
“Always,” he murmurs, his voice trembling like his big body. “Always,
mo mila Sífair.” He must sense my devouring curiosity for the new word,
because in Shabbin, he says, “Always, my sweet Serpent.”
He aligns our lips, but before he can press them to mine once more, he
jerks back with a low snarl.
 Chapter 25
Zendaya

M
y heart has missed every beat since Cathal rumbled and vaulted out
of bed. I prop myself up and scrutinize every last inch of him as he
stalks into his living room. He doesn’t seem injured or worried,
which is somewhat reassuring. What he does seem is furious.
“What wrong?” I ask, as he pounds back toward me holding a sheath of
stone-gray satin, the same hue as his bedchamber. Our bedchamber.
“Lorcan and Fallon want to meet with us now.”
My frown grows because, although their timing is inopportune, their
company isn’t. “And why this make mad?”
“Because I didn’t exactly feel like getting out of bed,” he mutters, the
hollows of his cheeks as high in color as the harsh bones forever casting
them in shadow.
I smile. “Soon as meeting over, we come straight back. Deal?”
A small smile jumps onto his lips before jumping off. Does he doubt I’ll
still want to, or is he worried Priya will cart me off to Shabbe?
I climb to my knees and seize his shoulders. “Cathal, where you go, I
go. And where I go, you go.” I cant my head. “Yes?”
He expels a harsh, “Yes,” on an even harsher exhale.
“Even to Shabbe? In case Taytah send me⁠—”
“Even to Shabbe.” He presses his mouth against mine as though to seal
his promise. And then we are kissing again, and my head feels light, light,
light, as though it’s filled with air bubbles. “You need to get dressed,” he
murmurs against my lips.
 I nod and pull off the shirt he lent me. His eyes flare, the brown burning
a fiery red around his shrunken pupils.
“Actually, fuck them.”
My brow rumples. “What mean fuck them?”
“It means that they can wait.” His palms shape my waist before gliding
over my ribs and up to my breasts, which he cups in his rough hands. He
leans forward, his face angled toward one of my very sharp nipples but
halts his approach with a new snarl and a snap of his neck. “Oh, how I will
cockblock him. Just he wait. Just he fucking wait.”
I’ve no clue what Cathal is going on about, but he’s even more livid
than before. He pecks my lips, then tosses the gray satin over my head and
helps guide my arms through the sleeves that stop mid-forearm, unlike the
hem, that breaks past my ankles. The material is soft but stiffer than I’m
used to, and grows even more so when he laces a wide strip of black leather
around my navel. A glance into his bathing chamber mirror widens my
eyes, because I discover I resemble a seasoned warrior instead of a delicate
princess.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, coming to stand behind me, and
my heart gambols at his compliment.
He tucks my hair to the side to kiss my neck, then must realize the
strands are in dire need of brushing, because he seizes a wooden comb and
runs it through the waist-long mess. Once he sets aside the comb, I recline
against him and burrow my face into his corded neck. A deep pull of his
scent—warm musk and wild moss—has my nerves quieting. I wonder if the
fragrance of my skin is as alluring. What if I smell like a beached shell, or
worse, like a dead fish—briny with a side of seaweed rot?
“What?” he murmurs.
I blink out of my musings.
He strokes the bridge of my nose, smoothing out the rumples. “What’s
with the grimace?”
I twist my lips.
He slides a knuckle beneath my chin to tip my head up. “Tell me.”
“How I smell to you?”
He snorts. When he notices that his snort doesn’t ease my qualms, he
spins me. “You smell like my mate. Intoxicating. All-consuming.” Cathal
drags his nose over my forehead then through the part in my hair, his jaw
hair tangling with my pink strands. “You smell like my home.” His nostrils
suddenly flare so wide they waft air. He mutters that word again:
“Cockblocker.”
Before I can enquire as to what it means, he plucks my hand and pulls
me out of our little cocoon of privacy.
“Once I shift, get on my back.”
I’m guessing the distance to Lorcan’s chambers must be quite great if
we must fly there. Crow-Cathal crouches and extends a wing, which he
nods to, apparently urging me to use the appendage as a ladder. My climb is
hesitant. Though he doesn’t flinch, each time my bare feet squash feathers, I
do. Stepping on his wing must hurt, no? Once settled astride him, I loop my
arms around his neck and lean forward.
He jumps into the air, then soars down the hallway before surging
through the same hatch we used to enter the castle. I imagined we’d remain
indoors but open air must be more agreeable for the shifter’s impressive
wingspan.
I feel his shoulders roll against my thighs, see his wings tilt, and then
he’s snapping them, soaring so fast, that I lean forward even more. The
male is evidently impatient to get the meeting over with. So am I…
I’m very much looking forward to picking up where we left off. And sit
astride Cathal in flesh. Just the thought of it has my pulse quickening,
pounding hard against my wide leather belt. Especially when my mind
begins to turn over the images my grandmother had shared about the
rubbing of naked bodies.
But then my imaginings come to a hasty halt, because the rubbing of
two bodies results in babes, and Cathal doesn’t want any more. Does that
mean we can never explore each other, or are there methods to prevent
reproduction? I nibble on my lip, deciding to ask Asha later.
Not for the first time, I wish I could’ve been reborn with a complete
understanding of our world. Since my frustration won’t help me figure out
how my human body works, I press the emotion away and focus on the land
that stumbles out on either side of the castle. Sure enough, the vistas rid me
of any and all worries, for they are spectacular. On one side, a raging river
carves down a gilded, amber forest; on the other sprawls a luxuriant jungle
that melts into dunes of honeyed sand.
I suddenly envy Lore for having such varied landscapes. Shabbe may be
lush, but it’s all pink stone, green foliage, and aquamarine water. I’m glad
Kanti wants the isle, for I much prefer to stay here. The thought of Behati’s
grandchild has me squinting around Luce. Where is it that she was sent
again? Beyond the desert or on one of the land tiles near where Fallon was
crowned queen? I wonder if she’s met the enemy she was destined to
seduce. And then I stop wondering because Cathal is diving through another
hatch.
Like the last time he landed, he morphs into flesh before my feet can
touch the ground and catches me around the waist. For a moment, he just
holds me with both his arms and eyes, but then he sets me down and
brushes a feather-light kiss to my lips that renders me breathless.
He steals my fingers and clasps them tight as we traipse down a short
hallway toward an enormous wooden door that’s already propped open. The
instant we step over the threshold and into the vast stone chamber, everyone
seated around the wooden table turns toward us, everyone being Lorcan’s
Siorkahd, our daughter, her grandfather, and my grandmother.
Cathal’s fingers tighten as though he’s suddenly worried someone may
try to wrench us apart. In truth, Taytah, who sits between Justus and Fallon,
does seem inclined to do so, what with her tapered stare and pursed lips.
Everyone else either seems glad to see us or disinterested by our hand-
holding.
“You look well, Zendaya.” Lorcan gifts me a rare smile that doesn’t
quite reach his tired eyes.
I’m guessing the coronation was followed by a party and, perhaps, even
some diplomatic talks considering all four monarchs were together. From
what I’ve gleaned, it was the first time in several centuries.
“Has Nebba and Glace departed?” Cathal slides a chair out for me to sit
in, his fingers still firm around mine.
Does the male truly worry he’ll lose me if he lets go? If we’d been at
ocean level, I suppose his fear could’ve been warranted, but so far above
the clouds, the only way out of Lorcan’s castle is up, and neither Taytah nor
I have wings.
“Eponine has, but Vlad and his entourage are currently lodging in
Isolacuori, waiting for us to return to smooth over the finer details of our
alliance. They’ve reiterated their hope that we’ll arrange a marriage
between the next generation.”
Cathal’s gaze soars toward Fallon. “What next generation?”
“Relax, Dádhi. There is no next generation yet.” She pats her belly, and
I realize they’re discussing babes, which makes me sit up straighter. “You’d
totally be the first to know.” She offers him a smile which he’s too tense to
reciprocate, while my palm drifts to my hollow abdomen.
What if Cathal’s wrong in assuming we’d create a monster?
What if Cathal’s right, and we do?
Perhaps Behati can foresee or my grandmother can ask the Mahananda?
“Vladimir enquired about a possible melihap between Shabbe and
Glace.” The Shabbin Queen rests her elbows on the table.
Fallon gapes at her, before gasping out a, “What?” while I lean toward
Cathal to murmur, “Melihap?” hoping he’ll define it for me.
The male’s so entirely focused on my grandmother that I don’t think
he’s even heard me, but she must have, for she explains, “A melihap is a
coming together of two nations after a period of hostility. A union of sorts.”
Cathal growls something in Crow.
“I’m far too old to take a husband.” Her pink gaze settles over me,
which deepens my frown.
“No.” Cathal’s timbre is as glacial as his stare. His fingers finally stop
strangling mine, but it’s only because he’s become more shadow than flesh.
“I wasn’t contemplating sending Daya to Glace. Not when she’s about
to meet her mate. I was actually considering offering up Kanti. Since we
Shabbins aren’t monogamous, a marriage wouldn’t prevent her from
seducing your enemy, Lore. Unless Konstantin is the enemy, in which
case⁠—”
“I’m sorry, but what did you say, imTaytah?” My daughter sounds
alarmed.
“That monogamy isn’t⁠—”
“The part before that,” Fallon interrupts. “The part about my mother.”
“Oh, didn’t your father tell you? Behati foresaw Zendaya meeting her
mate in Luce. It’s one of the reasons I allowed her to make the trip, since I
know how precious true mates are to shifters.”
Fallon’s complexion whitens while Cathal’s purples.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Priya’s voice skips around the deathly quiet
chamber.
It’s not wonderful and I’m not happy she’s bringing it up. “I choose
Cathal, Taytah.”
She sighs. “Though you are Shabbin, abi djhara”—she pushes away
from the table and stands—“I’m afraid you’ll have to give up polygamy,
since shifter mates do not share. Isn’t that right, Lore?”
 Lorcan doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even seem to register Priya’s
question, so focused is he on Cathal.
“Anyway, thanks for keeping my granddaughter safe, Cathal. Shall
we?”
“Shall we what?” I ask.
“Head to breakfast in Isolacuori with the Glacins before sailing home.
Vladimir’s simply dying to make your acquaintance, emMoti.”
My tongue feels swollen with heartbeats. I do not want to meet the
Glacins, the same way I do not want to go home. This time, it’s my grip that
tightens around Cathal’s.
He shoves his chair back and stands, then helps me up. “We’re done
here.”
Lorcan must speak to him through their mind link, because Cathal’s
shoulders jerk and he turns his glower onto his king. Aloud, he says, “Let
Zendaya go. We will join them in a moment.”
Cathal’s nostrils flare.
“Just to Isolacuori for breakfast. Fallon and Imogen will accompany
them. The rest of Priya’s guards are already on site.”
My daughter bounces out of her seat and rounds the table toward me,
her complexion still wan. She speaks softly to her father, who finally
relinquishes my hand to her.
 Chapter 26
Zendaya

A
lthough Lorcan said they’d join us soon after we left, breakfast comes
and goes and they still haven’t floated down from Monteluce.
Fallon suggests a walk through the estate gardens. We all stand
and trail after Vladimir and Priya, shadowed by guards from all nations.
The Glacins wear pale blue; the Lucins, black; the Shabbins, red and white.
“Where Lore and Cathal?” I whisper to Fallon.
She pats my hand. “They should be here shortly, Mádhi.” Suddenly she
perks up. “Look! It’s Syb and Pheebs.” Her two friends are bobbing down
one of the crystal-clear canals of Isolacuori in a boat that is as slender as it
is shiny. She starts to wave at them excitedly but then stops and peers
around. “Goddess, I’m terrible at this whole stately queen-thing,” she
mumbles in Shabbin, which earns her a soft snort from the Prince of Glace,
who masters my mother tongue better than I do.
“Give it time, Your Highness,” he says. “Soon you’ll be just as arrogant
and jaded as the rest of us.”
Fallon laughs and kisses my cheek, promising she’ll be right back. Then
she starts toward the golden bridge that my grandmother and Vladimir are
crossing, but stops and whirls. I can tell she’s concerned about leaving me
alone with Konstantin, even though alone is a stretch considering Asha and
Abrax are but a stride away.
“No worry, Fallon.” I smile up at my Glacin companion. “Konstantin
pleasant male.”
 A stunned chortle escapes the Faerie, lending his silver eyes the same
glimmer as the cut stones running up the shell of his ears. “Why thank you,
Rajka. I try.” With a wink, he adds, “Sometimes.”
I arch a brow. “Sometimes?”
He leans over to murmur conspiratorially, “I prefer to let most people
believe I’m…how do you say it in Shabbin again?” He purses his lips that
are as angular as his jawline.
“Churlish?” I suggest.
“Yes. Keeps them from coming too near. You’ll find that being a royal is
more of a burden than an advantage.”
The male may be young but he seems wise beyond his years. To think
Kanti is around the same age yet acts like Konstantin’s decades younger
twin sisters. I don’t think the three of them—yes…Kanti was there when we
arrived—have stopped gossiping or giggling since our two families sat
down in the flower-covered stone veranda, around a table overflowing with
Lucin delicacies.
Not even when an uncomfortable silence settled between father and son
following the discussion of the railway system that links all sides of Glace.
Though Fallon had translated the conversation, she’d left out the query that
Konstantin uttered, which had led to the cold front.
I’m tempted to ask him about it, but considering how it had spiked his
mood, I decide to reserve my question for Fallon. “Excited for nuptials,
Konstantin?”
His eyebrows, that are as black as his hair is white, quirk. “They were
quite exciting. Though admittedly, the serpents—and I mean the animals,
not you—seemed the most excited of the bunch, didn’t they?”
I frown. Why would the serpents be excited about his marriage to
Kanti? “Kanti tell serpents?”
This time, Konstantin is the one to frown. “What?”
It strikes me that we mustn’t be speaking of the same nuptials. “I talk of
you and Kanti.” I point to him to make sure he understands.
A choking sound reverberates up his throat. “I’m sorry.” He wheezes,
pounding a fist against his chest to ease his sudden bout of coughing. “Me
and Kanti?”
“Apparently King of Glace want Shabbin mate for son. You not hear?”
“No.” Konstantin’s silver eyes taper on his father’s white plait that
swings like a clock’s pendulum across the back of his sky-blue jacket.
 I don’t understand how he hasn’t peeled the fabric off his shoulders,
what with the stifling Lucin heat. “Good for peace.”
One of Konstantin’s eyes twitches. “Treaties of non-invasion are good
for peace. Nuptials are overrated.”
“You no want mate?”
That does away with his residual cough. “I’d prefer not to get tied
down.” Under his breath, he adds, “Especially to someone of my father’s
choosing.”
“Do you have lover?”
He turns his stare toward me. “I’m not lonely, if that’s what you’re
wondering.”
“No. I wonder if you already have lover you want marry.”
“No.” With a sigh, he adds, “The longer I can avoid it, the better. What
about you, Rajka? Any…mates?”
A hand winds around my waist and tugs me against a body that feels
wrought from metal. “Yes. Me.”
I glance up at my possessive Crow just as Phoebus, Sybille, and Fallon
trundle over to us.
Phoebus has his palm pressed to his chest and says something that
makes Sybille and Fallon snort. “Zendaya of Shabbe, you look…” His eyes
skim my body.
He says something in Lucin that has Fallon rolling her eyes. “Yes, it’s
one of my dresses. As for reforming Crow fashion, have at it, Pheebs.”
Mirth brims in her eyes. “Can’t wait to see the new uniforms you’ll cook up
for the Siorkahd.”
Phoebus grins, and I can tell he’s already designing new suits for my
mate’s people.
Sybille asks for a translation, since she isn’t as fluent in Shabbin as
Phoebus. After hearing all of it, she laughs, head tossed back, palms splayed
on her belly. I stare at her babe-filled abdomen, my chest clenching. My
daughter must pick up on my envy, because the shimmer has snuffed out of
her violet irises. She’s staring between me, Sybille’s stomach, and her
father, who still holds me tight.
Too tight.
The dress also feels suddenly too tight. I glance at the nearest canal,
desperate to jump into it. I press away from Cathal, then start walking,
reaching around my back to tear off the wide band of leather.
 “Daya?” Cathal calls out to me.
“I hot. I need swim.” I don’t turn around as I say it.
“Here?”
“Let her, Dádhi. There are never any serpents in these waters.”
I finally get the belt off and drop it onto the trimmed grass that is as soft
as velvet underfoot. I start to gather my skirts to get my dress off when
Cathal’s smoke congeals in front of me.
With gentle hands, he clasps my wrists. “Please don’t take the dress
off.”
I frown until I catch him glowering at the people around us. I release the
stiff gray satin and traipse right to the water’s edge. It is as clear as air, with
not a single fish or coral blighting the bone-white basin. I dive in feetfirst.
My dress balloons around me. I try to sink but there’s too much fabric, so I
shift, my scales soaring from within and wrapping around me.
My gills must flare from how deeply I exhale, but then an odd prickle
seizes them. I attempt to siphon in a breath, but no cool air cycles through
my Serpent lungs. I flick my tail to steal a breath farther down the canal, but
if anything, the prickling worsens.
What’s inside this water?
My tusk breaks the surface and then my head. I try to sneak oxygen
from the sky but something must be wrong with my gills, because they
don’t flutter.
What’s happening to me?
I sink back under and try to breathe, but the burn spreads like melting
wax. I visualize my other shape, but for some reason—possibly, my rising
panic—I cannot melt into flesh. In some distant recess of my brain, I hear
my grandmother’s warning about the Lucins’ hatred of serpents, and I
realize that someone must’ve poisoned my food or this water to tamper with
my magic.
I should never have come to Luce. I should’ve listened to her and to
Cathal and stayed in Shabbe.
I crest the surface of the Isolacuorin canal once more, searching for
Cathal in the sea of Two-legs. Through my dotty vision, I see him. He’s
crouched by the water’s edge, half-smoke, half-male. His lips move, but my
roaring pulse chews up his words. I shoot nearer but misgauge the distance
and bang against the stone embankment. Cathal must grab me by the tusk
because my head is suddenly out of the water and on his lap.
 He speaks again, but again I don’t hear him. The dots in front of my
eyes become smudges. The smudges, a veil. I shake my head and blink, but
no amount of headshaking or blinking manages to disperse the obscurity
closing in on me.
I don’t want to die. Not again. I want to live.
I want this so fiercely that I muscle more of my clunky body out of the
water and onto the land, praying to the Mahananda that exposure to air will
bring about my shift, but I dangle haplessly, half in, half out.
My head must slip from Cathal’s palms, because he’s suddenly gone. Or
am I the one who’s gone?
 Chapter 27
Zendaya

I
refuse to be gone.
I crack my lids open. Amidst the ashen veil shines twin spots of
pink. The spots become brighter, clearer, until I recognize Taytah’s eyes.
She strokes my cheek, my neck. My starved brain wonders if it’s a
dream, but then I feel the faintest trickle of air carve through my scales.
Priya doesn’t caress; she paints. I’m not sure what sigil she’s used, but
delicious, sweet oxygen suddenly streaks through my gills and fills my
giant body, which lies entirely flopped and coiled on the emerald
embankment.
“Shift,” my grandmother whispers.
This time, when I call upon my other form, my scales split and my body
shrinks. My lips come apart around a gasp that is so violent, it scorches my
lungs. And yet I lap at the air, drinking it in tremendous drafts until my head
spins from my immoderation.
“Easy, emMoti. Easy.” Priya is still drawing on my neck.
My skin tautens, tingles. She must be healing me. My lids bloat with
tears.
A soft cloth swooshes over my neck and chest. I turn my head to find
Fallon mopping down my skin. The whites of her eyes are as red as garnets,
which makes her irises appear luminescent like the algae in the Sahklare.
The thought of it makes me ache for my homeland.
She gives me a watery smile that trips right off her lips and murmurs
that she’s sorry. I imagine for my predicament, for she’s not at fault. Could
this be my mother’s doing? Could she have broken out of her prison and
gotten past Behati and the members of the Akwale who stayed behind to
guard her and the Mahananda?
I croak out Meriam’s name, which makes Fallon’s eyebrows wing up.
Didn’t she consider that this could be my mother’s doing?
“No, emMoti. It’s not Meriam’s fault. Not this time.” Priya rinses her
hands in a bowl that Abrax has just set beside her.
Though he straightens, my guard doesn’t move away. His soft-brown
eyes shimmer with the same concern that warps Asha’s face, as well as
Aoife’s, Sybille’s, and Phoebus’s. I squint into the bright sun, searching for
my mate amongst the Two-legs ringing me, but he isn’t there. A few Crows
are treading the sky above us. Could he be amongst them?
“Lore and Dádhi flew to Nebba,” Fallon says, guessing who I seek. The
deep furrow that grooves my forehead leads her to add, “To have a word
with Eponine since the toxin that poisoned you is produced—was produced
there.”
Phoebus snorts, repeating, “Have a word.” Clearly, he doesn’t believe
our mates’ plan is to speak.
I rub my aching neck as Fallon expounds on the subject of this toxin.
She tells me that the reason I couldn’t breathe is because the Regios filled
the Isolacuorin canals with it to keep serpents out.
“I’m sure it’s no longer being manufactured,” she says, her gaze flitting
to the queen, who keeps rinsing her hands even though they’re no longer
coated in my blood. “You don’t think Eponine lied to me yesterday, do you,
imTaytah?”
My grandmother finally looks up from the basin and its soiled contents.
“If she did, she better prepare for war.”
My pulse strikes my neck and the fingers I still have wrapped around it.
“Did she swear an oath that she was no longer producing it, or merely
uttered a vapid promise?” my grandmother asks.
Fallon twists her lips. I’m guessing there was no oath swearing.
Sybille says something that includes her sister’s name, and then she
addresses Aoife. After a rapid exchange in Lucin, the shifter grows out her
feathers and crouches. Phoebus helps Sybille climb, muttering something
that makes her swipe the back of his blond head.
As she and Aoife take off, he chortles, then ambles back toward us. The
second his gaze touches my neck, though, his mirth wanes, and he
grimaces. A glance at my filthy frock has my own lips coiling.
Asha crouches beside me. “You didn’t suffer when we swam yesterday,
did you?”
I shake my head.
“Then the substance must be contained inside these canals.”
“How long have they been poisoning the water?” The queen’s lips
barely flex as she speaks.
“I don’t know, imTaytah, but Eponine mentioned—the first time we
spoke about it—that at the rate they were dumping it, Mareluce would be
salt-free by Yuletide.”
The queen goes so quiet that I can hear the Glacins’ murmuring even
though they stand at a distance from our little party.
“But they’ve stopped dumping it for at least a month, so⁠—”
“You do not know that, child!” Priya exclaims. “You and Lore have
been in Shabbe. You weren’t here.”
Fallon stands, her expression tightening. “We might not have been here,
but our people were. Justus was! Luce wasn’t unattended, imTaytah.”
My pulse harshens as the two females I love the most glower at one
another. “No fight. Please. I alive.” With the help of Asha, I stand, shearing
off Fallon’s line of sight to her great-grandmother. “Please.”
“Let’s go.” Priya winds her arm through mine. “And, Fallon, send news
with the serpents as soon as you have some.” Her tone is so brittle, it
scrapes through the air and chafes my wet skin.
She begins to tug me along but I plant my bare feet into the grass.
“Where going?”
“Back home.”
“Wait, Taytah. Cathal.”
She whirls on me. “We are not waiting on that man.”
“But—”
She slashes a finger across my mouth, silencing me with a spell. “His
home is inhospitable to you, Zendaya.” In a lower voice, she adds, “That’s
twice now, by the way. I’m keeping count.”
My eyebrows dip.
“Twice that you almost perished because you couldn’t manage to shift
back. Twice that he was present when it happened. Have you considered
that perhaps, he’s the reason your magic keeps faltering?”
 I try to pry my lips apart to tell her that the two incidents are entirely
unrelated, but she’s sealed them like the toxin in the canal sealed my gills.
When we reach the golden quay where bobs our ship, I hear her murmur
to the sorceress nearest her, “Lock Shabbe off until an antidote is found.
Land and air. Make the wards porous to animals.” Her eyes cut to mine.
“True animals.”
I suck in a breath and shake my head, desperately trying to shape the
word, “No,” but her blood stifles my scream. I crane my neck, hunting the
sky for a Crow, but no winged beast soars over us.
I look over my shoulder for Fallon, but between the dense vegetation
and the throng of Shabbins and foreign soldiers on our heels, I cannot spot
her. I spot Abrax, though, just off to my right. I flick my gaze toward the
sky repeatedly. If he grasps my imploration to send word to Cathal of the
queen’s intent, he doesn’t act on it. Merely transfers his gaze to the ship I’m
forced to board.
I understand that my grandmother is trying to shield me. I genuinely do,
and I am grateful. What I don’t understand is why she’s so adamant to
separate me from Cathal. She cannot actually believe that he’s the source of
what’s befallen me, can she? I mean, yes, the first time I failed to shift back
into skin, it was because of his obsidian-laced blood, but he didn’t force me
to ingest it.
By the time Priya removes her silencing spell, we’re halfway back to
the pink isle, sailing so briskly that my dress and hair have dried, unlike my
anger. I seethe. Especially since my grandmother has bound my backside to
the deck’s bench to prevent me from diving into the ocean.
She carries a cup of water to my lips.
I turn my head, refusing her offering. “What about mate?”
“The Crow will be fine.” I’m about to tell her that’s not the mate I’m
referring to, when she adds, “Especially since you’ve healed him.”
She’s rendered me speechless, and not with her blood this time.
“You seem surprised.” She cants her head, drawing the cup down to her
hip. “Not only am I the queen, but I’m also the Mahananda’s confidant. I
know everything that transpires within my walls, emMoti. Everything.”
I tilt my chin higher, narrowing my eyes. “Then you aware I choose heal
him. He no force me.”
“Yes. I’m aware. The same way I’m well aware that he and Lorcan are
planning on using you to heal the others. Why do you think they sent us to
Isolacuori ahead of them? To iron out the details of how best to go about it.”
“Cathal never force me.”
“If it had endangered your life, he wouldn’t, but since it merely weakens
you⁠—”
“No, Taytah.” I shake my head with such vehemence that it jostles my
long locks. “You wrong.”
“Oh, Daya. You still have so much to learn about our world.”
In that moment, I dislike my grandmother. I dislike how she belittles me
and vilifies Cathal. How she dismissed Fallon. “Mahananda will be mad at
you, Taytah.”
“For keeping you away from your Crow lover? I doubt it since it has
another mate in store for you.”
Gaze fastened to the sky, I say, “A mate you keep me away from.”
“Only until an antidote is found.”
“He round-ears. If no find antidote soon, maybe he die.”
Her pupils shrink as she stares toward the faraway Lucin shore. “If
you’re bound to meet, then you will meet. Be it next month or next year or
next decade.”
I blanch because I know what a decade is.
“Once a cure is found, I’ll crumble the wards, but until then, I’ll not risk
your life or the serp…” Her voice dies out as clouds streak over the sun,
smothering its light.
Not clouds.
Crows.
 Chapter 28
Cathal

Z
endaya’s beautiful face tilts toward the sky. Toward me.
The anger, which had rushed over me when Fallon’s voice
resonated through our people’s mind link, crackles through my bones,
making my wings feel crafted from pure iron.
I will not lose her again.
The Shabbin Queen stares up as well, her white hair snapping behind
her like those flags which are brandished when one surrenders. Except, in
Priya’s case, she’s just declared war. As her sorceresses bloody the deck
with sigils, I dive toward Daya. My claws knock against something solid…
something that repels me. Priya’s warded the ship!
I screech with a fury that must skip over the ocean because Lorcan’s
voice lights up my mind.
Cathal?
I dive again. Again, I hit a translucent wall. I roar.
I will speak with Priya. I will get her to see reason. Come home.
Not without Daya, I growl.
He must understand it’s nonnegotiable because he doesn’t reiterate his
command to turn back.
Fallon, can you penetrate your grandmother’s wards? I ask without
tearing my gaze off the ship and the pink-haired woman whose hands lay
flat against the bench beneath her. Is she trying to stand or keep her body
steady?
Can’t get past them, Dádhi, Fallon says.
 Then we sink the ship! Since everyone aboard is Shabbin, they’ll
manage to swim. Lore, we need a storm.
Daya wriggles on the bench. Though I cannot hear her, I see her mouth
round around shouts. She is trying to get up! She is trying to get to me!
What I wouldn’t do for you, brother, Lore murmurs as a thunderous
peal resonates through the darkening sky.
Those sigils they painted are for speed! Fallon exclaims.
Sure enough, the boat is surging toward the ramparts at impossible
velocity, one that even I, however fast I beat my wings, cannot match.
Waves, Lore! We need waves, I yell.
I’m hoping that if salt water connects with Zendaya’s skin, she’ll be
able to shift and rid herself of whatever spell her grandmother cast to keep
her from diving overboard.
Even though our king’s still in Nebba with Justus, he manages to stir the
ocean into a frenzy. Foam webs the ashen-sapphire swells, sending Priya’s
small ship rocking, and everyone—save for Zendaya—skidding across the
deck.
On a scale of one to ten, how high are the chances that the Cauldron
will seal itself off from our people? Fallon asks.
This fight is between your great-grandmother and me. It has nothing
to do with the Cauldron.
In other words, we may have a chance it’ll allow Lore to dip a toe in
once it recovers?
I cannot think of this now, though as Lorcan’s general, I should. I
pledged to put our people first, but I cannot think of our people. Not when
my mate is being stolen from me.
As I soar faster, the sky flares with lighting that catches on her forehead.
Though she’s still in flesh, her tusk is lengthening, and her skin, coloring. A
wave claps the hull of the boat and closes over the deck. When it recedes,
my mate is fully shifted and slithering away from the blasted bench.
Abrax throws himself on her. Asha, as well, but however hard they clasp
her, her slick body glides out of their arms and plunges past the railing into
the ocean. Her grandmother shrieks. Asha jumps in after Daya.
Lore, Daya broke free, I tell him as my fellow Crows catch up to me.
Stop the storm so I can track her.
A handful of minutes later, my friend clears the sky and settles the
ocean. Priya’s boat has stopped barreling toward Shabbe and is turning at
such a sharp angle that its mast brushes the flat surf.
A moment later, Asha’s head pops out. “I don’t see her, Sumaca!”
I don’t either. Alarm judders my daughter’s voice.
Priya raises her incendiary gaze to mine, her hair so wet, it lies matted
to the oval frame of her face. “I will never allow Lorcan inside the
Mahananda. Not as long as I am queen. Never.”
I vow, in that moment, to put Zendaya on the throne.
Priya trembles from the force of her anger. “You’ve damned your
people, Cathal, and you did all of this for a woman who isn’t even your
mate.”
She is my mate! Our minds might not be bonded anymore, but our
hearts and souls are. I felt it when we kissed. I feel it every time Zendaya’s
hand brushes across my skin.
Behati lied. I’m certain of it. The same way I’m certain the pink serpent
carving through the ocean belongs with me.
Fallon must read my temptation to gore Priya because she flies right
into my face. Operation Keep Shabbin Queen Talon-Free starts now.
I glower at my daughter.
Seriously. She flaps her wing in my face. Find Mother.
I afford Priya and her little ship one more scathing look before giving
the ocean my full attention. My certainty that I will sense my mate begins to
wane when after an hour, no Crow or Shabbin has caught even a glimpse of
pink. And then dread sets in.
What if she rests at the bottom of the ocean because her gills wouldn’t
lift?
What if another serpent attacked her?
When the first star pricks the horizon, my dread turns to terror. If only
Priya could drain the entire ocean like she drained the Amkhuti. I wonder if
she’s considering it. I wonder if she could. I’m tempted to swallow my
pride and land on her ship to ask when a guttural shout rends the air.
I turn sharply, then swoop low. I expect to come across Zendaya but
find only two fishermen brawling over Cauldron only knows what.
A fresh layer of fretfulness coalesces behind my breastbone as I beat my
wings and rise, hunting the darkening ocean for my mate’s pink body.
 Chapter 29
Zendaya

I
think for certain that the boy’s dead the moment his body splashes the
water.
I think the long piece of wood tipped in sharp metal that protrudes
from his chest must’ve ended his mortal existence, but then his fingers
spasm around the stalk and bubbles leak from his flaring nostrils. There’s
still life in him!
He tugs on the rusted spear. Though the thing moves, it’s so long that he
remains skewered upon it. His green eyes find mine in the dark, wide with
desperation. I bite the wood and pull until I’ve disconnected it from his
abdomen. He gasps, but the sound is consumed by the churning of water
above as the fishing vessel clips away at great speed.
My blood boils with the desire to avenge the boy who threw himself in
front of a spear destined for me. Though the glimpse I got of the murderer
was distorted by water, I heard him speak and glimpsed yellow hair bound
in a short tail.
I’ll hunt the monster and make him pay, but first…first, I lap at his
victim’s gaping wound, hoping that my tongue will have the power to seal
his flesh. The human’s hand falls against my cheek and strokes, before
drifting away. When his body gives a hard jerk, I glance at his face. His skin
is as white as the moon gilding his listless body.
It’s only then that I recall that humans can’t breathe underwater. An
idiot, Zendaya. That is what you are. How could you forget such an
important fact about humans?
 I coil around him and lug his limp form to the surface. His chest doesn’t
move. Neither do his lips. Both remain motionless, unlike my heart, which
slams against every one of my bones, dumping adrenaline into my veins.
I tow the boy toward land, hoping that a Crow will spot my bright
scales, snatch us both out, and carry us to the nearest town so a Lucin healer
can succeed where I failed. Or Fallon! Perhaps my daughter knows a sigil
that can drain his lungs and restart his heart?
I think of my grandmother as I swim. If anyone can resuscitate the male,
it’ll be her. But what if she turns saving his life into a bargain to trap me
inside Shabbe without Cathal? Without Fallon? I can’t risk calling upon her,
so instead, I search the sky for my mate. For my daughter. For any Crow.
When I catch the gleam of talons, I shift, loop my arm around the lifeless
human, and yell.
A wavelet slaps me in the face before closing over my head and
pressing me under. I kick my legs hard, reawakening the ache in my thigh.
Something crashes over my head. I think it must be another wave, but it’s a
Crow. Its talons snag my dress and then it’s lifting me. The fisherman’s
body is slipping, slipping.
“Wait!” I cry out. “The boy!”
My ride must call for reinforcement, because a second Crow swoops
right underneath us and hovers until I’ve released the body of my protector
onto its back. And then, skimming the surface of the ocean like a skipping
stone, it takes off toward the beach and gently deposits the body there
before morphing into skin—Fallon.
“Take me to Fallon,” I yell, rolling my face toward the Crow’s,
recognizing him. “Please, Cathal.”
Though I sense my mate wants to whisk me toward Monteluce, he
indulges me. Six heartbeats later, I’m kneeling beside my daughter, who is
inspecting the wan, lanky body. “I try heal him, but he drown.”
Fallon frowns, pressing two fingers into his neck. “Well you revived
him, Mádhi. He has a pulse.”
I blink. “He do?”
She nods.
“Who is this man, Daya?” Cathal stands over us, a deep scowl marring
his tenebrous face.
“He fisherman I follow to find Luce. He save me from yellow-hair
human who try stab me.”
 Cathal’s eyes skim the horizon, his attention locking on something in
the distance. “Imogen, bring me the blond captain of that boat.” He juts his
chin. “Alive.” As she flies off, he mutters, “Your grandmother’s on her way.
Unless you want to see me eviscerated, we should leave soon.”
I glance toward the ocean, toward her red sails that are bloated even
though there’s not a single drop of wind.
“Don’t you want to deal with the annos dòfain first, Dádhi?”
Cathal snorts. “Yes. But as soon as that’s done, we leave. If…” His eyes
go to mine. “If that is what you want, Daya?”
“Yes.” My answer smooths all the fine lines crinkling his face.
“I’ll wait here until imTaytah docks.” Fallon straightens and dusts the
sand off her sodden dress.
Black sand.
I swing my gaze back to the male lying on the beach, my chest
tightening, my breaths shortening.
I palm his bony jaw, twisting it toward the moon.
The hooked nose. The wide lips set in a face that doesn’t bear a single
wrinkle. The cropped hair that is…that is…I can’t tell its hue in such faint
light.
He stirs. I release him so fast that his cheek smacks the sand. I rock
back, then scuttle away. I think Cathal is calling my name but I can’t hear
him over my rushing pulse.
The boy’s lids open, and I gasp because…because…
I lick my lips. How is this possible?
Cathal clasps my biceps and rights me before twirling me into his body,
and then he scrapes his palms over my arms, ribs, cheeks.
“The Queen of Luce and her father are standing beside me. And…is
that…holy castagnoli, that’s the Princess of Shabbe.” The unfamiliar voice
must belong to the Serpent boy. “This must be the afterlife.”
Fallon gasps, “Dádhi!”
Cathal tears his gaze off mine. I know the instant he sees what Fallon
saw, what I saw, because his chest grows eerily still and his hands freeze on
my body. I close my stinging eyes as Fallon asks the man a question in
Lucin.
“Enzo, M-Maezza,” he replies.
A tear slips down my cheek, chased by a second and a third.
 “My head. My head!” At his howl, I pry my eyes open and spin. He’s
swiping at his black-smeared forehead.
Cathal stands rigidly at my back, his armor cold against my spine.
The fisherman grits his teeth, stifling another gritty howl before rubbing
his forehead once more. This time, I realize it isn’t sand—it’s blood. And
amidst the black, blooms an ivory dot.
Although my heart still thunders, I hear Fallon murmur, “I think Mádhi
did more than heal him.”
Cathal doesn’t speak. I don’t either.
The boy holds his hands in front of his face. “What is all this black
goo?”
“Blood,” I reply.
His lid-to-lid black eyes snap to my lid-to-lid black ones. “D-Dhoon?”
I frown. “Yes. Blood.”
His forehead furrows as he looks at Fallon and asks her something in
Lucin that includes the word for blood in Shabbin.
“A Serpent…” he breathes. “I’ve transformed into a freaking almighty
Serpent!” It is only then that I realize that his lips didn’t move over any of
those words.
He turns his awestruck expression toward me just as a wave froths
around his body and completes his shift.
 Chapter 30
Zendaya

’m sorry,” I whisper to Cathal as he stares at the coiled green monster

“I on the black sand.
“You made a serpent, Mádhi.” The wonder in Fallon’s tone feels
like iron talons to the heart.
I tremulously tuck my wet hair behind my ears, refusing to let Behati’s
vision seep into my thoughts. The Serpent isn’t my mate; the Crow,
devoured by gloom, who stands before me is.
“Can you hear him?” The bones in Cathal’s face sharpen as he continues
to scrutinize the boy. “Inside your mind”—his pitch is so grave it weighs on
my heart—“can you hear him?”
I want to lie. I want to shake my head and pretend like I can’t. Instead, I
reach up and cradle his jaw to force his gaze to mine. “Look me. Please
look me.”
His eyes twitch.
I’m a Serpent. A freaking Serpent! Son of a biscuit eater. The boy
sounds so horribly joyful.
How can he be jubilant? He’ll now be hunted and reviled.
I was a human. The lowest of the lows. You just gave me magic,
Princess. Magic!
I don’t realize I’ve covered my ears until Cathal pinches my wrists
between his large fingers and carries them away from my face. I steal my
wrists from his grip and lace my arms around his torso, wishing there
wasn’t so much cloth and metal separating our bodies. “I choose you,
Cathal Báeinach.”
With a sigh, he props his chin atop my head and winds his arms around
my waist to hold me. Not tightly enough. Not long enough. I burrow my
wet cheek against his armor.
What are my odds of surviving Daddy Crow?
I spin around and hiss. Never call him that.
Sorry. I didn’t mean—I won’t. Sorry. A body thumps beside his,
sending him recoiling toward the water.
I trail Imogen’s boots to the yellow hair that’s no longer bound in a tail.
The captain sputters as he rises onto all fours, and then he blanches as his
gaze trawls our loose circle of shifters.
Imogen asks something in Crow. When she gestures toward the Serpent,
I imagine it has to do with his presence on the beach. Fallon must explain
who he is, because the whites of her eyes expand.
“Is this the male who tried to gore you, Zendaya?” Cathal asks, his
voice so dry it strips my blazing lids of moisture.
“Yes.”
“Would your…” His throat bobs. “Would your mate mind if I severed
his head?”
My heart shrivels. I suddenly hate the captain as much as my mother,
for he’s the reason I’m about to lose my mate. If he hadn’t driven a spear
through the boy’s chest…
My lips tingle from Cathal’s hot breaths. “You are mate. Not he.”
The Crow’s gaze finally rolls to mine. For several seconds, we stare at
one another. Into one another. And then his lids sink, and he gives his head
a small shake. “Ask him, Príona.”
I don’t want to ask the new Serpent anything.
Cathal turns toward my fellow shifter and reiterates his question in
Lucin.
Tell him to go for it. Sami’s a massive faehole.
“What is his answer?” Cathal asks.
“I decide! Not boy.” I squeeze my scorched eyes shut. “Kill Yellow-
hair.”
The air shifts and then I catch the wet snap of flesh.
Remind me to never cross your husband.
I propel my fists into my eyes. What have I done? What have I done?
 No one will miss the guy, Princess. Not his wife, who he beats up on
the regular, or his customers, who he swindles of coin every chance he
gets.
I whirl and lock eyes with the scaly shifter’s. “I no talk about dead man!
I talk about you.” I fling an arm in his direction.
He falls quiet. Everyone does. The world’s immobility is so profound
that I hear water lap against wood a moment before my grandmother’s
voice grinds up the silence.
“Cathal Báeinach!” His name vibrates with a fury that pales in
comparison to the one striking my heart. “I have half a mind to plunge an
obsidian dagger into your…” Her voice fades as her attention locks on the
Serpent, on the shimmer that envelops his scales before returning him to his
other shape.
Though the moonlight is scarce, and his hair cropped close to his scalp,
I don’t miss its emerald hue as he scrambles to his feet to sketch an
awkward bow. “Maezza,” he all but gasps.
The queen’s pink eyes linger on his dark ones. “How?”
“Mádhi turned him,” Fallon says, twining her fingers through mine. She
gives my palm a squeeze. “Serpents can be made, imTaytah.”
“Blessed Mahananda.” My grandmother blinks those heavy-lidded eyes
of hers that are aglow with absolute wonder.
This is not wondrous. This is disastrous.
Ouch. My new mate rubs his nape.
I scowl at him. Quiet.
He presses his thick lips together, chastened.
“I’m sorry about—about the storm,” Cathal murmurs.
The queen’s chin tilts up. “I’ve no doubt you are.” Her smugness
incenses me.
I must roll my fingers too tightly to Fallon’s liking because she
murmurs, “I won’t let her take you away if you don’t want to go to
Shabbe.”
“That isn’t what’s troubling your mother, now is it, Zendaya?” Priya
asks.
Fallon frowns. “It isn’t?”
My teeth chatter too hard to explain.
“I don’t understand.” She turns toward me. “You dreamed about there
being another Serpent shifter, and now there is one. And there could be
more. You could have an entire den if…”
The sob that notches my throat quiets her.
Please don’t cry, Princess. If you don’t want me to exist, I’m sure
Fallon’s father will be only too glad to give me the same fate as Sami’s.
He wrinkles his hooked nose and looks down at boots that are so scuffed I
can see a hint of toe. Just ask him to do it quickly. He kicks a shell.
I’m not going to ask him to kill you, I murmur.
He blinks as though my mercy genuinely surprises him. Thank you.
“I won’t take you by force to Shabbe this time, emMoti, but I urge you
and…” The queen switches to Lucin to ask the male a question to which he
replies: Enzo.
I surmise this is his name. Enzo. Enzo the Shifter.
“I urge you and Enzo to head to Shabbe with us. Especially now.”
Now that I’ve made a shifter.
I made a shifter.
If it wasn’t for the mind link, I would, like Fallon, find this most
extraordinary.
Mind link, Enzo murmurs in wonder. That’s why I can talk without
moving my mouth. What language are we speaking? It’s not Shabbin, is
it?
I grimace.
Sorry. My mind is just… Enzo kicks another shell. Sorry.
Stop! Stop apologizing! I growl.
His eyes grow as wide as the stupid wound I healed. That’ll teach me to
keep my tongue off foreign bodies. The second the thought enters my mind,
I turn toward Cathal. When our eyes collide, my lungs tighten.
Ask me to stay, I think, but unlike Enzo, Cathal cannot penetrate my
mind—only my heart—so he doesn’t hear my silent entreaty.
I realize I could ask to stay, but what if he refuses and turns his back on
me? Or worse, what if he seeks a mate of his own?
Ask me to stay, I beg.
“You should go with your grandmother.” His words are a blade that flay
me open from collarbone to navel. “She’s the only one who can truly keep
you and your—” His jaw flexes. “You and the kid safe.”
I blink back the wetness pooling behind my lids.
“I won’t seal off Shabbe,” Priya says. “Not unless the toxin spreads. If it
does, though, wards will go up, but in the meantime, you may come and go
as you please.”
It doesn’t matter whether she puts up wards or not. Cathal will not visit.
Fallon gives my fingers another squeeze, forcing a smile. “We’ll come
every day. Right, Dádhi?”
He stares at the mirror-smooth ocean that unspools toward my
birthplace. “I’ll go inform the Siorkahd of this new development. Imogen,
dispose of the deceased, and please fucking remind everyone that they will
incur the same fate if they so much as look sideways at a serpent. Evidently
they didn’t think we were serious when we passed the edict.”
Without so much as a backward glance or a goodbye, Cathal dissolves
into smoke before morphing into his winged form. I press my palm against
my chest that feels hollow, as though he left with not merely a piece of my
heart but the entire thing.
I’m going to Shabbe! Enzo’s exclamation clangs against my eardrums.
I stare at his excited face, at his cheeks that are high in color, at his
mouth that is round with wonder, at his gangly limbs he’s yet to grow into.
Why in the world would the Mahananda match me with a juvenile?
Was this how Fallon…or rather Lorcan viewed his match when they
first met? Like an unappealing child?
I don’t think Enzo hears my deliberations, entranced as he is by the
queen growing a gang plank from the bow of the ship so we can climb
aboard.
“You made a Serpent. I can still hardly believe it,” Fallon murmurs as
Enzo walks up the plank toward my awaiting grandmother. “I’ll come for
breakfast.” My daughter drops a kiss on both my cheeks. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Fallon. So much.” I turn my gaze toward the starlit
heavens, hunting its infinite depths for the male who, once upon a time,
would never have left me.
“I think Dádhi’s a little bit in shock.” Of course, she guesses who I seek.
“But you know him…a restorative stroll through the clouds, and he’ll be
right as rain.”
Though I’ve never heard the expression, I twig its meaning. I give her a
sad smile and hesitate to tell her that nothing will ever be right as rain
again, but I cannot get my throat to move around more than a distressed
swallow.
I stroke her cheek that is perched as high as her father’s, even though
it’s curved like mine. Cathal and I might not share a mind link, but we share
something even more precious. We share her.
I give her one last hug before finally turning toward my grandmother
and the life the Mahananda has in store for me.
 Chapter 31
Zendaya

S
uns and moons rise and fall, and although Fallon keeps her promise of
visiting, her father doesn’t come once. She tells me that he’s busy in
Nebba, ferreting out every last stock of serpent poison. It’s been five
weeks. Either he truly is going door to door, or he’s using his hunt as an
excuse to avoid my door.
Thankfully, I’ve got a new Serpent and an insatiably curious Asha to
keep me distracted. Upon our return to Shabbe, my female guard stole into
the healer’s library and borrowed a book about poisons. After reading it
cover to cover, she suggested that Enzo and I start ingesting a minuscule
amount of serpent toxin daily in order to build a natural resistance. I
thought her idea was brilliant; my grandmother did not. She went so far as
to threaten to dismiss Asha if my guard ever suggested harming her
granddaughter again.
I reassured Asha that she would never be dismissed. And then, after
explaining Asha’s theory, I asked Fallon to procure us some serpent poison.
Reluctantly, she had.
I now possess a palm-sized vial filled with shimmering lavender flakes.
It seems incredible that something so innocuous-looking—pretty, even—
could create so much damage. Once a day, after breakfast, since I still prefer
to slumber during the hottest hours, I ingest a single flake. Always under
either Asha’s or my daughter’s watch.
The first time, it had prickled my airway before settling on my lungs
like a damp cloth. Fallon had paled and bloodied her finger, ready to flay
my throat open like Taytah had done, except in human form, it wasn’t my
throat that ached, but my lungs.
I’d kept her trembling finger at bay, since I could still manage faint
wheezes. By the time the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the pressure on
my lungs had eased. My daughter said never again, but I did it again. And
again. A week into my makeshift treatment, I even upped my dose to two
flakes because one no longer affected my lungs. It seemed like the book
Asha had read had been telling the truth: I was developing a resistance to
the toxin.
Asha suggested starting Enzo on the same regimen, but hurting the
sweet creature felt wicked. Yes…he was sweet. Unfortunately. How I’d
wished he were awful.
Anyway, I’d told her that if I managed to swim in freshwater, we’d
begin dosing him as well, but until we tested the result, I’d spare him the
unpleasant side-effects. I was now at five flakes per day. I still couldn’t shift
inside my bathtub. When I suggested a trip to Isolacuori, my poor daughter
turned as green as Enzo’s hair, so I let it go.
For now.
I’d eventually need to test my immunity, but I wouldn’t risk doing so
without a Shabbin present, preferably my daughter, because she was of
royal bloodline, so her magic was superior to Asha’s.
What I wouldn’t give to show the Fae back in Luce what I’ve become.
Enzo’s voice carries my mind off my contemplations and onto his sprawled
form. He rests beside me on my patio sofa, absorbing the nascent rays of
sunshine. How high the bumbler has risen.
I take his hand in mine and give it a squeeze. His fingers are long and
bony, like the rest of him, in spite of all the rich food Asha feeds him.
“Never call yourself a bumbler in my presence again, for it makes me
angry, and the world does not want an angry Serpent unleashed upon them.”
His black eyes roll up toward me, buffed with emotion. I don’t think a
day goes by when the boy doesn’t get all in his feels, as Asha calls it. He
has an incredibly big heart and strives to fit everyone he meets—be they
legged or winged or finned—inside. Many times I’ve been tempted to urge
him to seal it off, but who am I to give him advice about hearts when mine
has been bleeding since the fateful day I made him?
“As soon as Taytah allows us to journey to Luce, we will show all those
bullies.”
 “What will we show them?” Asha asks, plopping herself down beside
Enzo and shoving a bowl of fried cheese puffs doused in date syrup onto his
lap. “Cook made extra for his favorite Serpent.” She waggles her eyebrows
at me. “Sorry, Day.”
Day. To think that nickname was born from Enzo’s clumsy speech.
Leaving out the last letter was easier on his human tongue, so I suggested
he forgo it always. Over time, Asha adopted the new moniker.
Her teasing raises the corners of my lips, but the sight of not one but
three Crows flying overhead have them plummeting. Enzo’s hand tumbles
from mine as I jump to my feet and rush across my chambers.
When I burst out my front door, I come to an abrupt halt. The Crows are
already in skin and funneling into the Kasha. Cathal isn’t amongst them.
Smothering my disappointment, I cut across the courtyard, circumventing
the still-resting Mahananda, and enter the Kasha.
When my grandmother sees me, she pats the divan next to hers. “To
what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Lorcan?”
“I’ve come to ask for your aid, Priya. Seven more of my people have
now been infected with obsidian.”
As I sit cross-legged on the crimson velour, the queen says, “The
Mahananda isn’t ready. I would’ve sent word if it had been.”
“They didn’t come for the Mahananda, Taytah; they came for me.”
Both Erwin and Lorcan blink, probably stunned by my diction that has
become as fluid as the Serpent tongue Enzo and I have been teaching Asha
and Fallon. Try as they might, our language is more hiss and clucks than
syllables, which makes learning it a true feat. Even my grandmother’s
trying, and although she masters all languages, there are many sounds she’s
incapable of reproducing.
Sure enough, Lorcan says, “How well you speak now, Zendaya.”
“All thanks to my tutors.”
“Yes, I’ve heard. I’ve also heard you’re teaching your tutors Serpent.”
He smiles. “It’s been rather entertaining to hear Fallon practice.”
I cannot help but bristle. “My language may be different than all the
others in the realm, but it’s not any less intricate.”
Lorcan’s pupils shrink. “I did not mean to slight you, Daya. I find it
entertaining because my mate is desperately trying to transcribe the sounds
into syllables in order to create not only an alphabet, but also a dictionary.
She’s gone through at least six trees worth of pressed pulp and forty pots of
ink.”
Oh. “So that’s the reason her fingers are forever black?”
“Yes.”
“When I asked her about the stains, she told me she’s been penning a
novel with Phoebus.”
A grimace reshapes Lorcan’s face. “Because she meant to surprise you
with it. And now I’ve just ruined the surprise. Will you please act
exceedingly shocked the day she gifts it to you?”
I rub my chest that’s suddenly full of scattered heartbeats. “Of course.”
Oh, Fallon, you sweet girl. “So tell me who needs healing, and how long
ago has it been since they were infected?”
“Liora,” Erwin says, his big arm wrapped around a female Crow not
much larger than his limb. Liora stands at half his height and appears to be
half his age. “My mate,” he adds.
I assume the match is recent. Though I’m glad for him, I cannot help the
jealous twinge that seizes my wrecked heart. I will it away…will all
thoughts of Cathal away.
“She was hit with an arrow yesterday when we were ambushed by that
colony of jungle zealots,” Erwin explains.
I’m not certain whom he means, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. I stand
and pad closer to the girl whose hair is the same color of cooked carrot as
Erwin’s. If he hadn’t said mates, I would’ve assumed she was his daughter.
“Where did they get you, Liora?”
She blinks up at Erwin who replies, “In her shoulder. Forgive my mate.
She doesn’t speak Shabbin, Princess.”
“They got Erwin in the back of the knee,” Lorcan adds, arms crossed in
front of his armor.
Erwin’s face snaps toward his king, and in Crow, he says something
about how his injury isn’t important, only Liora’s and only because of the
baby. Yes, I understand. Now that my oral Shabbin comprehension is
impeccable, Fallon has started teaching me her paternal tongue. My grasp
of it is rudimentary, but if spoken slowly, I understand. Unlike ordinary-
serpent speak which I cannot figure out for the life of me.
My gaze skims the female’s abdomen. “I’ll perform the healing inside
the Amkhuti so I can shift immediately afterward.”
 My grandmother hasn’t spoken a word, but I don’t need her to utter any
to know what she is thinking: she doesn’t approve. If she had, she’d have let
me heal the first Crows that were harmed. She hasn’t, and now they’re all
stone.
“Perhaps your mate can take care of both healings, Daya?” Lorcan
suggests.
Although I’ve grown quite fond of Enzo, the word mate feels ill-suited.
He’s my Serpent, the same way the two striped warriors are Lorcan’s
Crows. Every day, I grow further convinced that our connection has nothing
amorous about it, but the only way to prove this would be to make another
Serpent, which would require taking a human life.
Though people die in Shabbe, it doesn’t happen often, and by the time I
hear of it, it’s too late. I’ve come to the conclusion that the person must be
on the brink of death for my magic to absorb into their blood. I’ve asked
Taytah to find me a sickly volunteer. Though she promises she will, she’s
yet to deliver a dying body at my feet.
“I like Lorcan’s suggestion. Enzo will heal them both. We have
lodgings. You and your mate are welcome to stay in Shabbe while Enzo
recovers between lickings.”
Lickings? It’s the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to my healing
method as a licking. I’m not fond of the term, however fitting it is. “That
won’t be necessary, for I’ll be healing Erwin today.”
My argument with the queen makes the big redheaded Crow wince and
his mate cower.
“It’s either Enzo, or they both wait for the Mahananda to unseal and⁠—”
In Serpent, I hiss a single word. One I know she’ll understand. “Stop.”
And then in Shabbin, I say, “My body. My tongue, Sumaca.”
She scowls, detesting when I call her Your Highness, which is exactly
why I do it. I do love the woman dearly, but she’s stuck in her ways and
often forgets that I’m not some dullard incapable of educated judgement.
“You slept for three nights in scales after you healed Cathal. Three
nights!” As though she senses the reminder won’t be enough to dissuade me
—she’s right—she traipses over and claps my forehead with her palms to
pour the images of my listless form coiled at the bottom of the Amkhuti.
“What if it takes you longer this time? What if you don’t shift back?” Her
tone is bright with worry.
“Ask the Mahananda. Actually, ask it how it will affect Enzo.”
 She huffs.
“Please, Taytah.”
She twists her ring around her finger with another huff. I think she’s
about to object when her eyes whiten. A moment later, she mutters, “The
Mahananda says you and Enzo won’t perish.”
I smile. “See.” I gesture for Erwin and his mate to follow me, then call
out to my shifter.
I’m right outside, Day.
Sure enough, he and Asha loiter beneath the honeysuckle-wrapped
arbor. We’ve got Crows to heal.
Enzo trots after me, his linen robe flapping open around the skintight
trunks he wears to swim. Crows need healing? I thought they were
invulnerable.
Only my daughter. The others remain susceptible to obsidian.
He blinks. Though I’ve gotten used to the sight, I can’t help but
sometimes wish our eyes held a stroke of white and color. Granted our lurid
hair does compensate for our reptilian orbs.
How do we heal them? he asks.
“What’s happening?” Asha asks, falling into step beside us.
“Erwin and his mate have been infected with obsidian. I was just about
to explain to Enzo how we will have to lave the wounds until the stone
detritus oozes out. It’ll smell horrid, Enzo, so it’s best to do it in skin. Also,
we’ll need to shift immediately after. Lastly, it may make us unconscious
for a few days.”
Enzo nods. Anyone else may have questioned if it was a sound idea, or
if we risked more than forced respite, but not my selfless shifter.
“We’ll do it inside the Amkhuti.” As we move down the path we take
daily, I think of Cathal. I think of how I’d kneeled before him and licked his
thigh. Of how his cock had hardened and leaked for me. Is it leaking for
another?
The thought makes my ribs clench and my stomach fold in on itself like
those paper serpents Asha folds while Enzo and I swim. She’s crafted so
many that Enzo has begun to thread them into garlands to decorate the walls
of his chamber.
When we reach the Amkhuti, Enzo divests himself of his robe and dives
in headfirst. I sometimes think the boy was already part-Serpent and that I
simply activated that side of him.
 He treads the water while I instruct Erwin and his mate to rid
themselves of their clothes and armor before walking them through the
process. Erwin translates it all for Liora. I commit each new word I hear to
memory, trying to elucidate what it stands for.
Droplets splash my skin as our two patients dive into the moat. I’m
about to duck beneath the surface to inspect the wounds when I catch sight
of the Shabbin Queen standing beside Lorcan on the embankment’s edge,
deep in conversation with the male. I try to parse out what they’re saying
but their voices are too hushed.
I refocus on Erwin and his mate. After observing Liora’s wound, I dive
to get a look at Erwin’s knee. It’s swollen and black, which makes me
wonder how he even manages to walk. When I surface, I ask Asha to
magick some palm fronds into sturdy floats for the two Crows so they avoid
unnecessary movement.
As she does so, I hear Erwin mutter to Liora something about Cathal
staking them with obsidian if he catches wind of their visit.
I purse my lips, trying to stifle a retort, but it soars out regardless, “Just
because Cathal doesn’t care to see me doesn’t give him a right to dictate
who does care.”
Erwin’s pale lashes flutter.
“Sorry for eavesdropping,” I add.
Once he recovers from his shock, he licks his thin, pink lips and in
Shabbin, he says, “What I meant was that he’d run us through with more
obsidian for causing you harm. That’s why Lorcan hasn’t come to you for
the others. Cathal has forbidden us from importuning you, and considering
his mood since…since you left, we’ve tried to respect his wishes.”
I stare at the redheaded Siorkahd member for a long moment, tempted
to ask him for news about my former mate. Yes, Fallon reports on Cathal’s
Nebban dealings, but not on his private ones. I’m guessing she doesn’t
share those out of respect for all parties involved.
“If my mate hadn’t been pregnant, and we weren’t worried about how
the curse will affect the baby, I wouldn’t have come.”
“I require no explanation, Erwin. Enzo and I are glad to help. And if this
goes well, you can send the others.”
His face scrunches up. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“Why not?”
 “Because as you may have heard, the first three to be injured are blocks
of obsidian, and the two others are days’ away from the same fate.” He
shudders.
Just as Asha tosses in the fronds, I say, “I could come to them.” Sure,
I’d have to convince my grandmother to let me leave Shabbe, but it could
be done. Plus, that way, I could visit Isolacuori. The more I turn over this
plan, the more I grow determined to put it into action.
“Cathal would never allow it,” Erwin says, as he hands one of the
buoyant branches to his mate.
“Why would he need to be told?”
“He’d find out. The only reason he hasn’t flocked over here is because
he isn’t aware that Liora and I were injured.”
I roll my gaze toward the dawn-filled immensity, wishing he’d learn of
it. Cathal might not want to see me, but I would very much like to lay eyes
on him. If only to make sure he’s well. “Ready?”
Erwin nods, reaching for his mate’s hand. “Thank you for doing this. I
owe you, Zendaya of Shabbe.”
I suck in a breath when something stings my bicep. I pop my arm out of
the water to find a glowing band circling my skin.
When I look back at Erwin, his expression holds no inkling of surprise.
“It’s the least I can do to show my gratitude.”
I nod my thanks and sink. As I lap at his noxious blood to draw out the
toxins, I decide exactly how I will use his bargain. Picturing the queen’s
fury distracts me from the Mahananda-awful task and makes time tick by
faster. I see the infection clear and his skin draw close and then I see
nothing but soothing darkness.
 Chapter 32
Zendaya

W
hen my eyes finally peel open, Enzo is resting beside me at the
bottom of the Amkhuti, his green scales flush against my pink ones.
My grandmother might not have drained the Amkhuti of water this
time, but she’s drained it of sea life. Was she worried fish would pick at our
inert bodies and disturb our slumber?
I shift into flesh, then kick my legs to circle around Enzo. The instant
my palm grazes his cheek, his eyes snap wide, and then he too morphs into
skin. You’re awake!
I smile. Yes, and so are you.
I woke up two days ago, Day. Considering the dark hue staining the
skin beneath his eyes, I take it that he hasn’t slept since then.
Two days? How long have I been out?
Almost a week.
As we float to the surface, I reach out and take his hand to give it a
squeeze. Thank you for staying with me.
You’re my… You’re like my mother. He manages to redden underwater.
Actually, you’re nothing alike, because she wasn’t very nice. But it wasn’t
her fault, he’s quick to add. She was overworked.
I know his life story, even though it took him a while to confide in me.
At first, I believed it was because he was wary, but later came to understand
that he avoided talking of his past because it depressed him.
Enzo’s mother worked in a human brothel—a place where coin is
exchanged against sexual favors. He was an undesirable byproduct of her
job. Instead of raising him, she sent her baby to live with her father on the
other side of Luce. When Enzo was nine, he came home from the market to
find his beloved grandfather and house turned to ash. His neighbor was the
one to explain that the soldiers had come for the tithe and his grandfather
couldn’t pay it.
After sleeping in the streets, he started working on fishing boats to earn
coin to pay for a corner of hay inside a barn. I can still remember his look
of sheer disbelief the night of our arrival when Asha and I showed him to an
apartment in the palace’s guest wing. His eyes had grown so large, I’d
worried he would shift right there and then. His quiet wonder had sloughed
off a layer of my antipathy. I shed the rest of it like a molting land serpent—
all at once—for the boy had done nothing to merit my scorn.
The second our heads break the surface, Asha’s voice detonates through
the air with an, “Abrax, she’s up! Go tell the queen.”
I meet my guard’s concerned eyes, catch the bob of his throat before he
sprints toward the palace.
Asha is sitting on a sofa I had made for her right on the cliff so she
didn’t have to sit on stone while we swam. Her blistered fingers work a
strip of green paper into a serpent which she tosses, after completion, into a
wicker basket overflowing with multi-hued origami. “Seven days,” she says
matter-of-factly. “Seven. Days.”
“I heard.” I paddle toward the stone edge. “I sense a lecture coming.”
“You’re right, but it won’t be coming from me.” She flicks her gaze in
the direction of the palace.
Of course…The queen. I’ve no doubt she’ll have much to say about my
extensive convalescence. “They’re both cured, right?”
Asha snatches another strip of paper—orange this time. “Yes.”
“Then it was worth it.” As I grab ahold of the ladder, I press my hair
aside, catching the glimmer of the magical band on my bicep. My heart
quickens, creating little ripples around my body. “Hey, Asha, how does
bargaining work? Does the supernatural being need be present to claim a
bargain?”
“Afraid your grandmother’s about to strike one with you to prevent you
from healing other birds?”
“Yes,” I lie.
“You should be,” she mumbles while Enzo stares at my arm.
Present from Erwin?
 I nod as Asha explains, “Once struck, you can call forth a bargain from
anywhere in the realm, so even if you—let’s say—went to Luce to cure the
others”—she slants me a look to tell me that yes, she heard me discuss
healing them with Erwin—“she could make it impossible for you to dart
your tongue out and risk your life.”
Note to self, never strike a bargain with Taytah. “My life wasn’t in
danger.”
“Perhaps not, but what of your health? What if this begins to chip away
at your body and mind?” Her hands come apart so fast that her serpent-in-
progress sails into the pearlescent moat. “Your convalescence took twice as
long as last time, Day. Twice. That cannot possibly be a good sign.”
I pinch the miniature paper tusk, tuck it into the top of my bathing suit,
then seize the rungs and climb. Asha’s gaze draws up and down my figure.
“You’re wasting away.”
My stomach has become a little concave and the bones in my thighs do
jut out. Even my breasts seem to have lost some of their bounce. “Nothing a
few meals won’t fix. I’m rave…” I frown as my neck tingles from the
weight of someone’s gaze. I twist around, coming nose to fabric with a robe
that Enzo is holding out to me. When I don’t divest him of it, he takes my
hand and guides it through the wide sleeve, then repeats the process with
my other arm, before belting it around me with the care of a parent.
A twig snaps. I see nothing yet feel something. Someone. A creature or a
human? Both, my mind says.
“You owe me a new uniform, Day. I had to do a ton of stress-eating
while I waited on the two of you.” Asha gets to her feet, tugging on the hem
of her red tunic that creases around her ample bosom.
Enzo stutters that he thinks she’s never looked more beautiful, which
makes a grin reshape her face.
My guard juts her chin toward me. “I’m mad at her. Not at you, abi.”
Again, my nape prickles. I squint over my shoulder but the slap of
sandals against stone coupled with the sound of my name being trilled
through the brightening air redirects my attention toward the palace path.
My grandmother’s eyes glisten like rubies as she closes in on me,
casting her honeysuckle scent far and wide. I’m ready for a sermon but
what I receive instead is a silent, bone-crushing hug and a susurrated,
“Please don’t do this again, emMoti.”
 Once she releases me, she moves to Enzo, frames his face and bends it
toward hers. She murmurs a, “Thank you for staying with my child,” then
kisses his retracted tusk, a habit she fell into almost naturally.
The queen asks for breakfast to be served immediately, then steals my
arm and turns me. But not before I catch a shadow breaking away from a
tree and streaking upward before solidifying into a Crow. If my
grandmother notices the lurker, she doesn’t mention him or her. Probably
Erwin or Imogen come to check whether the slumbering Serpent has risen.
Although, wouldn’t Erwin come over and talk to me?
I think of the bargain he owes me and how best to go about collecting it.
I realize I could ask him to bring me an almost-dead body, but what if the
person doesn’t deserve a second chance at life? Also, Enzo should have a
say.
As we walk toward the courtyard, Taytah fills me in on all the unrest in
Luce and how the death toll is mounting. She says this with so little
emotion that it feels as though the loss of life doesn’t disturb her all that
much.
I stop walking. “That’s terrible, Taytah.”
“They had it coming.”
“The Crows were immobilized for five centuries. How exactly did they
have it coming?”
“The Fae are the ones dying. They kept humans practically enslaved and
treated half-bloods so poorly for so many centuries that it’s only natural
revenge is being sought.” She lowers her voice to add, “Some of these
attacks are done with the Crows’ consent.”
My eyebrows quirk because, although I don’t doubt the Crows are not
fans of all Faeries, last I heard, Lorcan was trying to achieve peace.
Encouraging upheavals seems counterintuitive. “And you hold this news
from which source? Have you visited Luce while I slept?”
“Kanti arrived two days ago when news reached her of what you’d done
and that you weren’t recovering.” She says this sternly, as though to impress
upon me her discontent. “She was worried.”
My tail, she was worried. Kanti was probably on the first ship—or
Crow—over to check on my vitals. Even when I could barely understand
Shabbin, her desire to succeed Priya never eluded me.
Before my grandmother can catch my hostile thoughts, I take her arm
and start walking. “Isn’t Justus Rossi a High Fae? Doesn’t the slaughter of
pointy-eared people disturb him?”
“He works for Lorcan.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“That a general obeys his ruler, otherwise, they lose their position. Or
their life. Fallon may consider Justus a grandfather, but he isn’t. If he
doesn’t prove his allegiance to the Crows, his blood will color the canals of
Tarecuori just like the former Regio supporters.” She pats my hand. “Order
will come, but it will not come overnight. And yes, it will bear a high cost.
Such is the fate of a divided empire.”
When we reach the dining table, it’s already laden with every dish
imaginable, and set for many. In spite of our dismal conversation, my
stomach rumbles. “Are we expecting others, Taytah?”
“Kanti will be joining us.” To a guard, she asks if she’s been awakened.
The guard nods.
My appetite dwindles a smidgeon.
Why don’t we like Kanti, Day?
A smile blooms over my wariness at the preposition that Enzo has used
—we. We do not like her because she desires the Shabbin crown so much
that I sometimes worry how far she’d go to win it.
Minutes later, Behati’s granddaughter joins us. Enzo’s mouth gapes
wide at the sight of her, probably stunned by her beauty.
Not why I gaped. Enzo seizes his juice and sips.
I tilt my head, waiting to hear what arrested him if it isn’t her looks.
She swam down toward us yesterday.
“You must be the green Serpent. Enzo, right? I’ve heard so much about
you.” Kanti shakes out her napkin and places it on her lap. “How incredible
that she made you. You were human before, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes, I w-was.”
“And now you’re a shifter. How incredible.”
The weight of Enzo’s quizzical stare leads me to say, She wasn’t a fan
of me before, Enzo. I believe having the power to create more Serpents
doesn’t please her.
Why?
Either because she believes I’ll use it to create an army of shifters, or
because she worries my new “edge” will sway who gets the throne.
You could heal Crows before. That’s quite the edge, no?
A practical power, but not a dangerous one.
 Our noiseless conversation doesn’t go unnoticed. At least, not by Asha
or Abrax. Kanti, on the other hand, is so busy gushing to the queen about all
she’s achieved since reaching Tarespagia that she’s no longer paying
attention to the incredible Serpents.
“I planted listening sigils in every dissident hideout. I almost fainted
from how much blood I had to part with. Actually, I did swoon a little, but I
did that on purpose because that landed me a stay in the governor’s house.”
She drops her voice to add, “The male’s no fan of Lorcan or Cathal—for
personal reasons.” She slides me a look. “Antoni has a great instinct for
people, so consider yourself lucky the Mahananda selected a new mate for
you, chacha.”
How odd to hear Kanti call me cousin, when technically, she’s centuries
older than I am.
She scoops up a few slices of charred avocado and layers them on a bed
of sprouts. “He likes all the other Crows. If it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t
be in power.”
I dip my finger into a dollop of spicy, pureed beans and carry it to my
lips, which earns me a grimace from Kanti who doesn’t eat anything
without utensils, not even sundried fruit. “What personal reasons made him
single out Lorcan and Cathal?”
The explosion of flavor against my palate is so beautiful that I rattle,
which deepens the twist of Kanti’s mouth. I know she finds me beastly. I
heard her tell Behati when she assumed I was still non-fluent in Shabbin.
“Fallon,” Kanti says.
The name of my daughter halts my rattle.
“Your daughter had Antoni tossed out of the Sky Castle like disloyal
scum, even though he risked his life many times over so she could awaken
Lorcan.”
I plant my elbows on the table. “My daughter wouldn’t have tossed out
an innocent man.”
Kanti’s snort slides under my human skin. “Anyway, thanks to my
listening sigils, Antoni and I have managed to squelch six uprisings.”
“However is he faring without you at his side?” I deadpan.
“I know.” Kanti sighs, cutting into her avocado and slipping a piece into
her mouth. After she’s swallowed, she says, “It was hard to leave, but when
I heard that healing Erwin kept you in scales for so long, I immediately
came home to lend Priya strength.” She reaches over and squeezes the
queen’s forearm.
The queen stares at Kanti’s slender fingers before moving her arm away.
“You shouldn’t stay away from Luce for too long, my dear. You’re
obviously greatly needed there.”
Again, Kanti sighs an, “I know.” After another bite of her greens, she
adds, “I hope Antoni is the man the Mahananda foresaw me seducing,
because he’s delicious. And he would also make a terrific king. You should
see the way he governs the west. Unlike the Siorkahd who executes without
trial, he gives everyone a fair hearing. The men and women under his
command have such respect for him. I can’t wait for you to meet him. I
could have him sail over this evening?”
“I met Governor Greco at Fallon’s coronation,” Priya says.
“For like, a second, because Daya couldn’t control her animal.”
Enzo white-knuckles his fork and knife. Is my placid-tempered Serpent
picturing planting his utensils inside Kanti? Do love sigils exist? The burst
of his voice through the bond combined with the tenure of his question
startles a frown onto my face.
Not love sigils, but there exists a seduction sigil. It’ll wear off unless
reapplied regularly, though.
Then Kanti is either using those on Antoni or she’s lying about his
rapture.
What made you reach this conclusion?
I know Antoni Greco from when he was a boat captain in Tarelexo.
He was one of the kindest men I ever worked for. He would always slip
me an extra coin and made sure my belly was full when I pretended I
wasn’t hungry. He also let me sleep on his fishing boat in the dead of
winter when the barn got too cold. Antoni might lay with a woman like
Kanti, but he’d never fall for her.
Kanti’s a very powerful woman.
Antoni’s governor now. I doubt he hungers for power.
I hear crowns make people more attractive.
Enzo’s black eyes taper on Kanti’s brow. I don’t see any crown.
She wants one.
Asha said it was yours by birthright. He leans back in his chair.
It may have been destined for me in my past life, but I no longer have
blood magic.
 Blood magic doesn’t make you Shabbin; it makes you a sorceress. He
gestures toward Abrax who stands to the side with three other male guards.
Unless you don’t consider the men in the queendom Shabbin?
When did you get so wise, Enzo Fronz?
Not wisdom. Just observational skills. That crown is still yours.
I don’t even know if I want it.
Even if you didn’t, there’s no way the Mahananda will give it to Kanti.
I’d stake my ability to shift on that.
I hiss at him. Never make such bets, not even in jest. Please. I care
about you far too much now.
A boyish grin seizes his young face. One that grows in intensity when
Asha snatches a bowl of fried zucchini blossoms and spoons four onto
Enzo’s already heaped plate. Though she moves around the table, holding
out the glazed ceramic dish for the rest of us to serve ourselves, her pink
gaze sticks to my fellow Serpent’s plate like barnacles on turtle shells.
I smile. You better eat before Asha spoon-feeds you in public.
Enzo grips his fork, hunches over to approach his face to his plate, then
begins to shovel food into his mouth. He barely swallows before gulping
down the next bite. I sense he isn’t doing it solely for Asha’s sake. I sense
he’s starving.
You should’ve eaten while I rested.
I ate some seaweed and cockles.
That isn’t enough for a growing boy.
I’m nineteen. Doubt I’m still growing, Day.
You’re putting on muscle.
I wish, he mumbles.
They will come.
Even though Kanti is talking to my grandmother about Mahananda only
knows what, her attention is on Enzo, her nose scrunched in horror. Though
Asha has instructed my Serpent on how to hold his fork and knife properly,
it isn’t second-nature to him. According to Asha, “old habits die hard.”
Every time she utters the phrase, my mind drifts to the woman I was before
and I wonder: did she have habits?
I’ve asked Priya, but she doesn’t like speaking about who I was before,
reminding me that I’m not her. She’s right. I’m not the princess with the
pink eyes and dark hair who resurrected a dormant king before giving birth
to a curse-breaker. I’m the hollowed-out shifter with the odd face and odder
tongue.
“Easy there, abi.” The queen pats Enzo’s hand, cutting off Kanti
midsentence. “We wouldn’t want you to choke.”
He gulps down his mouthful. “S-Sorry, Sumaca.”
“We’ve gone over this. I want you to call me Priya, not Sumaca.”
His head bobs with an abrupt nod.
A nerve jumps in Kanti’s jaw. I don’t have to read her mind to know that
she disapproves of the privilege my grandmother has bestowed on my
Serpent. “How tight you’ve all gotten in my absence.”
The queen cants her head. “You say this as though it were unfortunate.
Were you hoping I wouldn’t appreciate the Mahananda’s choice of mate for
my granddaughter?”
Her utterance of the word mate strengthens my desire to call upon
Erwin.
After breakfast.
After I speak with Enzo in private.
Kanti shrugs. “You weren’t partial to her last mate. Then again, he’s an
uncivilized brute with an ego the size of his spirit animal.”
It isn’t a hiss that flows off my tongue but a rumble, one that makes
Kanti roll her eyes and my grandmother narrow hers. I’m guessing she
didn’t realize I still had affection for Cathal Báeinach.
“He’s the father of my child, Kanti.” Though my posture is rigid, I
square my shoulders some more. “I will not have you—or anyone else—
denigrate him. Am I understood?”
Kanti snorts. “Shabbe’s a free world, Daya. Freedom of thought.
Freedom of speech. It’s inked in our constitution. Haven’t you read it?” She
bites her lip, then leans over the table and drops her voice to add, “That was
insensitive of me.”
A frown pleats my brow.
“The queen mentioned that your dearth of reading and writing skills
were a sore spot, but here I am, blabbering about them. Please forgive me.”
She flings me a smile that is as artificial as her apology.
If only Kanti could go slumber in the Mahananda…
I could push her in, Enzo offers.
No. My sharp interjection has his spine pinching straight. Not only
would harm befall you, but a sorceress must also choose death, otherwise
the Mahananda will send her right back.
A shame.
Enzo, please be careful with your thoughts. The Mahananda hears
all.
If it does, then why isn’t it punishing Kanti?
It sent her away from Shabbe, I find myself thinking. I must think it into
the bond because Enzo blinks wide eyes at me.
Admittedly, I never considered her departure a punishment, but what if
it was? What if the Mahananda’s intent when sending her to Luce wasn’t
only to seduce one of Lorcan’s enemies? How mysterious you are,
Mahananda.
Find Agrippina.
I frown at Enzo who is, again, bent over his food. What?
He glances up at me, eyebrows tilted. What? he echoes.
What did you just say?
His frown deepens, but then he says, I asked you why it wasn’t
punishing Kanti.
After that.
I didn’t say anything after that.
My skin pebbles for if he didn’t advise me to locate the woman who
gave birth to my daughter, then who did? As I stare past Kanti’s shoulder at
the source of all magic, the tingling grows so pronounced that I palm my
arms. And then I shake my head because I’m obviously losing my mind.
The Mahananda only speaks to the queen, and last I checked, that
wasn’t me.
Since Kanti’s back to boxing Priya’s ears with her cleverness, I fathom
it’s one of the guards. But which one? And why do they want to find
Agrippina? Because the Mahananda is ready to heal her broken mind?
 Chapter 33
Zendaya

A
grippina’s face blooms in full color across my lids. Just before I part
ways with my grandmother in front of her bedchamber doors, I ask,
“Has the Mahananda recovered from Fallon’s curse-breaking?”
She turns her fatigued gaze toward its smooth surface. “Not yet.”
I nibble on the inside of my cheek. Then why did someone mention
Agrippina? Why must she be found?
“I need to go rest. I’ll see you this evening.” The queen kisses my pearl,
then Enzo’s, before departing in a whoosh of white silk.
Could Agrippina have gotten lost? But lost where—in Luce or in
Shabbe? She didn’t sail home with us, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t
return eventually. After all, Taytah never put up the wards she threatened to
erect.
Right before Abrax shuts me inside with Enzo, who I convened for a
private conversation, I ask, “Are the Rossi women back in Shabbe?”
“No.”
“They decided to stay in Luce?” I ask.
Enzo’s intrigued stare prickles my nape.
“Luce is their home, Daya.” Abrax says this with no condescension. “Is
there a particular reason they’re on your mind?”
“No,” I lie.
Abrax slants his head.
Since I can tell he isn’t convinced, I add, “I’ve been so busy training
Enzo that it only just occurred to me that neither she nor her daughter has
visited in some time.”
His neck straightens and his eyebrows level. “I’d offer to send for them,
but I don’t think your grandmother would approve. She’s been adamant
about restricting the number of visitors inside Shabbe ever since⁠—”
“—she learned about serpent poison.” I sigh. “I’m aware.”
He offers me a sympathetic smile. “It’s possible she’d make an
exception if the request comes from you? I know she’s fond of Ceres. You
should ask her at supper.”
I nod, casting a glance around me at the other guards’ faces. None of
them are staring with suspicion. None of them are staring at me, period. But
are they listening?
“I’ll be right outside if you need anything,” Abrax says.
I nod my thanks, then tread past Enzo as Abrax gives us the privacy I
requested.
Are you okay? Enzo asks. You seem agitated.
“Yes. Fine. Sit. We need to talk.” My terse tone only deepens the angle
of his brown eyebrows as he takes a seat on my divan and I sink onto it
beside him.
My mind clings to Agrippina even as I explain my desire to make
another Serpent to Enzo. Yet I don’t let her name slip through our bond. I
want him to fully concentrate on what I’m telling him…what I’m asking
him.
When disappointment scores his face, I snatch the hand with which he’s
strangling his bony thigh and cocoon it between my own. “What is it?”
“I…I…” He slides his lips together, his black eyes taking on a worrying
sheen.
“Tell me your thoughts.”
He stares hard at my fruit bowl. I know I’m young and not really a
looker, but—he swallows—am I really not enough?
“It has nothing to do with how I feel about you, Enzo.”
Doesn’t it? “You s-still love Fa-Fallon’s fa-father.” He steals his hand
away from mine to mop his cheeks.
“Enzo, sweetheart, I love you. You will always be my first and favorite
Serpent.”
“But n-never y-your—” He jumps to his feet. First and favorite mate,
he finishes through the bond.
 I assumed he’d understand. I assumed he’d be excited to widen our little
nest. Clearly, I assumed wrong.
He storms toward my door and lets himself out, thwacking the wood. I
hesitate to call on Erwin. I allow three days to pass, hoping Enzo will
change his mind. He doesn’t, the same way he doesn’t speak to me or swim
with me. As I slip the poisonous purple flakes onto my tongue, having
resumed my daily intake at the same dose as before my convalescence,
Asha asks what happened between us.
“Maybe you should sleep with him,” she suggests.
I’m so repulsed by the idea that I grimace.
With a sigh, she asks, “You’re really not attracted to him, are you?”
“No. But I do really love him.”
She nods, thoughtful. “Then I’m on board with your expansion idea.”
I blink, surprised by her encouragement.
“But what happens if you cannot communicate with them?”
“Then I’ll take your advice and lay with Enzo.” Picturing his lips on
mine makes bile rise up my throat, further convincing me that he and I
cannot possibly be romantic mates.
Once my body feels strong and rested, I use my bargain: “Erwin of the
Sky Kingdom, I need a lift to Luce.”
The glowing band I’ve been hiding from everyone thanks to silk shawls
immediately snuffs out. When after several hours, nothing but storm clouds
tile the evening sky, I begin to worry that my grandmother did put up
wards. I pace my chamber, my frustration giving way to concern. What if
the male’s been injured with obsidian again? What if he isn’t able to fly?
The sky growls, and then rain hurtles against my windows in sheets so
thick it blurs the outside world. My worry turns to downright trepidation. Is
this storm Lorcan-made? Did something happen in Luce that I’m unaware
of?
I’m about to seek out a guard when a shadow seeps beneath one of my
arched windows and develops into a hulking redhead.
“Forgive my tardiness, Rajka, but I needed to speak with Lorcan about
how best to conceal transporting you out of Shabbe.”
The storm.
How glad I am that he thought of this, for I’ve been so consumed by my
deliberations that I certainly hadn’t. “You’ll need a cloak and proper
footwear. The temperatures in Luce have dropped since your last visit.”
 I hurry to my closet and grab a silk cape and matching slippers.
Erwin’s mouth twists when I reappear, tucking my hair under the
embroidered hood. “That’s not gonna be enough. Here.” He shrugs out of a
suede jacket lined with black fur.
“What about you?”
“I just wore it because Liora insisted I not leave without it.” He smiles.
“I’ve got plenty of meat on my bones to keep me warm.”
Smiling gratefully, I toss off my silk cape and thread my arms through
his sleeves. The hit of warmth is as potent as the adrenaline rushing through
my blood, and not because of the skirmishes still crackling through Luce.
Some part of me fears the answers this journey will bring. Another part
craves them.
“Where exactly in Luce would you like to go?” Erwin asks.
I remember Sybille telling me that her family tavern faces the human
neighborhoods. Humans are mortal. So I give him the name of the Amaris’
tavern.
He palms his waterlogged hair. “If you wanted some ale, I could’ve
carried some over.”
“It isn’t ale I want.”
His mouth pinches. “I’m hoping that what you want is to see Sybille.”
“Yes. Exactly. I want to see her.”
“Better be, or Cathal will fluff his pillows with my feathers.”
My skin pebbles in spite of the thick hide I wear. “Why would he do
that?”
“Because Bottom of the Jug still operates as a brothel.”
My head rears back. “You think I’ve asked you for a ride to Luce to sate
some sexual desire?”
“I don’t know. Your mate’s pretty green.”
“Please just take me there. And don’t tell Cathal. I don’t need him
breathing down my neck.”
“Should I tell Fallon?”
“Yes. You can tell Fallon, but no one else.”
“All right. Let’s go before your grandmother stakes me with obsidian.”
Though it seems outrageous, I realize that she probably would. “I’m
sorry for putting you at risk.”
“A bargain’s a bargain,” he says, before melting into feathers at the foot
of my stone stairs.
 Pulse racing, lungs tight, I climb onto his back and loop my arms
around his neck. Once we clear the tall fortifications, my ribs loosen, but
not my lungs. They cling to every sip of wet air. When we finally puncture
Lorcan’s thunderous cloud cover, I unwind my arms and sit up. The stars
are bright over Luce; the air thick with lavender plumes of smoke that coil
out of every chimney.
The air is so nippy that I burrow into Erwin’s borrowed coat like a
mollusk in a conch shell. It grows a fraction warmer as we begin our
descent toward the westernmost isle of Tarelexo, toward a wharf that must
host a marketplace, considering the amount of tethered wooden vessels and
heaped crates overflowing with iridescent scales and headless foul.
Though I know the Lucins eat fish and meat, the sight and reek of
carrion turns my stomach. My heart stutters as I become aware that I’m
wearing some animal’s hide, for fur doesn’t grow on trees. I pop my head
out of the collar. Though grateful for the warmth it affords me, my skin
itches with eagerness to shed it.
The humans and Faeries milling about below scatter as we land. One
sweep of my lurid hair has them freezing. They stare unabashedly, so I do
the same. I note that most of the two-legged folk around me have rounded
ears and coarse garments that run the gamut of browns and grays. How long
will it take Lorcan and Fallon to blur the social disparity produced by five
centuries of Faerie rule?
Erwin shifts the second I slide off his back, then palms the middle of my
spine, guiding me away from the gawkers and toward a glowing abode
trimmed with a sapphire canopy bearing gold letters. I imagine they read:
Bottom of the Jug. The Shabbin and Lucin alphabets aren’t the same, so I
recognize no letter. Not that I’m all that great at reading Shabbin, as Kanti
so kindly pointed out.
Cheery music seeps around the weathered mullions that divide the thick
panes of glass. I let it envelop me and drive away my shortcomings. When
Erwin pulls open the door, a gust of warmth engulfs my cheeks. Scanning
the crowd, I start to unfasten the buttons on my borrowed jacket, but at the
sight of familiar blue eyes, I freeze like the audience on the wharf.
 Chapter 34
Zendaya

T
he odd injunction I overheard over breakfast three days past scores my
buzzing eardrums. I’d thought little of Agrippina since Enzo had
blustered out of my chamber. Truthfully, all I’ve thought about is my
selfish craving to make another Serpent.
“Santo Caldrone!” Sybille’s exclamation stabs my eardrums, whisking
my attention off the orange-haired Faerie, who’s obviously not lost.
I greet Fallon’s closest friend with a nod and a smile.
“What now?” Erwin grumbles as Sybille tosses aside a kitchen towel
and blusters out from behind a long wooden bar.
“You can go, Erwin. You’ve repaid my bargain,” I murmur.
“You obviously don’t know me if you think I’d leave you here by
yourself.”
“I’m not alone; Sybille’s here.”
“No offence to the half-Fae, but until another Crow shows up to guard
you, I’ll be sticking around.”
“Is my daughter on her way?”
“Yes. She should be here shortly,” he says, just as Sybille squeezes me
into a hug that’s so tight I feel the hard lump of life swelling her abdomen.
She fires a string of rapid Lucin words, evidently forgetting that her
tongue isn’t yet mine. The sight of my rumpled brow leads Erwin to say,
“She’s asking what brought you to her tavern. Something I’m also keen to
learn.”
 Since telling them that I’ve come to collect a human on the brink of
death is out of the question, I forage my mind for the few Lucin words I
know, coming up with: “Necessitudo scando.”
Crow and Faerie gawp, first at me, then at each other.
My cheeks begin to prickle. “What?” I ask, in Shabbin this time.
“You had me carry you to Luce for hallucinogenic substances, Rajka?”
Erwin asks.
My head rears back. “What? No!”
“Scando means a mind trip,” he says.
“I meant a change of scenery. I needed out of Shabbe for a couple
days.”
Erwin snorts. “The word you’re looking for is iterio. Trip of the body.”
The second he pronounces the correct term, the corners of Sybille’s
mouth flip up and she laughs.
“Can you ask Sybille if she has any rooms to let?”
He mashes his lips.
I tilt my head, waiting. When a minute has passed and he still hasn’t
relayed my request, I add a, “Please?”
“We’ve vacant rooms in the Sky Castle.”
Except a room in the Sky Castle won’t give me free rein to wander Luce
and locate my next Serpent. “I prefer to stay in the city.”
Our hushed debate quiets Sybille.
“The city isn’t safe,” he hisses.
I glance around me at the tables full of patrons who are either midmeal
or mid-card game. “Battles might be waged, but evidently not in here.”
My gaze lands on an umber-skinned male who sports more glitter on his
face and bare torso than Erwin sports charcoal. His jaw is slack, his eyes
wide, unlike the male whose lap he sits on, whose features are as tight as
the satin belt pleating the silk panels of my indigo dress.
If I were to be perfectly honest, the mixture of awe and revulsion
directed my way is disquieting. But honesty won’t help me grow my tribe,
so, as I finally finish unbuttoning Erwin’s coat, I paste on a smile to appear
amicable and square my shoulders to appear confident.
“Your daughter won’t like you staying in the Fae lands,” he mumbles. “I
doubt she’ll sanction it.”
I hand over the hide. “I’m her mother.”
“This is her kingdom.”
 “I’m aware.” I turn toward Sybille, trying to recall the word for
bedchamber in Lucin. When I cannot, I decide to mime my intent by
pressing my palms together and laying one cheek on them.
As my hands come back down to my sides, Sybille gnaws on her lower
lip. Is she reluctant to let me stay here because of Erwin or because she
shares the Crow’s worries? A third theory has me ruing myself. In my haste,
I forgot to pack coin. The roll of my pearl bracelet along my wrist has me
unclasping it and holding it out to her.
She stares at it for a long moment, then past it, at me, shaking her head
and pushing my offering away. She then says something to Erwin that
includes both Cathal and Fallon’s names.
I grit my teeth, tempted to remind them both that my daughter and her
father aren’t my keepers.
“You can stay with us, Rajka.” Ceres’s clear voice carves through the
tense silence, carrying everyone’s attention to her. I’m guessing most are
surprised by her mastery of my tongue. “Justus put an apartment at
Agrippina’s and my disposal while our house is being renovated.”
I start to smile but my lips freeze. Find Agrippina. Could the
Mahananda have whispered this to me because it anticipated Sybille’s
disinclination to host me?
“After everything your grandmother has done for us, it would be our
honor.” Ceres sets down the deck of cards she’d been shuffling, then palms
the scarred wooden tabletop and scoots her chair back. “We were just
heading home. Unless you want a bite to eat before⁠—”
“I’ve eaten. Thank you.” I clip the bracelet back onto my wrist. “I’m
ready to retire.”
The door bursts open behind me and a violent chill creeps up my spine.
One caused by more than the bitter temperature.
One caused by an icy glare.
I twist my neck slowly, knowing full well whose rabid gaze I’m about
to meet.
 Chapter 35
Zendaya

thought you didn’t inform him of my trip,” I mutter to Erwin as Cathal

“I irrupts into the tavern, eyes slitted, hair wild.
“I didn’t,” the beefy redhead murmurs. “Like I mentioned earlier, I
don’t care to be plucked.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Or pulped.
I’m in so much fucking trouble. Apologies for what I’m about to do.”
When he morphs into smoke and streaks past Cathal, I realize that he
was apologizing in advance for abandoning me with the seething Crow.
“I’m ready to leave, Ceres.”
“Right away.” Once she’s slipped her arms through her fur-lined cloak,
she helps Agrippina into hers. “Evening, Cathal.”
The Crow doesn’t reciprocate her social niceties, merely aims his
glower her way. Ceres doesn’t flinch as she hooks Agrippina’s arm through
hers and crosses the deathly-quiet tavern toward me.
Fallon’s Faerie grandmother gives my outfit a once over. “Not really
dressed for this weather, are you? Good thing it’s not a long walk. Come.”
I start to follow when Cathal finally unclenches his jaw. “She’ll be
coming with me.”
“No, she won’t,” I reply tightly.
“I wasn’t giving you a choice, Príona.”
I come toe to toe with Cathal and angle my face toward his to deliver
words which I know will make him back down. “My mate wouldn’t
appreciate me going off with another male. Not to mention that you aren’t
my guard.”
 My words don’t magically blow the Crow away. They merely hone his
fury. “As far as I can see, your mate isn’t around,” he grits out.
“You’d see farther if you stopped watching me.”
Though his facial hair has thickened, it doesn’t conceal the severe angle
of his jawbone.
“How about you escort us to my house, Cathal?” Though Ceres’s
question is packaged as a suggestion, it isn’t one. “A win-win for
everyone.” She lowers her voice to add, “Also, you’re disquieting both my
daughter and Sybille’s patrons.”
“Do I look like I give a single fuck about⁠—”
“They are her livelihood.” Her hiss is as cutting as shards of glass.
Narrowing his eyes some more, a feat considering how thin they already
are, Cathal wheels around and yanks open the door, crushing its edge until
we’ve stepped over the threshold.
The second we’re outside, he growls into my ear, “Get on my back.”
And then his body expands into his bird’s.
I step nearer to Ceres. “No. And don’t you dare try to cart me off.”
I’ve no need to peer into his mind to see how he itches to clamp his iron
talons around my shoulders instead of around the cobbles he is, at present,
reducing to dust.
I take another step toward Ceres, who lingers beneath the flapping
awning with a trembling Agrippina. I suppose it’s because of our
altercation, although it could possibly be due to the bitter chill of the night,
which, thanks to my altercation, doesn’t penetrate my overheated skin.
A cool shadow glides along my arm before solidifying into a man.
“Fine.” Cathal’s breath is a fiery jolt against the shell of my ear. “You want
to stay in the Fae lands and get gored by a fucking Faerie, fine. Fucking
fine.”
While I appreciate his regard for my safety, I don’t appreciate his tone
or the anxiety it piles upon my shoulders.
“Don’t worry,” Ceres says as he dematerializes and takes to the sky.
“The Fae lands aren’t that bad. At least not on this side of Monteluce.” As
we begin walking, she says, “My husband—well, ex-husband—is doing an
astonishingly good job at keeping the peace.”
“Malo uomo,” Agrippina suddenly says, voice warbling with frenzy.
“Malo uomo.”
 Ceres taps her daughter’s hand. “Tiu pappa no malo uomo, mi cuori.”
Then in Shabbin, she explains that Agrippina still believes her father is evil
—“malo.”
Pity overtakes my unease. “I hope the Mahananda will welcome her
soon.”
Ceres sighs. “You and me both, Rajka. You and me both.”
“Malo uomo,” Agrippina says again, her blue eyes as turbulent as the
amber waves caught in her fur collar. She digs her boots into the cobbles,
dragging her mother to a standstill, then points to a spot over my shoulder.
Swearing softly, Ceres plunges her hand beneath her coat and extricates
a dagger.
I gasp, then gasp again as the ground vanishes from underneath my feet.
Still, I don’t miss the cloaked figure dashing toward Ceres and Agrippina,
brandishing a blade longer than Ceres’s. I grip one of Cathal’s talons and
shout, “Go back! We can’t leave them!”
He stops ascending. I know the moment he sees the cloaked figure
because he drops like a stone, halting for a heartbeat over a flat rooftop
upon which he deposits me before flashing away. I rush toward the edge of
the building, my breath stabbing my lungs, shredding my throat. When I see
a head roll, I wheeze.
A head.
Without a body.
Just a head.
My chest burns when I catch the shock of black hair.
 Chapter 36
Zendaya

C
eres cannot be⁠—
She cannot be⁠—
Two more Crows plummet from the sky and land below—Erwin
and Reid. The latter kicks the head. I want to scream at the man for
desecrating Ceres’s corpse, but my scream morphs into a sigh of relief when
I catch sight of the face, of the masculine jaw.
Not Ceres.
My pulse bangs against my eardrums in time with the slender boat
accosting the embankment. Soldiers leap from it, palms crackling with
magic directed at the crowd blighting the wharf.
I try to shout Cathal’s name, but my throat is so tight that the two
syllables emerge as an inaudible rasp, one that’s drowned out by a feminine
wail.
“Agrippina!” Ceres keens. “Mi cuori! Nooo!”
Everything inside of me hardens and chills like the slate tiles biting into
my cramping fingers.
Find Agrippina.
I might not have much power, but maybe, just maybe, I can heal her.
Before my next heartbeat, I race back toward the tavern, then leap onto the
fabric canopy to break my fall. I roll, banging into the man with a proclivity
for glitter.
“So sorry,” I tell him, scrambling to my feet and rushing toward
Agrippina.
 Agrippina who lays there, throat slit and body limp in the cradle of her
mother’s arms.
My name is shouted from the rooftop.
I don’t bother answering since I’ve no doubt that Cathal, with his
impeccable eyesight, will spot me in the crowd. I shoulder past onlookers.
One of them tries to stop me, but a hiss, coupled with a glance at my eyes
has him stepping aside. I push past Reid, who stands over the Rossi women,
unmoving.
Ceres gasps when I crouch and touch her sleeve.
“Can I try to heal her?”
“Iron,” she croaks, pulling her arm away.
I fathomed the weapon was made of that. After all, Agrippina is
pureblooded. Ceres wouldn’t be crying if it had been forged from any other
metal.
I begin to lash at the warm, sweet essence flowing out of the yawning
wound. Her blood gushes down my throat. I swallow and swallow until it
feels like I’ve drunk all of what flows through her veins. Live! Come on…
When her skin begins to tauten, relief blooms within my ribs like an
anemone, growing tentacles that snare every floating particle of hope. I
wasn’t too late. I got to Agrippina in time.
Find Agrippina.
This was why! Because the Mahananda knew an evil man would come
at her with an iron blade. I suck in a breath at the errant thought, recalling
her tremulous warning. Malo uomo. Did she foresee him, or did she merely
see him?
As I keep laving her cut, thoughts puff like the grains of sand that Enzo
sends floating upward when he slithers across the bottom of the Amkhuti, as
he so loves to do. My little bottom dweller. Well, my humongous bottom
dweller, for he is far larger than I am in scales. In skin too.
I hate how I left things with him. I picture his green scales, recall the
pliant press of them against my body a scant few mornings ago. Enzo?
He doesn’t answer me.
Please forgive me.
I pull away to check on Agrippina’s wound. I must move too fast,
because my head thumps against the bloodied cobbles. I lay there, blinking
back the darkness, trying to muscle my neck back up. Why does my skull
feel like a galleon anchor?
 Perhaps Faerie blood is noxious to Serpents? What if someone laced her
blood with that toxin? What if it wasn’t the Mahananda that guided me
toward her but Kanti? Could my cousin be so shrewd? She desires the
throne so fiercely…
A cool splash startles my lids up. Cathal stands over me with an
overturned bucket. His mouth moves over my name before moving over a
barked command. “Reid, Erwin, more!”
More what? He tosses the bucket at the redhead and then drops into a
crouch beside me, his charcoal stripes melting down his cheeks and into his
facial hair like tears, his forehead slick with perspiration.
“Can you hear me, Príona?” He sweeps his fingers across my mouth,
strokes a line down my neck.
I’m about to nod when another cool, delicious splash slicks over my
torso. I can feel the salt trickle through my skin, vivifying my blood,
rattling my muscles, crisping my mind and reminding me that I’m other.
That to exist, I need salt, I need the ocean. That it wasn’t Agrippina’s blood
or the substance of the weapon that drew me into the abyss, but my own
physical shortcomings. When I’d healed Enzo, I’d done so in scales.
Perhaps I must always heal people in scales, be they Crow or Faerie or
human.
With a sigh, I drag my knuckles over my mouth to wipe away any
lingering blood, then scrub my palms down my face and up through my
hair. “Did it work? Is she alive?”
Cathal scowls. Why? Because he wished me to speak other words?
Since he’s yet to answer me, I glance at Agrippina’s neck, at the skin that’s
hemmed shut, pink and puckered against the milky expanse surrounding it.
Ceres’s cheeks shine with tears as she tucks a lock of hair behind the
scarred shell of Agrippina’s ear before curling herself around her daughter
and rocking her.
I snap my gaze toward Cathal’s. “It didn’t work?”
“No.” It’s Reid who replies. He stands rooted to the same spot as before,
his fingers balled into fists.
But…but I don’t understand. Agrippina no longer bleeds. I hunt what I
can see of her neck for a throbbing vein, hunt her face for a twitch of lashes.
Agrippina lays wilted in her mother’s arms, her skin so pale that her
freckles resemble a crude paint splatter.
Find Agrippina, my mind nags.
 I did! I want to scream. I found her!
But more importantly, my tongue patched her injury, so why isn’t she
waking? Why isn’t her chest pumping? I mustn’t have drawn out the iron…
I must’ve sealed it inside her veins.
Though my sodden dress only sticks to my skin, it feels as though it
swathes my lungs. I want to tear it off, to jump into the canal and shift.
I try to push away from Cathal but he clasps me like Ceres clasps her
daughter. “Let go.”
He doesn’t.
I splay my fingers on his armor and shove. My muscles tremble so hard
that my elbow buckles and my body ends up pressed to his.
Cathal’s arms tighten around me. “Please let me hold you,” he rasps into
my hair.
With a sigh, I relent and press my Serpent away until it no longer
niggles my spine. “You never came to see me,” I murmur.
“I came.”
“That was you in the gardens three days ago?”
“Ceres!” someone yells.
I twist away from Cathal to find Justus Rossi barreling through the
throng of soldiers and halting beside Reid.
“Ceres?” he sputters again.
She picks her head off her daughter’s forehead and blinks wetly at him.
Her cheek is stained black. He asks her a question in their tongue to which
she responds with a shake of her head. And then he’s slinging his face my
way, asking me something about the Mahananda. But I’m too distracted by
the smudge on Ceres’s cheek to respond.
“Still closed,” Cathal replies in Shabbin, probably to keep the soldiers
surrounding us in the dark about our lack of access to the source of all
magic.
“Maybe we can place her on its surface!” Reid says with such vigor that
his voice echoes over all the cobbles. “Maybe it would op⁠—”
A blue hue is enveloping Agrippina’s strands, snuffing out the amber. I
press away from Cathal. This time, not only do his arms soften but he also
helps me sit up. I push a lock of hair off my face, feeling it ghost over my
mouth and coat it with the metallic tang of blood and salt.
Her lashes flutter. Draw up.
The air freezes inside my lungs as I stare…and stare.
“What have you done to my daughter?” Ceres gasps.
I saved her.
I transformed her.
 Chapter 37
Zendaya

J
ustus’s silence rings louder than Ceres’s cries of outrage. Here I thought
she might be pleased that Agrippina was alive, but, apparently, she’d
have preferred her to be dead than a Serpent.
“Do not yell at her,” Cathal grits out. “All Zendaya did was carry her
back from the underworld. The words you are looking for are thank you,
Rajka.”
“She transformed my daughter into an animal,” Ceres snarls.
I flinch, which makes Cathal’s arm tighten around my middle. Is that
what she really thinks of me? As an animal?
“A shifter,” Justus finally says, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Not an
animal.” Ceres opens her mouth, probably to argue, but she’s interrupted by
his next words: “Just like our granddaughter.”
Though her pulse still flicks against her elegant neck at a harsh pace,
her lips press together and she grows quiet.
“You should get away from her.” Cathal’s tone is as placid as his pulse
isn’t. It rages against my abdomen, its beats echoing the ones slamming
against my own sternum. “If it’s anything like last time, she’s about to
shift.”
“Last time?” Ceres squawks, before shooting me a horrified look.
“You’ve made others?”
“One,” Cathal says.
Agrippina’s thin eyebrows quirk as she observes her mother, then slant
on Reid.
 I move closer to her, garnering her attention. “It’s going to be all right.
I’ll teach you everything. It’s going to be all right.”
She doesn’t nod. Doesn’t speak. Not out loud and not into my mind.
Perhaps she won’t be capable of the latter.
Can you hear me? I ask her, without drawing my lips apart.
If she can, she doesn’t let on. Could her mind be too scarred to register
words? How am I supposed to train her if she cannot understand me?
“What the fuck did you do to your hair?” she suddenly asks.
I know she spoke out loud, because everyone gasps. Save for Reid. Poor
Crow seems to have morphed into obsidian.
Agrippina licks her lips, then says something about Meriam in Lucin
before gasping Cathal’s name and pointing to a place over his shoulder.
Color leaches from her already pale face, and she hisses the word pappa,
scuttling away from her still kneeling mother.
Cathal sighs, his breath soft against my ear, then replies in Lucin.
Agrippina rolls those twin pools of black from the Crow holding me to the
Faerie standing next to him. All the while, Ceres palms her mouth, stifling
whatever sound is building in her throat—a gasp, another sob, an
exclamation?
“She believes her father is still our enemy,” Cathal murmurs softly.
“He’s not the enemy, Agrippina,” I tell her in Shabbin since she appears
to be fluent. “You’re safe.”
My new Serpent frowns at me.
“As to what I did with my hair, it’s a long story. One I’d prefer to tell
you in Shabbe.”
“Wait,” Justus says in Shabbin. “What’s your sister’s name?”
Agrippina’s head rears back. “Why? Have you forgotten it, Pappa?”
He snorts, swallows. “Just please say it.”
She cocks a ruddy eyebrow. “Domitina.”
In Lucin she says words that Cathal translates quietly. “She’s asking
him if he’ll require the title of the book from which she plucked the name,
since she apparently chose it for her sister.”
Tears spill down Ceres’s cheeks. “Rimena.”
“Si.” Justus walks over to his former mate and crouches, placing a hand
on her shoulder. “Rimena.”
“She remembers,” Cathal translates.
 “You brought all of her back.” Justus’s voice is cluttered with emotion.
“Thank you, Rajka. Thank you.”
Ceres swallows and echoes the Faerie general’s sentiment, buoying my
heart.
Agrippina gapes. “You speak Shabbin, Mamma?” she asks just as
another loud “Mamma” echoes in the night.
Fallon.
I twist around, thinking she’s calling to me, but find her eyes locked on
Agrippina. Of course. I’m not her only mother. How could I forget? After
its brief climb, my heart plummets anew. It’s unfair of me to be jealous, yet
I cannot stifle the sentiment.
Cathal’s fingers mold my waist and then his thumb strokes as though he
senses my dejection.
Fallon comes to a stop right beside her grandparents, her gaze stilling on
Agrippina’s eyes and retracted tusk before hurtling toward me. “You
transformed her?”
“She saved her.” Cathal’s tone is so abrupt that it draws our daughter’s
eyebrows low.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, Dádhi.”
“Dádhi?” The pearl above Agrippina’s nose dips as she lowers her
frown to my abdomen.
My jealousy dwindles, for she doesn’t remember the child my prior self
nested inside her body for safekeeping.
“What the holy fucking Mahananda is going on here?”
Air funnels past my lips, because I’m almost certain her mouth didn’t
move. Not to mention she used the Shabbin term for the source of all magic
instead of the Lucin one. Agrippina, can you hear me?
Her eyebrows slant as she whisks her stare back my way.
I’m speaking inside your mind.
Her lids reel up so high that her lashes smack her browbone. How? Her
word, though noiseless, detonates inside my skull. Did you draw a sigil on
my forehead?
I can no longer bloodcast, the same way I can no longer understand
Lucin. It’s a very long story that involves my demise and the Mahananda.
I swear I’ll tell you everything, but first you need to understand
something about yourself. You’re no longer…
Her body shimmers, expands, transforms.
 Even though what she is no longer is evident, I finish my sentence
anyway: A Faerie.
 Chapter 38
Zendaya

T
he soldiers gasp and so does the crowd they’re keeping at bay with
magic.
I stand. As I approach, her forked black tongue unspools from her
mouth, and then she’s writhing, banging her tusk into the wall.
I kneel and seize her tusk. Shh, I whisper into her mind. You’re all
right. I’m right here. Shh.
Her lids come up and down in rapid succession. What’s happening to
me?
You shifted into a Serpent.
A Serpent? she screeches.
Though I shouldn’t smile, I do. “I’m sorry,” I murmur out loud. In
Serpent, then in Shabbin, and then, in Lucin. I learned the word from Enzo
who says it much too often.
Enzo, who isn’t my mate.
His hurt face brightens the backs of my lids, injecting my heart with
pain. I call to him. When there’s only silence down our bond, I assume my
voice mustn’t carry so far. How far does Lorcan’s mind link to his people
carry?
Is this a spell? Agrippina asks.
No. Like I said, I can no longer bloodcast. My mother…she ended up
killing me and transferring my soul into the womb of a serpent—a real
one. I grew up as a serpent. Two lunar cycles ago, I was dipped inside the
Mahananda and reborn a woman with the ability to shift.
 Her slitted nostrils flare. How much Faerie wine did I ingest?
You aren’t inebriated, Agrippina.
Asleep. I must be asleep. This must be a nightmare.
My fingers tumble off the ivory and knock into my knees. Nightmare?
Enzo had been so excited. How naïve I was to assume that becoming a
Serpent would thrill everyone.
Who’s Enzo?
He’s the first Serpent shifter I created. You’re the second.
Flick my cheek.
Flick your…?
Flick my cheek. Or pinch me.
Why?
Daya, just do it.
I flick her scaled cheek.
Fuck. I felt that. This is real. I’m a real fucking sea serpent. Fuck.
She looks around, sets her gaze on her parents. Poor Mamma. I suppose
I’d be bawling my eyes out as well if my daughter shifted into a
frightening creature.
She’s crying because your mind is whole again.
Agrippina’s gaze swerves back toward me. Pardon me?
Shift back. We’ve a lot to discuss. If you don’t shift back, we’ll need to
go for a swim.
Though she cannot rumple her nose in this form, I sense her grimacing.
In the canals bordering Rax? I’d rather chop off the points of my ears.
You already did that. I don’t tell her that I came by this information
when I overheard Kanti discussing it with the Akwale. I’d prefer Agrippina
not dwell on the fact that her action is public knowledge.
What? Her voice shrills against my thudding skull.
You cleaved off the tips of your ears.
What?
You cleaved off the tips of your ears.
I fucking heard you the first time! Why the Mahananda would I do
such an idiotic thing?
I press my lips together. Because I placed my baby inside your womb.
You did what?
Is that rhetorical, or do you need me to repeat it?
 She dips her head as far as her neck will allow. Your baby’s growing
inside of me?
Not anymore. When she remains quiet for a disquieting stretch of time,
I say, Please shift back, Agrippina.
How?
I usually visualize legs, and it works.
Whose legs?
I laugh. Usually, my own, but I suppose you could visualize anyone’s.
So fucking weird… she mutters.
My trick must work because, two heartbeats later, she’s back in flesh.
She takes in the surrounding world from where she lays, flat on her
stomach, the fur collar of her cloak tickling her human jaw. Then she
shoves herself up and glowers around her, hands perched on her hips. She
hisses something in Lucin that has Reid snorting and Ceres smiling through
her tears.
“Our spitfire of a daughter is truly back,” Justus says in Shabbin, giving
his head a small shake.
I suddenly wonder if the whole world stood still, or if I just filtered it
out when Agrippina was in scales.
She touches her ears, rubbing their rounded shell, and curses under her
breath before cursing once again when she carries a lock of hair in front of
her eyes. My hair is blue?
I don’t bother nodding since the hue is evident, even in the faint light
afforded by the lantern jutting from the wall at her back.
Agrippina’s hand moves off her hair and up to her forehead. When her
nails graze her retracted tusk, she shudders, but then she pops her hand off
her forehead and holds it in front of her face. I can’t call on my Faerie
magic…
Just like my blood magic.
“Are you all right, Mádhi? You’re looking awfully pale.”
I nod to reassure Fallon, even though I don’t feel all that grand. “Just a
little drained, abi.”
Cathal helps me to my feet, locking his arm around my waist. My vision
swims and my temples scud.
“Agrippina has no memory of the last two decades,” I add quietly to
redirect their concern off my sudden feebleness.
 Fallon bites her lip. “So she doesn’t remember me.” With a deep
swallow, she’s sidestepping us and walking over to Agrippina, squeezing
past her Faerie grandparents.
“Two mothers, and both forgot about her,” I murmur, pained for Fallon.
“Can you hear her?” Cathal asks.
I want Enzo to hear it from me first. Enzo?
Day… Enzo’s voice is no more than a raucous whisper. One that makes
my hand crawl up to my breastbone to try and keep my heart from beating
out of my chest. I think I’m dying.
 Chapter 39
Cathal

Z
endaya has been worryingly quiet since she sobbed out Enzo’s name,
followed by a hoarse entreaty for me to carry her back to Shabbe
immediately.
She was so distraught that when I asked what was wrong, all she could
do was tremble. Tremble and snap, “Can you carry me home or should I ask
Erwin?”
Obviously, I obliged, preferring she stop riding other Crows. I’d already
made my feelings abundantly clear to Erwin, whose muttered excuse of a
bargain hadn’t stopped my fist from sailing into his jaw while Zendaya
healed Agrippina.
I’d asked him how he’d like it if someone had struck a bargain with his
mate. He’d blinked. Before he could remind me that Daya wasn’t my mate,
I’d turned back toward the pink-haired woman I couldn’t fucking get out of
my mind. However many missions Lorcan sent me on, Zendaya was always
there, shimmering on the edge of my thoughts, just out of reach.
Daya’s hand suddenly squeezes the feathers at my neck so hard that my
wings hold still. “There,” I hear her say.
I glance at her, find her gaze riveted to a part of the Sahklare that is as
dark at night as it is during the daytime.
“Carry me down.”
I scoff. Does she seriously expect me to drop her off in the middle of the
Chayagali?
“Cathal, Enzo’s here! I can feel him.”
 Fucking Enzo.
Even though my rider rages at me to turn back, I flap my wings harder,
arrowing toward the palace where Erwin and Fallon are just landing with
their riders. The second I clear the trees, I dissolve into smoke to buffet
Daya’s fall, then morph right back into my Crow and sail off. Her shouts
resonate through the Cauldron-shaped queendom, banging against my ribs
as I drift up the Sahklare, peering into the algae-bright water for green
scales. I fly over the narrow stretch of water twice. Zendaya must’ve been
wrong about her shifter’s location because the Green One’s nowhere in that
water. I wouldn’t miss a Serpent of his stature.
I’m about to ask another Crow to check with Daya about where she felt
him when branches bristle followed by deep snarls. I drift lower and
glimpse a tendu crouched over coils of green, warning off another. Fucking
tendus.
I tilt my body, part my beak, and bullet down. A moment later the
famished feline’s blood warms my beak. I toss away his body just as
another tendu leaps and lands on me. Before I can shift to smoke, its claws
sink past my feathers. Little does he know that he’s fucked with the wrong
Crow.
He paws at the limp Serpent with a triumphant roar, one that I cut short
when I cinch his scrawny ribcage with my talons, squeezing until his ribs
have all splintered. I toss him aside, then land and shift. Though I don’t
particularly care to linger in the Shadow Forest, especially in skin, I want to
see if a pulse of life remains in Zendaya’s mate before carrying him home.
My gaze clocks the chunks of flesh carved out of various parts of his
body. One bitemark is so deep and wide that my iron-clad stomach churns. I
stride toward his head that lolls against the sandy soil, lids clasped shut,
tusk half-buried in the ochre dirt. I crouch and seize his tusk to right his
face. I consider giving it a jostle to test his alertness when I recall the
damage he incurred at the fangs of the tendu.
I end up patting his cheek and muttering the word for serpent in
Shabbin. When after my fourth iteration of, “Naaga,” he doesn’t stir, fear
replaces my concern.
Yes, fear. For all my anger that the Mahananda matched her with
another, I know what the loss of one’s mate feels like, and I would never
wish it on anyone. Especially not on the woman I still care for.
 I palm his neck to locate a pulse. When something flutters against my
skin, I expel a relieved breath, shift back into my other form, and carefully
scoop him up. He dangles from my talons like a piece of seaweed. The
comparison is horrid, and I instantly chide myself for it.
When I approach the vale, my eyes lock on Daya’s searing ones. It
strikes me that her hair is wet, as is her dress. I take it that she must’ve tried
to swim toward us. I’ve never been more glad for the bargain we struck
about waterrises. She might not be mine to protect anymore, but the idea of
her swimming in tendu territory drops my body’s temperature to one
equaling the wintry air in Monteluce.
I deposit him at her bare feet, then shift and watch as she peruses his
body. Unlike me, she doesn’t hunt for a pulse. She must sense he still lives
through their mind link.
As she kneels beside him, she looks up at me through narrowed eyes as
though I’d been the one to attack and carve out her little mate. “Do not cast
me off your back without my consent again, Cathal Báeinach.” Her anger is
a live thing that chews up the air around us.
Again… That means she intends to hitch more rides on my back. I cross
my arms, keeping my expression bare of all sentiment, even though relief
stirs behind my ribs. I’d feel even more so if I knew whether she could hear
Agrippina.
I consider striding to where the blue-haired former Faerie stands
conversing with Fallon, Ceres, Priya, and Behati, but I don’t, for inquiring
while a Serpent lay bleeding at my feet feels immoral and untimely.
“You should get Agrippina to heal him,” I advise Daya, whose stores of
magic have already been depleted once tonight.
“He’s my Serpent. My responsibility.”
I note that she didn’t say mate. Petty. So petty. “I meant, because you’re
already spent.”
“I’ll do it in the water.” She walks over to his head and leans over to
bracket it tenderly between her palms. “Can one of you lower him inside?”
“I’ll do it.” Erwin shifts before I can.
As I accompany Daya to the moat’s edge, she nods to my arm. “How
bad are your wounds?”
“Just scratches. They’ll heal.”
“Show them to me after.”
After. “Tendu claws aren’t made of obsidian, Sífair.”
 “I’d almost forgotten how dogged you could be,” she huffs.
My lips set into a smirk. One that makes her head shake as she plunges
headfirst into the deep trench ringing the valley of the Cauldron. I stand on
the steep cliff, gaze riveted to the inky water.
After dropping Enzo off inside the moat, Erwin parks himself beside
me. “Poor kid. The tendu really got him good.”
“He should’ve known better than to venture in that part of Sahklare,” I
murmur. “Especially since, unlike the other serpents in Priya’s queendom,
he can shift and use a fucking boat.”
Justus sidles close to us, his furred cape rustling against the black velvet
inserts of his jacket. It’s far less gaudy than the gold and burgundy uniform
he used to don, but still too foppish for my taste. Then again, unlike Faeries,
I don’t have much taste in fashion, nor any inclination to develop one.
“A Serpent,” he murmurs. “My menagerie is growing.”
I side-eye him while Erwin guffaws.
My fellow general shrugs, a smile tickling the edge of his lips and the
corners of his timeworn eyes. “A snake. A bird. Next thing I know, my wife
will ask the Cauldron to turn her into a grasshopper.”
“Which wife?” I needle him.
With a sigh, he says, “Ah, Cathal… Forever aiming below the belt.”
“I can’t imagine having two mates,” Erwin muses out loud. “One’s
already a constant adventure.”
His euphemism draws snorts from both Justus and me.
Bubbles pop at the surface of the moat. Is Daya already done? Are they
swimming up? I squint. Hold my breath. When no Serpent surfaces, I push
the air back out of my lungs and attempt to distract myself by asking Justus,
“How’s your daughter dealing with her transformation?”
He flinches. “She has twenty-two years of history to catch up on and
new magic to tame.”
“I still can’t believe Daya can make others.” Erwin rolls his neck,
making it crack. “Can you imagine if Lore could turn humans?”
Justus’s blue irises glow like the algae-filled rivers. “All of Luce would
be feathered and winged. Already so many have taken to facial tattooing.”
“Where’s your feather?” I ask. “Still ambivalent about your allegiance?”
“No, but tattoos are permanent, and though they look fine on young
skin, they’re not as comely on rumpled faces.”
 “You speak as though you were eight-centuries old instead of middle-
aged.”
“Just add stripes,” Erwin suggests. “It’ll conceal the wrinkles.”
A slender hand winds around my bicep, startling me, even though I
know the shape and weight of my daughter’s fingers by heart. “Are you
three truly discussing face care or are my ears deceiving me?”
“Your ears are deceiving you, ínon.”
She smiles and pats my arm.
“Where’s Lore?” I ask.
“Dealing with protests in the west. Apparently, my cousin has been
bugging everyone’s homes with listening sigils. Phoebus’s sister found out
and told everyone. Not only do the Tarespagians and Selvatins feel like it’s
a breach of their privacy, but also a breach of the peace accords.”
“At least it’s bringing them together,” Justus says, which earns him
three deep glowers. “What? It is.”
“We’d prefer commerce and education bring them together,” I mutter.
“Not antagonism towards the new regime.”
“Antoni’s green.” Justus tosses that out as though we’d elected him as
governor out of choice. “And his ears are round.”
Fallon bristles. “People are no longer measured by the shape of their
ears, Nonno.”
“True, but until the dust has fully settled over the change of regime, I
would’ve instated a full-blooded Faerie as well.”
I flex my jaw, remembering our lengthy debate and all the reasons
Lorcan refused. He might trust Justus, but the general’s ambitious. “Perhaps
the day you wear our feather, Lorcan will indulge you.”
Justus thins his lips.
“Antoni’s not ruling over the entire region alone, Nonno,” Fallon says,
trying to ease the tension. “Naoise’s there.”
“Naoise’s a shifter.” Justus barely separates his teeth as he mutters this.
“How did Flavia Surro find out?” Erwin asks.
“Kanti invited her for tea at Antoni’s, which is where all the sigils
converge. In one of the rooms. Kanti apparently forgot to reapply her
soundproofing sigil.” My daughter says this with a weighted sigh.
“Does Lorcan want me to sail out there?” Justus murmurs.
“Let me ask,” Fallon says. A moment later, she says, “Yes, but he
understands if you prefer to stay with your daughter until she acclimates to
her new self.”
Justus glances over his shoulder. “Ceres is with her. Besides, it’s
Agrippina we’re talking about. Your mother—” He stops. I feel his gaze
scrape my face, then the surface of the moat. “Surrogate mother holds on to
grudges almost as hard as your mate, so I’m not going to be in her favor for
a while, still.”
“Hard to believe anyone can be as begrudging as my mate,” she says
with a smile.
“I can fly you over, Justus,” Erwin offers. “Once you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.” As Erwin morphs, I hear Justus murmur, “Zendaya
amMeriam, tiudevo.” He walks toward Erwin, exchanging a look with
Ceres. At her nod, he climbs atop Erwin.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier, Fallon,” I murmur as she pillows her
head against my arm.
“Please. You were at your wit’s end.” She squeezes my arm. “Anyway,
do you want to hear a fun fact I learned tonight?”
“Always. I love your fun facts.”
“Agrippina can hear Mádhi…and Mádhi can hear her.”
My heart pulses out so many beats that it alters the cycle of my breaths
and cramps my lungs.
Enzo isn’t her mate, I think, before remembering, You aren’t either.
 Chapter 40
Zendaya

H
ealing Agrippina and Enzo drained me. Though I surfaced in skin
from the Amkhuti, I’m not entirely certain how I got from the
Amkhuti to my bed. I assume someone carried me. I also assume that
this someone may have been winged.
I wake to fingers of light scraping against my lids. For a moment, I just
lay there and reflect on everything that’s happened. It feels like a dream. I
suddenly worry that it was and sit up brusquely.
“Easy there, imNaage.” Asha clucks her tongue at me.
“ImNaage?” Mother of Serpents?
“Well, you’re now the proud owner of two Serpents.”
“One does not own people, Asha.” I flop back onto my mattress with a
sigh. “Right?”
“Slavery isn’t a thing in Shabbe.”
“But it is in other places?”
“Yes and no. Faeries insist they pay each one of their servants, but it’s
such a pittance that it probably feels like slavery to the humans in their
employ. I request a change of topic. Not only because the other pisses me
off, but because…you have two mates?”
“What?”
“Agrippina, who is, um, a surprisingly vivacious woman, claims that
she can hear you.” Asha hops stomach-first onto my bed, sending my
mattress rippling. She props herself onto her elbows and cups her round
cheeks. “Can she?”
 “Yes, but that doesn’t make her my mate.”
Asha frowns. “I thought⁠—”
“Lorcan shares a mind link with all his Crows. I believe that my type of
shifter works the same way. It’s why I went to Luce in the first place.”
“Well that explains Enzo’s grouchiness. Do you know that he’s stayed in
his beast form for the last two days? Refuses to eat anything. I thought it
was sympathy pains for his mate, but I think he may be depressed. He really
likes you.”
“He likes me because I saved his life and gave him magic.”
“No, Daya. He really likes you.”
“He’s a child.”
She rolls onto her back and stretches out. “He’s nineteen.”
“So I’ve been convalescing for two days?” I ask, not feeling like
discussing Enzo’s crush. “Tell me all that’s been happening.”
“Ceres and your new Serpent have taken residence in Enzo’s wing.
Fallon has been making many roundtrips between Luce and Shabbe to
check on you and bring news from Luce. Your little stint has disquieted
quite a few Lucins.” She smirks.
“Is Lorcan very angry with me?”
“Nah. I think it’s come in quite handy. Humans now believe they can
have magic. Since you’re the Lucin Queen’s mother, they’ve been on their
best behavior. As for the Faeries, they, too, have been behaving but that has
more to do with fear than eagerness. They’re a little worried you’ll come
and lick them next.”
I snort. “What about Taytah? Is she angry?”
“Just remember that all she feels and shouts stems from love.”
“That doesn’t sound ominous,” I mumble, suddenly unsure whether I
should leave the comfort of my palace wing. I rub my arms, then frown
when I notice the golden glint of a bargain. Didn’t I already collect
Erwin’s?
Asha rolls up and off the bed, then stretches her arms over her head
once more as though she, too, has been slumbering for days. “A present
from the Lucin general.”
Right away, my mind goes to Cathal.
“A thank you for having saved his daughter.”
Of course. Whyever did I imagine Cathal would’ve given me a favor?
After all, there’s nothing I’ve done for the man that would warrant his
gratitude. I’m tempted to ask Asha if he went home. He must’ve. Perhaps
he visited, though?
“I’ve yet to hear you apologize,” she says.
“For?”
“For leaving me without any warning.” She dips her head and gives me
a stern look that makes me want to grin more than apologize. “I’ve gone up
another dress size.”
Where Taytah can be downright frightening when she’s angry, my guard
cannot. “I’m sorry, Asha.”
“You swear to never leave Shabbe without me again?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
I sigh and roll up. I must move too fast because my vision spins. I knead
my temples.
“Drink this”—she shoves a glass full of bright green juice into my
hands—“and then say, I swear, Asha amNeema, that I, Zendaya amMeriam,
will never leave the queendom without you.”
I take a few sips, then lower the glass and lick the sweet nectar off my
lips. “How come I never knew that your mother’s name was Neema?”
“Daya…”
“I’m not going to speak any more vows out loud, but I am sorry to have
distressed you.”
She huffs.
I take another sip as I get to my feet. “Now that we’re three, should I
launch my own facial tattoo? A little serpent around one eyebrow?”
“I think that thing in the middle of your forehead is branding enough.”
“Fair point.”
She trails me to my bathing chamber and leans against the wall as I go
about my business. While I wash my hands, I twist my face this way and
that. My hair has acquired a lot of volume while I slept but is surprisingly
not salt-hardened.
“I washed it so your sheets wouldn’t smell like the inside of a conch
shell.” Asha nods to my outfit. “I also changed you, even though your
favorite Crow desperately offered to assist me.”
“Why wouldn’t you let Fallon help?”
“That’s not the Crow I was referring to,” she singsongs.
 My blood warms. “He’s not my favorite.” I splash my face, then pat it
dry and rub coconut-honeysuckle oil onto my pulse points.
She sidles back against the door as I traipse into my closet. “Well, just
in case you were wondering, he’s been flying over on the regular to check if
you’d roused.”
My heart begins to sprint. “I wasn’t wondering.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
I pitch off my nightgown and replace it with a yellow dress that slips
over my skin like sunshine but ripples like water, what with my heart
beating as briskly as it is.
“I’m guessing he didn’t jump to the same conclusion as I did about you
having two mates.”
I drop down on the pouf in the middle of my dressing chamber to lace
up a pair of golden sandals. “How did he find out about my mind link to
Agrippina? Did she tell him?”
“Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“I suppose not.” I secure the laces with a double-knot.
“What are you going to do?”
“About?”
“His hopes and dreams of rekindling your old romance?”
“Nothing.” At least, not for now. “I have a new Serpent to train.”
“Your grandmother saw to her training. She can now shift in and out of
scales at will.”
“Has Enzo introduced himself?”
“He’s been wallowing, remember?”
“In the Amkhuti?”
“The Akwale have shut off all accesses to the Sahklare and dropped the
waterline to avoid a repeat of the other night. Though truth be told, I think
Enzo has learned his lesson.”
Enzo? No answer. Agrippina?
Her voice crackles through my mind almost immediately. Present, my
queen.
No need for titles. I’m not your queen.
Shall I call you Maker? Or Mother of Serpents?
I snort. Daya will be just fine.
You’re lucky we were really close friends back in the day.
Why’s that?
 Because if I didn’t remember liking you so much, I would’ve had a
bone to pick with the woman who used my body as a hatchery. You gave
me fucking stretchmarks.
I’m not sure what those are.
Fallon, our daughter—I can feel her smile and realize, for the first
time, that the usual wave of jealousy doesn’t dash against me—was kind
enough to work her magic on them. Hopefully a few more sessions of
blood therapy will have my body good as new.
I massage my throbbing temples. Were you always so talkative?
Always.
And we truly were friends?
You stuck a baby inside of me, so yes, Daya. We were friends. After a
beat, she asks, You really have no memory of your past life?
No. I lower my hands to my thighs. Where are you?
I was on my way to try and coax my fellow Serpent out of the Amkhuti
with some very delicious treats which I snatched off the lunch table—
Asha mentioned food might motivate Enzo to shift—but I can be
wherever you need me to be.
She’s back to sounding almost giddy.
I may have drunk a little too much date wine at lunch because a
certain Crow came to see how I was faring and his face pissed me off.
Reid?
Right. You mustn’t remember what happened between us. So, he’s the
male I was madly in lust with. We had a thing until he told me, point-
blank, that he could never be with a Faerie long-term because our bodies
weren’t compatible for baby-making. Babies… She shudders. As though I
had any desire to make babies… Anyway, I’ve doubled back and am
standing outside your door, trying to negotiate with Abrax to let me in.
“Asha, can you go open my door, please?” I call out, finally standing.
“Abrax won’t let Agrippina in.”
My guard shuffles down the long hallway. As the door hinges groan, I
pad out to greet her. For a moment, Agrippina just stands there, balancing a
glazed bowl heaped with food intended for Enzo. She shoves it into Asha’s
chest and traipses near.
“Look at that hair color,” she comments with a smile. “Is Enzo’s
green?”
“Yes.”
 “Did he have green eyes?”
“I don’t—I don’t know. Why?”
“Just a theory I have about why my hair turned blue. I mean, your eyes
were hot-pink, and…” She gestures to my hair. “Anyway. Can I hug you?”
“You want to hug me?”
“Yes. I want to hug the woman who brought me back—” Her breathy
voice catches. “To fucking life.”
Before I can answer, she winds her arms around me.
“Is the swearing new?” I ask, embracing her in return.
She laughs. “Years of hanging out with Lucin soldiers will do that to a
woman’s vocabulary. It aggrieves Mamma to no end.” She presses her
damp cheek to my shoulder. An illusion. Agrippina Rossi never weeps.
But she does, and although I cannot remember our friendship, I
understand why I transferred my most precious possession inside this
woman’s womb. I’m sorry I broke your mind.
I gave birth to the Curse-breaker. She pulls away, knuckling her lash
line. Entirely worth it. Besides, after my expedited history lesson on the
past two decades, I believe the Mahananda impaired me to keep me from
interfering, for I would—knowing my character—have revolted or done
something that would’ve compromised Fallon and jeopardized her
destiny.
Could that have been the reason or is she merely trying to alleviate my
guilt?
“Should we go try to find the male Cathal refers to as the Green One?”
Her lips flip up. “I don’t think your mate likes him much.”
Her comment flicks my heart out of alignment. Cathal isn’t my mate,
Agrippina.
“Of course he is.”
“Not in this lifetime.”
“How’s that possible? Not only did the two of you create the Curse-
breaker, but your passion was explosive, and I know explosive romance.
Well, knew. Fucking Reid…and fucking romance books that set your
expectations unrealistically high.”
“Romance books?” I ask.
“Forget I mentioned those.”
Asha snorts just as a voice I haven’t heard in too many days rings
through my hallway.
 Chapter 41
Zendaya

he Green One is here.” Enzo doesn’t stammer as he announces his

“T presence, but he speaks slowly, spacing out each word.
Agrippina whirls, her silver frock rippling around calves thinned
by disuse. Though I don’t remember her from before, I assume, from the
stories Justus told of her desire to succeed him, that she must’ve been
whittled like the rest of his soldiers.
My Serpents’ scrutiny is so thorough that I can almost hear their eyes
squeaking as they press and roll over one another’s bodies.
Agrippina is the one to fracture the quiet. “You can call me the Blue
One if it mends your ego.”
“I d-don’t—” He wedges his lips tight.
Agrippina tilts her head. “You don’t…?” After a full minute, she repeats
her question.
His eyebrows dip. She can’t hear me.
She can’t? Out loud, I say, “Try to talk to Enzo, Agrippina.”
When her own eyebrows writhe, I deduce that they cannot penetrate
each other’s minds.
“The Crows can only communicate with each other when in their beast
forms. Perhaps it’s the same for us?” I suggest.
Agrippina walks up to where Enzo stands like a beanpole beside my
closed door. She holds out her hand then speaks in Lucin. When she
remembers that I don’t speak that tongue, she switches to Serpent, “I’m
Agrippina Rossi, your new denmate.”
 He doesn’t take her proffered hand. “I kn-know who y-you are.”
Her shoulders square. “Clearly not, if you’re refusing to shake my
hand.”
“Your fa-father’s s-soldiers—” He shuts his mouth, licks his lips, then
parts them anew and blusters. “Ki-killed my grandfather.”
Agrippina bristles. “You’re holding me responsible for my father’s
soldiers’ actions? Now that’s unfair.” Her breathy voice is so at odds with
her assertive speech, like a gory, death scene rendered with pastels.
Enzo flinches. “He w-was all…all I h-had.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, but it’s still not my fault, Seaweed.”
He balks at the nickname she’s given him.
I cannot help but wonder, as I stare at the purple circles rimming his
eyes and the tracks of salt crosshatching his pale cheeks whether the death
of his grandfather is the sole factor in his dislike of Agrippina, or if another
loss—the exclusivity of my mind—is to blame.
“Agrippina, can you give Enzo and me a moment?” I ask.
My pleasure. To think Asha said he was sweet. Her nose wrinkles.
He is. He’s just angry with me.
Why?
I’ll explain everything in a little bit. Just let me talk to him.
She nods, takes his measure once more, then, chin tilted, she steps out
into the bright square of sunlight beyond my tall door.
“Come sit, Enzo.” I turn and walk to my living area.
Though he follows, he doesn’t lower himself to the cushions. Sunlight
fans across his taut features. Instead of lightening his purple circles, it
makes them appear starker, a shade neighboring the black of his eyes.
“How are you feeling?”
How do you think I’m feeling? His tone is as cutting as his stare.
Because of the tendus, or because of me?
His mouth thins.
With a sigh, I ask, “Why did you swim into the Sahklare?”
“Because I f-felt…I…” He must get fed up with his stammer because he
finishes his sentence inside my mind: I felt you suffering.
My eyes burn. My heart aches. “I’m sorry, Enzo. I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” he snaps.
How the tables have turned…
You’re not sorry you made another Serpent! he snaps.
 He’s right. I’m not.
He rams a hand through his hair that is white with so much salt the
green barely shines through. You should’ve let me die.
I suck in a breath, then hiss, “Never.” I stand and go to him. “Enzo, I
will never let you die.”
His mouth opens, probably to repeat that I should.
I press a finger against his lips to hush him and say, “I love you, Enzo
Fronz. You are my first and you will always be my favorite⁠—”
He cinches my wrist and tugs it away. I think it’s because he doesn’t
want to be silenced but realize, as his face sails down toward mine, as his
lips crash into mine, that shoving me away wasn’t his intent.
Stunned, I just stand there and gasp, which allows his tongue to breach
my mouth. I splay my hands on his chest to push him away, but then decide
to let him pour all his frustration inside me and rid himself of his crush. I
know the kiss will fizzle, just like his ardor, because there’s no spark
between our lips. Perhaps there would be if I tried to reciprocate, but I don’t
feel like trying.
My lids color with Cathal’s face and my mind with the memory of our
kiss back in the Sky Castle. What had Agrippina called the passion we had
for each other? The word returns to me as I finally skate my mouth off
Enzo’s—explosive.
The memory is so intense that I suddenly feel like I can smell him here,
in this room, next to me. I pivot, worried that I will find him. Worried that
he bore witness to Enzo’s frustration and despair. When I find no one, my
pulse hushes and I turn back toward Enzo.
“You d-don’t,” he says, hurt washing out his tone.
“I don’t what?”
You don’t love me. If you did, you would’ve kissed me back and you
didn’t even try, Daya.
Enzo, the love I have for you isn’t that of a mate. It’s that of a mother.
It’s the same type of love I have for Fallon.
With a grimace, he backs up and repeatedly scrapes the back of his hand
against his lips as though I’d been the one to kiss him without his consent.
I’m sorry, sweetheart, but⁠—
He flattens his palms against his ears and hisses, “St-Stop! J-Just st-
stop!” His eyes shimmer like faceted onyx.
“Don’t cry.”
 His Adam’s apple jumps in his throat and then he’s racing away from
me.
“Enzo, please…” I rush after him, worried he’ll try to swim out of
Shabbe again before remembering the waterrises are out of order. Please
stay safe.
He does, but he also stays away, locked in his bedroom. The only two
people he allows inside are Asha—though he doesn’t speak with her, he
accepts the food she brings him—and my grandmother—whom he does
speak with. About what is a mystery since she refuses to relay their
conversations, no matter how much I insist.
His silence toward me lasts and lasts.
Just like Cathal’s absence. When I ask Fallon if her father will
eventually join her during one of her visits, she tells me that he’s aiding in
Tarespagia. Though I’ve no reason to doubt her word, when I suggest
making a trip out there, she’s quick to tell me it’s a terribly dangerous idea.
Kanti did too much damage. Faeries positively loathe the Shabbins. She
lobs reason after reason until they form a teetering pile. One that a mere
flick of my tail would send spilling.
I’m starting to wonder whether Cathal visited me at all while I
convalesced or if Asha made that up—but why would she?
“So Kanti’s in Nebba?” I ask Taytah one evening, peering over her
shoulder at the parchment she’s inking with her signature.
“She needed a change of scenery.” She folds her letter to Eponine, the
one thanking her for hosting Kanti in this time of great unrest. “Aren’t you
glad I sent her there instead of urging her to come home?”
“You’re not keeping her away because the Mahananda has yet to make
me immortal, correct?”
Her mouth remains so immobile that it seems as though she doesn’t
even breathe, but then it moves over a quick promise: “Your cousin would
never harm you.” She picks up a stick of blood-red wax and her royal
stamp.
Though a sigil could melt the wax, she holds it over one of the large
candles burning on the middle of the enormous slab of sunstone. Once the
wax is soft, she drips some over the creamy seam of her folded parchment
before pressing the Shabbin crest into it.
In seconds, it’s dry, yet she doesn’t lift her metal stamp immediately.
“I’d like to go to Tarespagia, Taytah.”
 I expect a categorical no, but instead I get a, “Why?”
“Agrippina would like to see her father and I’d like to see Cathal.”
“I’ll send for them both.”
With a sigh, I say, “Taytah, you cannot keep me locked in a bubble for
the rest of my life.”
“It isn’t for the rest of your life, emMoti.”
“No, it’s only until the Mahananda grants me immortality. What if it
never does?”
Again, she drifts into a harsh silence. I’m about to ask about Enzo to
distract her from the touchy subject of my immortality—or lack thereof—
when she says, “Every Shabbin Queen has been immortal.”
“What if I don’t become queen?”
“You will.”
“What if I don’t want to become queen?”
She holds my stare. “You are my heiress, Zendaya.”
“So is Meriam.”
Again, she hisses. “Never speak her name⁠—”
Her eyes suddenly blanch. I remain silent, wishing the Mahananda
would reach out to me again, but since guiding me toward Agrippina, it
hasn’t poured any more words into my mind.
The queen blinks the haze away, the line of her mouth hardening as her
gaze tightens on the wax seal.
“Any chance it told you how I’m to become immortal?” I ask, when she
hasn’t volunteered anything.
She stays quiet for so long that I think my question doesn’t register, but
then she shakes her head. “No. It merely informed me that it’s almost ready
to receive Lorcan or whichever Crow needs his curse removed.”
“No!” someone shouts.
I jump and my heart misses a beat. I twist toward the doors of the Kasha
only to find them closed.
As I squint around the room and then at the glass ceiling, new words
shatter the stillness: “Your mother holds the key to your immortality. Find
her.”
My eyes widen and my skin tingles, because I suddenly realize who the
voice belongs to. I lick my lips. “Taytah?”
She’s carefully putting away her wax stick and seal in a box inlaid with
nacre. “Yes?”
 When I give my lips another lick, one of her eyebrows arches. Why am
I suddenly nervous? Not only is it my Mahananda-given right to meet the
woman who made and doomed me, but it’s also the edict that comes to me
straight from the Mahananda. “I’m ready to meet my mother.”
For a long moment, she simply stares into my face. And then she filches
her letter, stands, and walks to the doors which part as though by magic.
But it isn’t magic. Since the wood panels are carved, the guards stationed
outside can see into the room when she allows them to.
I pinch my silk skirt to catch up with her. “Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m ready.”
“Well I’m not, emMoti.”
“With all due respect, Taytah, it’s hardly your choice.”
“She’s my daughter. My prisoner. It is entirely my choice.”
My lungs burn from how hard I’m breathing. “She’s my mother.”
“No. Your mother was a serpent.”
My vertebrae snap into harsh alignment. “Before⁠—”
“Before?” Priya gives an ugly chuckle. “My daughter abandoned the
girl you were before. She abandoned her with me. I was your mother
before. Not her. Never her.”
“I’m not asking for a one-on-one audience with⁠—”
“Zendaya, I said no!” Her answer is so shrill that it shivers the delicate
petals of the honeysuckle vines climbing up the Kasha’s walls.
I’m about to retaliate that I’m entitled to meet the woman who
murdered me when the disembodied voice rings between my temples anew:
“Claim your bargain, Zendaya.”
My bargain? It takes my mind a moment to recall what bargain the
Mahananda is referring to. Not that I have more than one. The second I do,
though, my pulse propels so many heartbeats through my veins that I grow
lightheaded and latch on to a twilit vine.
“Get this letter to Eponine of Nebba,” the queen commands one of the
guards before refocusing on me. “Forgive me for raising my voice, emMoti,
but talk of Meriam always agitates me. Perhaps someday, it won’t.”
I don’t say anything, too busy thinking many things. Chiefly, why is the
Mahananda’s keeper going against its biddings? And secondly, how can
Justus help me find Meriam?
 “Priya wishes to keep the shifter races subservient to the Shabbins. Why
do you think she sent Fallon into the Mahananda and not Lorcan?”
My heart patters before stilling as I recall the vision of Lorcan getting
staked with obsidian. If only I’d possessed the words to tell him.
“Do not blame yourself. But find Meriam and make haste, for Behati
has foreseen the future I desire, and she’s endeavoring to alter it.”
I suck in air. “Will you talk to me all the time now?”
“Earn my trust, Zendaya of Shabbe, and I will stay at your side always.”
So my grandmother doesn’t suspect my anger, I feign fatigue before
padding out to the Amkhuti embankment, pursued by a little colony of
moon moths and my ever-faithful Abrax. He’s quiet but concerned, and
becomes even more so when I insist on being left alone. Since I cannot
climb out of the moat, he indulges me, standing at a distance but keeping
me in his line of sight.
When I’m certain not a single palace guard is within earshot, I whisper
my bargain into the stars, my bicep tingling as the golden band fritters
away. And then I settle against a tree, alternately surveying the Sahklare for
an inbound ship and the sky for an incoming Crow, unsure what means of
transport the Faerie will use.
The stars fade and a new dawn rises, and still the Lucin general doesn’t
show. But someone else does. Did he come for me?
 Chapter 42
Zendaya

nzo?”
“E My Serpent startles, his fingers slipping off the knot of the belt he
wears to keep his trousers up. Clearly, he’s not here for me. He
makes this all the more evident when he turns and pounds farther down the
ridge.
I miss you.
He flinches.
Please talk to me.
He doesn’t.
I stand and start toward him. Enough! You’ve pouted long enough.
He glares, but then his eyes widen as he notes that I’m closing in on
him. He must decide that damp fabric beats a conversation with me because
he dives in, fully clothed.
You kissed me without my consent, Enzo, which gives me every right
to be angry, but I’m not, because your act wasn’t born from malice but
from misplaced desire.
Though he sinks deep and doesn’t respond, I know he can hear me.
You know who else has a right to be angry? Cathal. For I was his
mate, once upon a time. His true mate. But I’m not his anymore. I belong
to no one, Enzo, not to you and not to him. However, you belong to me.
You are my Serpent, whether you want it or not. And not just any Serpent,
but my first. That makes you special.
Still, I’m not your son, he hisses.
 I might not have given birth to your human body but I did give birth
to your Serpent one.
I would never have kissed my own mother. That’s revolting.
I catch the gleam of green scales beneath the limpid surface that glitters
as though tiled with the same tiny, convex mirrors that adorn my ceilings.
What do you think of Agrippina?
She talks a lot. The corners of my mouth begin to flip up until he adds,
And she’s related to Justus Rossi.
The mention of the man I await flattens the curve.
Why do you await him?
Enzo’s question makes my pulse falter. I should’ve kept his name from
my mind.
The chuff of air on the Amkhuti’s surface draws my gaze low. I’m not
special enough to know your secrets? I thought we were one big happy…
den. Especially now that his daughter is part of it.
Tears brim on my lash line that he’s crumbled the wall he erected
between us.
I’m still angry that you went to Luce without me. And that you picked
Agrippina, he adds with a grumble.
I smile.
I get to pick our next denmate without veto.
Yes. You have my word that our fourth Serpent is yours to choose.
Good. Now why is Justus Rossi on his way?
If I tell you, you must promise not to tell Taytah. I know the two of you
are close.
There’s a beat of awkward silence. She…told you?
Tell me what?
Nothing.
Obviously, it’s not nothing.
My loyalty lies with you, Day. If you don’t believe me, then I’ll swear
an oath⁠—
I trust you. And so I tell him about my conversation with the
Mahananda and of its advice to find Meriam. I also explain that it led me to
Agrippina.
The Mahananda told you to make her a Serpent?
It told me to find her, but yes, I imagine it intended for me to save her
life by transforming her into a Serpent.
 Well, fuck me…
While Enzo whirls on himself at the sound of Agrippina’s voice, I fall
silent and hunt the Amkhuti for blue scales.
You can hear us? he exclaims.
Yes, Seaweed. I can hear you just fine. No need to shriek.
I was right. My Serpents’ minds are all linked when in scales.
Enzo grumbles beneath his breath. How long have you been
eavesdropping?
I wasn’t eavesdropping. I went for a swim and happened on your little
exchange. Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are that we’re conversing
right now.
How much have you heard, Agrippina? I ask, putting an end to their
bickering.
Just that you called my father so that he can lead you to Meriam
because she’s the key to our immortality.
To Day’s immortality, Enzo says.
Though she has no shoulder to shrug, I can picture her shrugging. I
imagine that once our maker’s immortal, we will be as well, since that’s
what happened to the Crows.
I ferry the question to the Mahananda, but it affords me no answer.
I must miss a part of their conversation because Agrippina is hissing at
Enzo that if he ever calls her Pee again, she will throttle him with her tail to
which he says, You call me Seaweed. Only fair you get a horrid nickname.
And then he shoots off and she gives chase, and although they’re acting
like wayward children, a sense of serenity drapes over me. One that falters
when I spy the large black bird cresting the glittery fortifications, an
orange-haired rider on its back.
My Serpents must sense my elevated pulse through our bond because
they’re suddenly both surfacing and shifting, both carving across the dawn-
lit water toward the vine ladder. Enzo flicks his head at Agrippina to go
first, then climbs up after her. Wet fabric, turned sheer from their swim,
clings to their skin. Where Enzo nervously wrings out the hem of his tunic
and draws it over the bulge between his legs, Agrippina doesn’t bother
plucking the fabric off her slender curves, not even when she catches his
gaze on her peaked nipples.
“See something you like?” she taunts him.
 “Go-Gods, how old are y-you?” He shakes his head, springing droplets
off his green hair that has grown the length of a knuckle since he first
arrived in Shabbe.
“Almost two centuries older that you are, Seaweed.”
He glowers at her and crosses his arms before muttering into my mind,
Does Justus know what he’s coming to Shabbe to do?
Yes. To Agrippina, I repeat Enzo’s question and my subsequent answer,
followed by a command not to speak of anything out loud. Anything you
both want to say, you speak it into my mind from this moment forward.
Nod if you both heard me.
They nod. Though repeating everything individually wouldn’t have
been the end of the world, my voice broadcasting into both their minds at
once is a boon.
The Crow’s broad shadow drapes over us as it swoops low. Though my
entire focus should be on Justus and where he’s about to lead me, it isn’t;
it’s on the male who carried him here. He may still be in feathers, but I’d
recognize Cathal Báeinach anywhere.
 Chapter 43
Zendaya

ow exactly are we going to go about this?” Justus murmurs as he

“H leans in to kiss my cheek in customary Lucin fashion. “I don’t even
know where she’s being kept.”
I frown before remembering the circle inked on his palm. “You must use
your connection to her.”
As Cathal morphs, Justus leans toward my other cheek, bringing his
mouth right up to my ear. “I’ve tried. I cannot feel her.”
Except he mustn’t have tried well enough, since the Mahananda
instructed me to claim my bargain, and his was the only one I had.
We exchange a weighted look as he moves toward Agrippina.
Tell your father that you’re so glad he came to check on you and walk
to your bedchamber with him. Once you’re out of earshot of the guards
and behind closed doors, let me know. My eyes track up the corded length
of Cathal’s neck which snaps with heartbeat after heartbeat. Enzo, go with
them.
Once they both retreat, albeit reluctantly, I ask Cathal in Crow, “You
leave immediately or have time for drink?”
He crosses his arms. “It’s seven in the morning.” At my frown, he says,
“I don’t day-drink.”
“I mean coffee. Or tea.” I riffle through my mind for the word for juice
in Crow, but it doesn’t come so I say it in Shabbin.
“I’m not thirsty. Besides, I’ve a job to return to.”
 Annoyed, I don’t even bother using Crow. “I’m sure Lorcan will
understand if you took ten minutes off to visit with me.”
He smiles, but it isn’t good-natured. “Nah. He wouldn’t understand,” he
replies in Crow. “We don’t have time for idleness back in Luce.”
My eyelid twitches at his underhanded insult. “And yet you had time to
carry Justus over,” I snipe back in Shabbin.
He answers in Crow: “Yes, which was very inconvenient, but my job’s
done and now I must fly back.”
I pursue in my mother tongue: “Do I get to learn the reason you’re
acting so brusque with me?”
He dips his chin. “Well, let’s just say that I’ve met someone.”
My heart goes so still that I think he’s scooped it out of my chest with
his iron talons.
“Isn’t it brilliant?” he asks, that false smile digging into his bristly
cheeks.
No, it’s not brilliant. It’s the opposite of brilliant, actually. With a start, I
realize this is the reason Fallon has been acting so odd each time I’ve asked
after her father. Because she knew that he’d moved on and didn’t dare tell
me.
I rub the scar around my neck as though a new vine were choking me.
“Is she Crow?” I ask, even though what I want to ask is: “Can you penetrate
her mind?”
“I never aired out my private life before and have no intention to begin
now.” Smoke bleeds from his pores. “Anyway, I’m needed back in Luce,
so”—he raises two fingers to his temple and flicks them in my direction
—“alvee, Rajka.”
I don’t know what his gesture means, or why he switches to Shabbin to
say, “goodbye, Princess,” the same way I don’t know why I’m dwelling on
either. Because it’s taking my mind off the news that I’ve been replaced?
He springs upward. As I track his departure, my pulse grows mute.
Glum, I dive into the Amkhuti and swim. I don’t surface when Enzo tells
me that my grandmother demanded they all join her for breakfast. I merely
wallow in scales. When the sun is high, I finally climb out and traverse the
gardens.
Are you back in your chamber, Agrippina?
Her voice immediately brightens my mind, but unfortunately, not my
mood. Yes.
 With Justus?
Yes.
I head there, my ribs cinched so tight around my lungs that by the time I
reach her wing of the palace, I’m wheezing. Which of course leads Abrax to
trot up to me and ask if I need him to call the healer.
I doubt a magical crystal exists to heal a broken heart, so I shake my
head, and then, before crossing the threshold, I thank him for looking out
for me. I’m about to tell him that I don’t want to be disturbed when I think
better of it. After all, nothing will kindle suspicion more than a command to
stay away.
So I walk into my Serpents’ quarters, as though I was here for a simple
visit, and amble down the long common area roofed with a sky light as
broad as the Kasha’s. Unlike my wing, this one’s made up of a dozen
apartments that vary in size and configuration.
“You should go home, Abrax. You look worn out.”
“I’m fine.”
“Where’s Asha?”
“Celebrating her mother’s birthday. You’re stuck with me today.”
I raise a smile that I’m not feeling. “You don’t have to shadow me
everywhere.”
“I’m sorry, but ever since you took off, your grandmother wants
someone at your side at all times.”
How inconvenient. With a sigh, I knuckle Agrippina’s door. It’s Ceres
who draws it open. She greets me with a cautious nod. For some reason, I’d
forgotten she’d stayed in Shabbe.
Agrippina and Justus both glance up from where they lounge in the
small sitting area beside the window that gives onto the garden. Like
Enzo’s, her apartment overlooks this wing’s private garden.
I start toward them but pause when I hear Abrax shuffle in behind me. I
plant a fist on my hip. “Will you be following me to the privy, too?”
His jaw blazes. “No.”
Going to be difficult to plot anything behind your grandmother’s back
if he hangs around, no? Maybe ask Enzo to create a distraction?
Good idea. Enzo, I need you to create a distraction that’ll lead Abrax
out of Agrippina’s chambers.
I’m with your grandmother, distracting her. Tell the Blue One to pull
her weight.
 I might have smiled at his reply if I weren’t so anxious. He’s busy with
the Queen.
Of course he is. Probably giving her yet another orgasm.
I blanch, then blurt out, “What?”
You didn’t know? Why do you think she pays him so many visits?
You’re having sexual relations with my grandmother? I ask Enzo.
Not that it’s any of your business, but yes.
Except it is my business! He’s my Serpent and she’s my grandmother. I
grimace at the thought of them laying together in the nude. How long has
this been going on?
After I kissed you. And it wasn’t premeditated. It just…happened. She
doesn’t want you knowing, so please pretend like you’re unaware.
My jaw trembles from how hard I clench it. I’ve no right to feel angry
but I do. I feel duped. I feel like I should’ve been told. Don’t hide things
from me, Enzo.
Concentrate on finding Meriam, will you?
I want to ask him if he likes her or if he took her into his bed out of
spite. Unless Taytah is the one who preyed on him? I give my head a little
shake and am about to ask Agrippina to distract Abrax when Ceres says,
“Abrax, can I speak to you outside? I have a”—her gaze slides to Justus
who just twirls his spoon inside his cup of tea—“pressing request.”
My guard starts to protest but Ceres takes his arm and leads him out.
The second the door’s shut, I ask Agrippina whether she told her mother
anything.
Agrippina shakes her head. She must’ve guessed Pappa wasn’t just
visiting for shits and giggles.
Frowning at her odd expression, I settle down beside Justus and
murmur, “Any ideas of how to locate what I need, General?”
He glances down at the magical brand on his hand before eyeing the
closed door. “What do you want with…it?”
“Answers.” He seems so unconvinced that I ask my fellow shifter, What
did you tell him?
That you wanted to meet your mother but your grandmother wouldn’t
hear of it.
You didn’t mention the Mahananda, did you?
No.
 “Everyone reviles the thing you need, but I don’t. I will only help if you
swear an oath to me that you won’t harm it.”
“I’ve no desire to harm it,” I reply quietly.
“Speak the oath.”
I can hear Cathal warning me against giving someone a bargain to lord
over me, but Cathal’s no longer at my side; he’s at another’s. Still I murmur,
“No, General. Forgive me, but I will not give another male power over me.”
He climbs to his feet. “Then I regret—I regret—” He rubs at his chest,
creating tracks in the fitted black velvet jacket. He mutters in Lucin under
his breath.
I was careful when I called in our bargain to use specific wording so
that he couldn’t leave here until she was found.
“Zendaya, you cannot keep me here indefinitely. Lorcan needs me. Luce
needs me. I cannot shirk my responsibilities⁠—”
“The Mahananda prompted me to call on you,” I murmur.
“That’s impossible. It only talks to its keeper.”
“Its keeper hasn’t been listening to it recently.”
He blinks. “It truly spoke to you?”
“Yes.”
His gaze swerves toward his daughter.
“If Daya says it did, it did, Pappa.”
His hand—the branded one—curls into a white-knuckled fist.
“You know where it is, don’t you, General?” Though I formulate it as a
question, it’s not, for I can tell that he does.
His nostrils flare with the pain of keeping the truth from me. I consider
swearing that my intent isn’t to harm Meriam, but decide against giving
Justus Rossi power over me. Who knows how the Faerie will use it?
“General?”
“Yes,” he all but gasps. “Or at least, I knew. I heard it was moved after
my unsuccessful attempt at breaking it out.”
“You tried to break it out?”
“The Akwale keep threatening to drain it. And they would’ve, were it
not for Lorcan’s bargain.”
My head rears back. “Lorcan’s bargain?”
“Of keeping it alive. That’s why he relinquished it to Priya in the first
place.”
 Agrippina rakes in a breath that is so sudden and raucous that it steals
my attention off her father. “Under Behati’s bed,” she breathes, her eyes
shining with the light of a thousand stars. And then she’s blinking and
rubbing her arms that are peppered with goosebumps.
A door clicks, making my heart skitter. I swing my gaze off my Serpent,
expecting to find both Abrax and Ceres standing there, but Ceres is alone. I
don’t know how she got rid of my guard but I’ve never been more grateful
for his absence.
The glower Ceres pins Justus with scorches the air in time with her
words.
What is your mother saying?
Verbatim: ‘Of course the whore witch didn’t release our daughter.’
Didn’t release you? From what?
She must repeat my question out loud, because Ceres’s mouth pinches
while Justus’s softens around a sigh.
He drops back down to the sofa and leans so close that his mouth
brushes my lobe. “Meriam can use Agrippina’s eyes to see.” He pulls in a
quivering breath. “And she can murmur words inside her mind. I was afraid
that when you turned my daughter, it had shattered their bond.” He
swallows, or rather, gulps. “She cast her spell the day you entrusted your
daughter to mine. It was her way of keeping watch over Fallon. Over you.
She used to be able to tap into Bronwen’s eyes because of a deal the latter
struck with the Cauldron, but every member of the Akwale could use your
sister-in-law’s eyes. Only Meriam could use Agrippina’s.” After a beat, he
says, “Can use.”
What is it? Why is Mamma fuming and Pappa weepy? Agrippina asks,
her gaze swinging between her parents.
I impart Justus’s confession through our bond, then scrutinize her
expression, wondering which side of the emotional pendulum she will
swing.
After a stretch of silence that feels endless, Agrippina finally reclines in
her seat with a snort. At this point, I should earn a spot in your family
tree.
Ceres says something to her daughter that has Agrippina shaking her
head and Justus hissing words in Lucin that all elude me.
What’s happening? I ask, mind reeling.
 Mamma wants us to leave Shabbe immediately. She says my gift will
get me slaughtered. She says that we should never have come back. Pappa
tells her that Luce isn’t safe for Serpents.
There is one place you’ll be safe. Inside the Sky Castle. I ask Justus if
he has any way of contacting a Crow.
He taps his arm and mentions that one of them owes him a bargain that
he will claim. An hour later, Imogen flies a reluctant Agrippina and a fear-
ravaged Ceres out of Shabbe.
“What now?” I ask Justus as Enzo wanders over, stabbing his messy
hair.
Justus stares in the direction of the Mahananda, his eyes glittering as
wildly as the Amkhuti. “Now, we set her free.”
My blood cools and thickens like sludge as I calculate the cost of setting
my mother free—my grandmother’s trust and love.
“Is this truly what you desire, Mahananda?”
I will it to say yes, but instead it asks: “Is immortality for all shifters
what you desire?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must set your mother free.”
 Chapter 44
Zendaya

T
he queen leans back in her chair as the platters of sweets are swept off
the dining table. She strokes the curve of her wine goblet as though it
were a lover’s jaw. The thought has my stomach churning and my
gaze cutting to Enzo, who’s barely spoken a word, out loud or through the
bond.
“Tell me, Justus, why are you still here?”
“Am I not allowed to revitalize myself in your lovely queendom,
Sumaca?”
Her polished, pointy nails scrape up the sculpted gold. “You told me
you came to visit your daughter.” Down. Up. Down. “The same daughter
who left with your wife in haste. Yet, you remain.”
“I actually came to inform them that their house in Tarelexo was ready.
You should’ve seen how excited my wife was.”
“I hear Agrippina didn’t seem all that excited to depart.”
The guard beside Abrax shifts from one foot to the other.
“Naturally,” Justus says calmly. “Agrippina doesn’t remember that
house since she moved in after her mind was damaged. Not to mention that
her packmates remain in Shabbe. She didn’t particularly want to leave, but
Fallon promised to carry her back in the morning.”
The queen’s eyes remain fastened to the general, who sits there,
perfectly unperturbed.
Before she can succeed at perturbing him, I change the topic. “Taytah,
when were you going to tell me about your tryst with Enzo?”
 Her pupils flare wide as she pivots toward me.
Enzo slumps in his chair, muttering, Did you really have to bring it up
in front of everyone, Day?
Sorry, but I wanted to take the heat off Justus.
“I was waiting for Enzo to tell you, actually.” She smiles, but it’s as
tight as the pearl choker she wears. “I’m glad he finally did. I don’t like
keeping secrets from you, emMoti.” She reaches over and tries to capture
my hand, but I drop it onto my lap and nestle it in the black folds of the
outfit I selected for what’s to come tonight.
I’m tempted to remind her that Enzo’s nineteen and that she’s several
centuries old, but then remember that Fallon and Lorcan have the same age
difference, as do Cathal and⁠—
And not me.
Not me.
“Be kind to him,” I say.
“Day,” Enzo mutters.
I smile at my red-faced shifter. “Sorry, Enzo, but I’m protective like
that. Better learn to live with it. Anyway”—I push away from the table and
stand—“I’ve not slept all day. I wish you all a pleasant evening.”
Keep her entertained tonight. Until I tell you we’re done, do not leave
her side.
He slides his teeth from side to side. She wants to introduce me to the
others. I don’t want to meet her others. In all honesty, I don’t even want
to⁠—
One more night. Please.
He murders the stone tabletop with his gaze. Fine. I’ll use my body to
distract her. If she brings anyone else in the room, though, I’m leaving.
Tell her you aren’t interested in orgies, Enzo. You’ve every right to
have your wishes respected.
Do I?
My heart misses a beat that he’d think differently. Yes. You do. It’s your
body. Not hers.
She’s the queen, Day.
Perhaps, but you’re not one of her subjects. Never forget that.
He finally looks up and meets my stare. I try to smile but guilt keeps the
corners of my lips from tucking up. I’m about to apologize when I recall
how he yelled at me the day I did, telling me that it was unfair to apologize
for something I wasn’t actually sorry for. So I bite my tongue and stride
back toward my bedchamber, Abrax on my heels.
“I’m worried about you, Daya,” he says, as he pulls open my
bedchamber door. “You seem troubled.”
“I’ve just got lots on my mind.”
“Is it Cathal? I saw you two arguing when he dropped off Justus.”
I give him a sad smile. “It’s Cathal. Enzo. Agrippina. Taytah. It’s that
serpent poison and the Lucin war. It’s Kanti. Behati. Meriam. The list of my
troubles is rather endless, but nothing a little sleep won’t fix.”
“I wish I could help.”
“You help just by being there and not adding to my troubles. Goodnight,
Abrax.”
“Goodnight, Daya.”
As we smile at each other, I cannot help but wonder if he’ll still smile at
me come morning, or if this is to be our last moment of companionable
friendship, since freeing Meriam won’t earn me any points with the
Shabbins.
My rooms are quiet, yet I feel a presence. Two presences.
The flames shiver along their stalks as shadows glide around me and
press me into my bathing chamber. Since I know who they belong to, I
don’t flinch when they close my door. The same way I don’t balk when
Fallon adorns the walls with sigils.
“Done,” she says. “No one can hear us.”
I stare at Lorcan as he reknits into a male and leans against my sink top.
“I hear your grandmother and Behati deceived us.”
“You heard correctly.”
“And you hold this information from the Cauldron?” my daughter asks,
sucking on her fingertip.
“Yes, Fallon.”
“Are you certain it’s the Cauldron speaking and not Meriam?” Lorcan
asks.
I’m about to say yes, but what if it is Meriam? “I…I… They spoke of
Meriam in the third person.”
“Meriam is cunning and manipulative,” Lorcan says.
“Perhaps, but she doesn’t have the sight, does she? She couldn’t have
foreseen that Agrippina would be attacked,” I counter.
 “She can use Agrippina’s eyes, Mádhi. Meriam might not be able to
foresee, but she can see.”
I run the beaded tassels of my belt through my fingers, the faceted black
diamonds glimmering white against the black silk. “How could Meriam
speak into my mind?”
Fallon pushes a lock of her dark auburn hair behind her ear. “The same
way she speaks into Agrippina’s. She must’ve spelled the connection into
existence that day in the Temple. Or maybe she did it after she sent your
soul into a serpent’s womb? I don’t know. All I know is that we shouldn’t
put it past her.”
“It isn’t Meriam speaking, Zendaya. It is me. The Mahananda.”
My heart ratchets up.
“I see doubt in your mind. My keeper should never doubt herself or me.
Perhaps you don’t deserve to become my keeper. Perhaps you don’t deserve
immortality.”
“Mádhi?” Fallon touches my arm, making me jump. “The voice is
speaking with you, isn’t it?”
I don’t nod. I don’t have to. My daughter has learned to read me just
fine.
“Ask it what it showed me the day it welcomed me into its depths.”
“What did you show Fallon the day you undid her obsidian curse?” I
ask.
“You dare question me?” The anger that rises from the disembodied
voice rattles my temples. “You don’t deserve my guidance. You don’t
deserve for your species to endure. And you certainly don’t deserve Priya’s
crown. Goodbye, Zendaya. Do not seek out my mercy for I have none to
give to those who doubt me.”
“No,” I squeak. “Wait. No.” I imagine the Mahananda’s surface rippling
before becoming hard as stone.
“What is it, Mádhi?”
“It told me I was undeserving. It told me not to seek it out. I’ve doomed
my species.” I palm my mouth. “What if I’ve doomed yours too? What
have I done? What have I done?”
“The Cauldron may be temperamental, but it’s fair, Daya,” Lorcan says
calmly. “It would never doom one of its children for asking questions.
Which strengthens my conviction that the voice you’re hearing is Meriam’s.
Not to mention that your eyes didn’t whi⁠—”
 The ground suddenly rumbles, bleaching Fallon’s complexion. “What if
we’re wrong, Lore?”
Day! Enzo’s shout grips my heart and holds it in a vise. Day, where are
you?
In my bathing chamber. Where are you?
I’m with your grandmother but—but…oh. Holy. Mahananda.
What? What’s happening?
Silence.
Enzo? I screech. When he still doesn’t answer, I close my eyes and
concentrate on our mind link until it becomes as firm as a rope, one I
scramble up until I feel him. His heartbeats are slow and even. Enzo? I
shout again. He must’ve lost consciousness. “Something happened.” My
whisper is as tremulous as my limbs that rattle as I stalk toward my door.
“Something’s happening.” I seize the handle. Locked. I twist around to find
Lorcan and Fallon exchanging a grave look. “Open the door, Fallon.
Something’s happened to Enzo. Open the door.”
She doesn’t.
“The door!” I yell just as her mate dissolves into smoke.
“I’ll go find him, Mádhi. Be right back.”
“No! Fallon!” With a growl, I bang my fists against the wood. Another
tremor shoots through the earth. It’s so strong it almost buckles my knees.
“FALLON!” My throat burns from how shrilly I call out her name. ENZO!
“Do not rage against her. She is only trying to protect you.”
I whirl because the voice that has filled my mind for weeks is now
filling the air. “Meriam?” I gasp.
“Hello, my beautiful daughter.”
 Chapter 45
Cathal

T
he Faerie broke her out.
He actually broke Meriam out. And I fucking helped. I should
never have carried Justus’s duplicitous ass to Shabbe for a glimpse of
a woman. I should’ve let Imogen carry him. Yes, the end result would’ve
been the same, but at least, I wouldn’t feel like I’d participated in their little
scheme, which is bound to leave the Cauldron in a pissy mood for Mórrígan
knows how long this time.
I swerve over the palace where chaos rages as guards and sorceresses
run amok. Where most dash toward their queen’s chamber, some run toward
the wreckage that is Behati’s wing. Are they expecting to find Meriam in
the rubble? Knowing the sorceress, she’s long gone.
Dádhi? What are you doing here?
I could ask you the same thing, ínon.
How about we discuss it later? Have you seen Enzo?
Enzo?
The green Serpent. Mother’s—she stops talking, swallows—friend.
I know who he is, Fallon. What I don’t understand is why you think
I’d be looking for him.
I just thought you might’ve seen him.
Fine. I did, I grumble. He went to visit the queen earlier. Probably still
inside with her. Where’s your mother?
I locked her in her bathing chamber. She’s safe.
From what?
 From herself. From whatever’s happening out here. What is
happening?
You mean, why are all the sorceresses of Priya’s coven racing around
like headless chickens? Because Rossi broke his blushing bride out of her
underground cell.
I’m going to find Enzo and get him out of here. Go find Mádhi and fly
her out. The spell will allow a Crow to unlock the door.
We’ve got a situation. Lore’s voice bangs between my temples.
What situation? I ask as I burst into smoke and swoop beneath Daya’s
bedchamber door. It’s Priya. She’s been drained.
The shock that bursts through my chest is so violent that I weave back
into skin. Is Lorcan saying…? Is he saying…?
The Queen is dead.
For a long heartbeat, I just stand there, because there exists no one in
this world stronger than the Shabbin Queen. But I’m wrong. Meriam is
equally powerful.
Meriam, who’s on the loose.
To think she was in our clutches once. We should’ve drained her. I
suddenly wonder why we held back before recalling the reason—my mate’s
spell, the one that bound her life to her mother’s and daughter’s to make
sure Meriam couldn’t kill Fallon. Is that spell broken or are their three lives
still bound?
I suddenly hope the spell endures in case Meriam decides to drain Daya
next. The visual pours blistering ire into my veins and icy fear into my
heart. I grip the door handle of her bathroom and yank. The latch doesn’t
click. I melt into smoke and try to slip beneath it but bang into an invisible
wall. I try squeezing through the hairline crack between the solid gold
hinges. I try the fucking keyhole. My daughter’s lock spell is so resilient
that I cannot fucking enter.
I morph back into my Crow, tucking my wings in tight because the
hallway isn’t built for creatures of my breadth, and yell, Come undo your
spell, ínon! I can’t get through the door.
That’s impossible. I didn’t ward it against Crows.
Well, you must’ve spellcast wrong, because I can’t get through. I
decide to hammer the door with my iron beak, but instead of splintering
wood, it splinters my already throbbing brain. I burst back into skin. “Daya,
can you hear me?”
 Silence.
“Daya!” I punch the door until my knuckles split and spit blood onto the
pale wood. “DAYA!”
Fallon arrives, slipping right through the door in skin.
“Did you soundproof the walls?” My voice crackles with frustration and
terror and⁠—
“I did. Shit. I did.”
I sandwich my lips together as Fallon palms the door to recall her blood.
I want to tell her to hurry, but never has growling at someone to make haste
led to a faster outcome. If anything, it always slows people down, so I bite
my tongue and wait.
“Priya’s dead,” she murmurs as she keeps palming the door. I swear
she’s run her hand over every bloody inch of it.
“I heard.”
She deepens the cut on her already bleeding finger and draws the lock
sigil, then smooshes her palm against it.
Nothing.
When her eyebrows bend, my fucking heart derails.
She paints a new sigil. An arrow pointing down. When the door doesn’t
shrink, her complexion weakens, whitens.
“What?”
“My magic isn’t working.”
“Why?”
She bites her lip.
“Why isn’t—” I take a breath to try and regain control over my vocal
cords that strain and clang as though someone were striking my throat with
a flail. “Why isn’t it working, Fallon? Why?” I croak.
The fear sparking in her violet eyes torches a path straight into my
heart, enflaming the organ some more. “Because my blood mustn’t be the
only one on the walls.”
Her words steal down my spine like an icy finger. “What have I done?”
“Not your fault.”
“It is! I shouldn’t have left her alone. I shouldn’t have caged her inside
with…” Her throat moves over a swallow. “Taytah, please let me in. Just
me!” She starts banging on the door. “Please, Taytah, let me in. Please.”
But Meriam does not let her in. The same way she doesn’t let Daya out.
Fallon drops to her knees to peer through the keyhole. It must be obscured
because she curses.
“Assemble any member of the coven you can find!” I yell. “We need to
overpower Meriam’s magic.”
Her neck creaks from how fast she peers up at me, and then she’s
springing to her feet and racing out to find the others while I stand there like
the pathetic, magicless human I used to be before the Cauldron gave me
power.
Power I cannot fucking use to save my…to save the mother of my child.
I run my hand over my mouth, down my beard, before flattening it against
the wood and whispering a prayer to Mórrígan to watch over Zendaya until
I can take over.
 Chapter 46
Zendaya

T
hough Meriam hasn’t magicked my soles to the stone, I cannot seem
to step away from the door Fallon bolted shut. “What do you want?”
She flinches. I imagine because I address her by her name instead
of what she is to me. Well, what she was supposed to be but never was.
“I wanted to meet you before leaving.”
Everyone says we resemble each other, but the woman standing before
me is all serrated angles, sallow skin, and a chilling stare. She was kept in a
cell, I remind myself. From the way the dress droops over her figure like a
cheap sack and dirt crusts her skin and hair, I gather that not only was she
undernourished but also severely neglected.
“Where are you going?” I ask as her luminous gaze strokes over me.
“Out of Shabbe.”
“Back to Luce?”
She shudders. “No. Too many awful memories.”
That leaves Glace and Nebba. And a vast ocean.
As she moves nearer, candlelight catches on her high cheekbones and
almond-shaped eyes. Even in her abysmal state, her beauty is undeniable.
“My Serpent. He wasn’t answering me. What did you do to him?”
“Do you mean the green-haired boy in Amma’s bed?”
“Yes.”
“I stunned him. He’ll be fine.”
“What do you mean, you stunned him?”
“I stung him with magic to relax him. He’s sleeping.”
 “He’s alive?”
“Yes, batee. Your friend is alive.”
I want to tell her not to call me ‘daughter,’ but more pressing words
burn my tongue. “What about Taytah?”
Meriam stretches her head from side to side, drawing my attention to
the indigo bruise that rings her neck. Was she collared? Is that what my
grandmother did? A glance at her wrists reveals similar bruises. “Amma
never gave me a chance. Never even trialed me. Even when Justus and
Fallon both begged her to let the Mahananda decide my fate. Sweet Justus. I
didn’t think there was a kind Faerie left in the world until I met him.”
Even though she’s yet to answer my prior question, I can’t help but
enquire, “Where is he?”
“Somewhere safe. Waiting for me. Thank you for helping him set me
free.”
I ball my fingers, vibrating with resentment at having been used.
“Forgive me for duping you. For abandoning you.” She moves toward
me, her strides so graceful, it looks like she’s gliding instead of walking.
“For transforming you.”
When she reaches out to touch my hair, I recoil and press my cheek
against the pale wood that vibrates as though someone were pounding on it.
I imagine it’s the echo of my fevered pulse since Fallon locked me in here
for safekeeping. If she had any inkling of my current situation, she
would’ve rushed back to undo her spell.
“Tell me what you did to Taytah,” I snap.
The tone of my voice hardens her stare. “I immobilized her and then I
drained her.”
“Is she…?” I lick my lips, trying to become one with the wood at my
back. “Is she…?” I cannot get my lips to shape the word.
“She is.”
“But I thought…I thought she was immortal.”
“To a certain point. Once a Shabbin loses her blood, she loses her
magic, and thus, her immortality.”
“How?”
“I painted the death sigil that my beloved grandmother Mara taught me
before she went to slumber inside the Mahananda.” Her lips bend into a
smile that is so forlorn, it confuses my heart into believing that she isn’t a
monster. Or at least, not entirely monstrous. But she is. She committed
matricide. “Perhaps someday I’ll teach you, batee.”
“Stop calling me daughter.”
Her emaciated throat dips. “The crown is yours.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Perhaps, but it remains yours. The Mahananda desires that you wear it,
Zendaya. You. Not Kanti. Not one of the Akwale. You.”
“How do you figure, Amma? Can you converse with the source of all
magic?”
“No. Only the queen has that power.”
Anger billows like smoke within me. “Then you have no clue what the
Mahananda desires.”
“Behati had a vision of you wearing it. One she discussed with my
mother.”
“And you know this how exactly? Did they invite you to partake in this
little conversation? Did they carry it out in front of you?”
“Justus painted a sigil on the throne room’s wall that allowed me to
eavesdrop. It eventually faded, but not before I collected plenty of
interesting conversations—notably the vision of you wearing the Shabbin
crown and the one about the Crows’ curse.”
“Since when can Fae bloodcast?”
“Our husbands, once blood-bound, can use what runs through our veins
to draw spells. Why do you think Amma never married? Why do you think
the practice of blood-binding has been outlawed in Shabbe?”
Why wasn’t I aware of this? But more importantly… “You killed me
once before, Meriam. You’re probably suggesting I dive into the
Mahananda so I slumber for all of eternity.”
Her full lips pinch. “I never killed you.”
“I was reborn a Serpent!”
“Because I ferried your soul into another’s womb the same way you
ferried Fallon’s into Agrippina’s. I would never have killed you. And not
because of the spell you cast in the Holy Temple that twined our fates
together.”
My pulse whooshes like a fierce current. “What spell?”
Meriam cants her head, sending her long clumped locks tumbling over a
shoulder that is so sharp the bone looks about to stab through her skin. “No
one told you?”
 “No.”
“Not even Fallon?”
“What. Spell?”
“Right before you emptied your womb, you painted a sigil that linked
my life to yours and to Fallon’s. You were so frightened that my intent was
the annihilation of my bloodline. Since we were surrounded by Faeries, I
couldn’t explain to you that my intent had been to end my life so that my
spells would end in turn. I wanted the wards eradicated. I wanted the
Shabbins to be free and the shifters to rise anew. But because of your spell,
I couldn’t put an end to the Regio reign, for if I’d killed myself, it would’ve
killed you and Fallon.”
“Are you truly expecting me to believe that you planned on sacrificing
yourself to free the Shabbins when you just murdered your own mother?”
“Priya was a selfish liar, ravaged by greed, who failed the Mahananda…
who failed you. Who kept you subservient and mortal, because she feared
you casting her off her precious throne.”
She doesn’t have a throne, I’m tempted to snipe back, but that’s neither
here nor there. My eyebrows gather so close they kiss my retracted tusk.
“You mean to say that she’s known all along how to make me immortal?”
“Daya, abi…” Meriam sighs. “She made you mortal.”
My jaw slackens around a breathy, “What?”
“She bound your magic.”
That flicks me out of my daze. It also flicks my mandible shut. But only
for an instant. “You’re mistaken, Meriam. I’ve access to my magic.”
She frowns. “I heard otherwise.”
“Well, you heard wrong. I can change into scales and heal wounds with
my tongue. I can even make new Serpents.”
Her forehead smooths. “Ah.”
“What’s ah supposed to mean?”
She walks over to my sink, then riffles through my toiletries until she’s
unearthed a gold comb with a handle that tapers to a point. “Prick your
finger.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem to be under the delusion that the Mahananda
returned you without your blood-magic.”
My heart holds still. My lungs too. “I’m a shifter, not a sorceress.”
 “One nature does not preclude the other. Look at Fallon.” When I’ve yet
to seize the comb, she grasps my motionless fingers and raises them.
“You’re my daughter, Daya. Shabbin magic runs in your veins.”
“You’re wrong. I cannot bloodcast.”
“You can.”
“I’ve tried. I cannot!” I tear my hand out of hers, but not before she
manages to split open the pad of my index finger on the gold comb.
“Copy my sigil on the door.” She draws twin, interlocked peaks on my
mirror with her blood. A heartbeat later, the reflective glass transforms into
an oil painting of Shabbe. “It’ll transform into whatever you picture inside
your mind.”
Gritting my teeth and muttering how this is a waste of our time, I turn
toward the door, imagine it transforming into glass, then slash my index
finger up and down, up and down, a perfect emulation of her design.
The wood becomes translucent.
I gape at it, then at Cathal who stands on the other side of the door with
his arms raised along the glass and his forehead pressed to it.
His head rears back, and he blinks. I, too, blink, but then I whirl to look
at Meriam. She’s gone.
Her voice suddenly rings out in the thick air of my bathing chamber,
and I realize she must’ve made herself invisible. “When a Shabbin witch
dies, so do her spells, batee.”
Chills scamper along my spine. Along my bones. Inside of them.
I twist back toward Cathal and paint an arrow pointing downward on
the pane of wood I made glass. The transparent partition shrinks and shrinks
until nothing but air separates us.
 Chapter 47
Zendaya

A
thousand words throb on my tongue as Cathal and I stare at one
another.
What were you doing behind my door?
Why are your eyes rimmed crimson?
Were you trying to get to me?
Were you crying for me?
His brow bone suddenly plummets, draping so low that his eyebrows
clock his thick lashes. He takes a step back. “What did I tell you this
morning, Daya?”
My lips pinch. Did he think I was about to leap into his arms? The thrill
of bloodcasting withers like my delight to have found him lurking behind
my door. “It hasn’t slipped my mind. Don’t worry.”
“Speak the words back to me.”
“Why?” I snap.
“I need to hear you say them.”
“Why?”
“Just fucking say them!”
“Youmetsomeone,” I snap. “There. Relieved?”
“Yes.” His jaw twitches as though he were about to utter more words,
but he doesn’t. Because footfalls ring in my hallway?
Fallon appears beside him, her complexion upsettingly colorless. Before
I can ask her if everything’s all right, three members of the Akwale—
Malka, Aza, and Tamar—bustle in beside her. Their hands are soaked in
blood. Is it Taytah’s? Does my grandmother lay in a puddle?
“Where’s the door?” Tamar’s pink eyes scroll over the bare stone arch.
“Daya banished it,” Cathal replies, his pitch oddly toneless.
Aza’s head rears back, which sends her long, midnight locks frolicking.
“Daya?”
Fallon frowns, looking from her father to me. “I don’t understand.
How?”
“Spells die with their maker,” I explain, repeating Meriam’s last words.
Is my mother still lingering, or has she fled? Now that I know the truth,
I suddenly hope she’s gone, because Priya’s sorceresses wear expressions
that smack of vengeance.
Malka gives her head an abrupt shake, which sends her short red strands
tumbling around her bare, brown shoulders. “I don’t know what lies
Meriam fed you⁠—”
“Truths. She fed me truths.”
“Are you expecting us to believe that you suddenly have blood magic?”
Aza asks.
“I don’t suddenly have blood magic. I’ve always had blood magic. It
just suddenly returned. Like I said, spells perish with their maker.”
“ImTaytah bound you?” Fallon gasps.
“Yes.”
“She wouldn’t have done that.” Aza shakes her head. “If anyone bound
your magic, it’s your spiteful mother.”
“A mother that, until tonight, Daya had never met.” The tendons in
Cathal’s neck draw tight. “So when—do enlighten us—would Meriam have
cast such a spell?”
Malka rubs her blood-smeared hand down the silk pants she wears over
a matching sky-blue top. “She must’ve bound her magic before sending
Zendaya into the belly of the serpent.”
Could this be true? Could Meriam have pretended it was her mother’s
fault in order to ingratiate herself with me?
Fallon scrutinizes my pumping chest. “Did Meriam draw whorls of
blood on the skin over your heart, Mádhi?”
“No.”
Relief smooths Fallon’s rumpled brow. “Then Meriam was speaking the
truth. Priya bound my mother’s Shabbin side.” She nervously toys with the
little loop speared through the shell of her ear. “I can’t believe she did that.”
“Can’t you?” Cathal murmurs in Crow.
Fallon’s finger suddenly tumbles off her ear. “Do you realize what this
means, Mádhi?” Her eyes shine like the faceted sapphires strung around
Tamar’s neck. “You’re immortal!”
I draw in a breath that agitates my heart so wildly it makes my lungs
cramp. Am I?
“Yes, my little queen.” Meriam’s disembodied voice brushes against my
thrumming ears.
How is she speaking with me? Why didn’t I think of asking her? I’ve so
many questions for her.
“We will meet again, batee. Someday. Somewhere. Now don’t keep the
Mahananda waiting. Go get your crown.”
That quiets my thunderous pulse. Not only do I not feel ready to rule,
but it’s also something I don’t especially desire. First things first…
“Where’s Enzo?”
Cathal fists his fingers, which pops his knuckles and strains the straps of
his leather vambraces.
“Imogen is flying him to the Sky Kingdom,” Fallon says. “He’s alive,
but passed out.”
“Please have her fly him back here. And bring Agrippina home, too.” I
move past her, past Malka, past Cathal. Though I feel a shallow tug when I
pass by the Mahananda, I don’t march toward it. Not yet. Not until I’ve laid
eyes on my deceitful grandmother. Or maybe I’m using her as an excuse to
kill a little more time to weigh the cost of a crown against that of my
freedom.
I suddenly wish Meriam had wanted the crown and taken the choice
away from me. I lift my gaze to the stars obscured by wingbeats and pour
my question into the ether. Either she doesn’t hear me or she doesn’t care to
answer, for no words ring between my temples.
“I’m sorry I locked you up.” Fallon’s voice takes my attention off the
Crow-filled sky.
I reach up and stroke her cheek, my scabbed index finger lingering on
her delicate feather tattoo. “I’m glad you did. I got to meet Meriam.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Why didn’t you tell me our lives were bound, batee?”
 Fallon blinks. “I…I wasn’t certain whether they were anymore. Also, I
didn’t want to worry you for nothing.”
“Please never keep anything from me.”
“No more secrets.”
“Good.” I stroke her cheek once more.
I meet Cathal’s dark stare for a heartbeat, two, and then I turn and
resume my trek toward the queen’s quarters.
Fallon falls into step beside me. “Are you sure you want to see her?”
“Yes.” I cross the threshold, overhearing two members of the Akwale
discussing how Kanti and Behati are on their way back. As I swirl past
them, I ask, “When do they get here?”
“Why?” Aori asks.
“Do not question my question,” I all but snarl.
I’m aware every sorceress from Priya’s coven deems me a blemish on
Shabbinkind, a defective byproduct of a disgraced witch, an unsuspecting
serpent, and the pity of a grandmother. Spite makes me consider wheeling
and diving headfirst into the Mahananda, but I will not let such an emotion
guide my decision. Shabbe deserves better. The Mahananda deserves better.
“They should reach Shabbe by tomorrow evening since no Crow was
available to give them a ride.” Aori glowers at a space over my head, one
I’ve no doubt is occupied by Cathal, since Shabbin men aren’t as tall as
shifters.
Unless it’s Lorcan? A whiff and I know who stands behind me, even
before I find Lorcan’s crows reshaping themselves into a man on Fallon’s
other side.
“We’re stretched thin in Luce, but I deployed as many of my Crows as I
could spare to Shabbe. You want Justus and Meriam found, don’t you,
Aori?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a tiny smirk tugging at one corner
of Fallon’s lips. Are they purposely delaying Behati and Kanti’s return to
give me time to take the crown?
I brush past the line of guards and sorceresses to reach Priya’s giant bed.
I expect the sheets to have turned as red as the sails of Shabbin vessels, but
they’re white.
Like the hair fanned around her face.
Like her skin.
Like her unseeing eyes.
 The spectacle is ghastly and turns my stomach. One of my palms finds
its way to my abdomen while the other rolls into a fist at my side.
Why did you bind me? I want to yell at the corpse. Why, Taytah? Why? I
take a step nearer. I loved and admired you with all my heart. I respected
you. I thought you did, too, but I was wrong. If you’d loved and admired me,
you wouldn’t have impeded me; you would’ve elevated me. Taught me to
use my magic instead of locking it away and pretending I never had any.
I sweep my palm over her face to shut her eyes and then I turn and
stride out of her chambers. “How long till my denmates arrive?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Lorcan replies.
“Good, because I want them at my side when I enter the Mahananda.”
Stunned breaths and shocked murmurs slide into my ears as I traverse
the courtyard.
“Only someone with blood magic can sit on the Shabbin throne,” Aori
proclaims as I pass underneath the starlit honeysuckle.
“She has blood magic,” Malka mutters.
“Priya wished for Kanti to succeed her!”
I stop on the edge of the Mahananda and turn to hunt the crowd for the
architect of this decree—bronze-skinned and honeyed hair Rosh. “I’m
aware Queen Priya never meant for me to succeed her. If she had wanted
me on the throne, she wouldn’t have bound my magic, now would she?”
All present members of the Akwale exchange glances, and then they all
start moving. Not toward me, but around me.
“They’re forming their circle,” Fallon whispers.
Smoke rises from Cathal’s skin. “I’ll happily disperse it.”
“Do not go near them,” I murmur. “I do not fear their wrath or their
magic.” What I do fear is a concealed obsidian weapon, but I keep that to
myself. “If the Mahananda wants me, then the Mahananda will protect me.
I’m not your responsibility, Cathal.” I glance up at him, find his jaw ticking
beneath his black beard.
Beard…I’m so surprised my mind found a word for what grows on his
face that I almost miss his fiery reply.
“You’re the mother of my child. You’ll get my protection until I decide
to become a forever-Crow.”
My heart catches at his mention of eternal death. He has a mate. Why in
the world would he speak of death?
 His mate must be mortal. I could make her immortal, I realize. If she’s
willing to become a Serpent. I consider suggesting it, but what if Meriam’s
misled me? What if I vanish into the Mahananda forever?
A body suddenly plummets from the sky and onto the Mahananda. It’s
so blindingly white I know it’s Taytah’s. She lies there for a moment and
then she shimmers out of existence, causing not a single ripple.
Lorcan takes shape beside Fallon. “I wanted to avoid someone doing
away with her corpse, since there exists a sigil to resuscitate dead bodies.”
At my shocked stare, he explains, “A sorceress would have to sacrifice her
life for the corpse’s, but considering Priya’s fan club”—Lorcan slots his
fingers through Fallon’s—“I worried one of them just might attempt it.” He
carries her hand to his mouth and brushes a kiss against her knuckles.
Though my heart reels from his admission, it also melts at his
consideration. “Thank you, Lorcan Ríhbiadh.”
“You’re very welcome, Zendaya of Shabbe, Mother of Serpents and of
my extraordinary mate.”
All of me fills with such an influx of emotion that my eyes prickle.
“Thank Mórrígan she took after you and not the surly, winged one,” he
adds.
A laugh erupts from my throat. It’s so at odds with the rest of the night
that I almost feel guilty at having produced such a sound.
But it wanes when I hear someone decree, “We do not accept you as our
queen, Naaga.”
“Good thing she doesn’t need your approval.” Cathal’s voice rolls over
the courtyard, loud and deep and wholly steadfast.
Malka lifts her chin and slices the air with her stare. “She does, for we
are the Mahananda’s⁠—”
When she emits a choked rattle, I think Cathal has disobeyed my
command not to disperse the sorceresses, but he stands there, wreathed in
smoke. Wreathing me in smoke. I stare back at Malka, noting only then the
bent beam of iridescent light that surges from behind me and arcs onto her.
Clutching her throat, she falls to her knees, then crumples face-first into the
stone soaked with one of her sigils.
Shrill cries reverberate against the scooped, sunstone land.
“Karma,” Fallon murmurs. “Anyone else believe my mother isn’t the
rightful monarch? By all means, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
 “Best to encourage them to speak than to hold their peace, Little Bird,”
Lorcan murmurs. “Always good to weed out one’s enemies at the start of
one’s reign since we accumulate so many new ones later.”
“Hopefully my mother’s collection of enemies won’t be as bountiful as
yours, mo khrá,” she replies.
“Depends if she takes back your father. He’s a little rough around the
feathers.” Lorcan’s odd comment stiffens Cathal’s posture and makes
Fallon’s face swerve toward her mate’s.
I can tell words are exchanged. Many. I imagine she’s informing him
that Cathal has a new mate, though I’m surprised, seeing as Lorcan and
Cathal are so close, that news hasn’t reached him yet. Then again, Cathal’s
a private person.
Two Crows suddenly swoop low—one carrying a green-haired male, the
other a blue-haired female.
It’s time. As Enzo and Agrippina disembark from their winged steeds, I
murmur my intent into their minds. I inform them of the risk that the
Mahananda might not want me. Might not send me back. Agrippina rolls
her eyes while Enzo just stares without blinking.
Do you both approve of my decision to ask the Mahananda for the
Shabbin crown?
Agrippina tucks her hair behind her ear. You don’t need our approval,
Daya.
I do, for I cannot rule over this land without the both of you at my
side.
Naturally. Agrippina’s smile grows. I call General. She must remember
that Enzo cannot hear her in skin, for she repeats her claim out loud, which
makes the Crow King snort and Fallon beam as though she was her
daughter instead of her…instead of her other mother.
Enzo?
You’ve always been my queen, Day. You forever will be.
My throat rolls over a swallow that feels bladed as I turn and take one
step onto the Mahananda’s glassy surface. If I don’t return, please know
that I couldn’t have picked better denmates.
If you don’t return, odds are we’ll be gulped down by the Mahananda
right along with you, so you can tell us then, Agrippina says.
That stops me because I didn’t think that my disappearance would lead
to theirs.
 Her expression grows serious. “You will return.”
I try to pull my foot back, but it adheres to the Mahananda’s surface.
“Of course, she’ll return,” Fallon says, but doubt must creep over her
heart because she glances at Lorcan.
“She will.” Does he say this to placate her and reassure me, or because
he truly knows what happens next?
I try to read my fate in his golden stare, but it’s as hard as the
Mahananda’s surface. Since it’s too late to turn back, I set my other foot
onto the source of all magic. For a heartbeat, nothing happens and I think
that perhaps the Mahananda doesn’t want me as its keeper, but then…
But then, I sink.
 Chapter 48
Zendaya

ello again, Zendaya of Shabbe.”

“H I stand on a surface that is as hard as glass and as black as Crow
feathers. “Mahananda?”
“Yes, daughter of Meriam and of the ocean.” My skin tingles from the
velvet resonance of the voice. “Tell me what you seek.”
I look around me but there’s only darkness. “You. Your counsel.”
“My counsel or my consent?”
“Both.”
A slow hum vibrates the void…vibrates my chest. “Go on.”
“I think I’d like⁠—”
“Neither Shabbe nor I can belong to someone who is unsure of their
heart.”
Cowed, I press my lips together.
“Do you desire your foremothers’ onus, or did you enter my realm to
ensure I did not bequeath the responsibility to another?”
Goosebumps sweep over my bare arms and rain down my spine and
chest.
“What lies inside your heart, Zendaya?”
Fear, I think.
“What else?”
It can hear me?
Of course it can hear me…
“What else lies inside your heart?” It growls. “Malice or integrity?”
 I gasp. “Not malice.” I part my lips to draw breath, but…the air…it’s
hot and oppressive and⁠—
“I’m listening, Zendaya.”
I feel like I’m wading in the toxic Isolacuorin canal that gummed my
gills and shrank my lungs. I want to swim back up, but I’m surrounded by
nothing. I crane my neck and find five faces peering down at me. Can they
see me?
“Speak!” the Mahananda bellows.
I clutch my throat because I cannot. I can barely wheeze. Can barely
string thoughts together.
“Do you wish to fall or to rise?”
I sweep my gaze over Lorcan and Fallon, Enzo and Agrippina, Cathal.
“I will ask one last time? Do you wish to⁠—”
“Rise! Live!” Oxygen rushes through my parted lips and down my
throat. “And rule!” More sweet, delicious air swells my lungs. Keeping my
gaze locked on the male with whom I made Fallon, I say, this time out loud,
“I wish to carry your voice to the four corners of our realm, Mahananda. To
fulfill your wishes and heed your commands.”
“Do you swear to never question my decisions?”
I’m about to say yes, but the word that rolls off my tongue is another:
“No.” I start to seal my lips in case the Mahananda divests me of oxygen
once again, but more words press against the seam of my lips. “If you
wanted me blind, Mahananda, then why gift me the ability to see? If you
wanted me feckless, then why endow me with reason?”
I’m almost surprised when air continues to cycle through my lungs. Not
almost. I am surprised. Is the Mahananda delaying my smothering in the
hopes of hearing me repent? If that’s the case, then it’ll be sorely
disappointed.
“If ruling means becoming your puppet and pawn, then I do not want
the crown.” I spin on my heel, grazing the faces of those who shaped me
into the woman I’ve become with my stare. One’s missing—my
grandmother’s. Grief lances behind my breastbone as I picture her, not
dimmed by death but vibrant with life, an imperfect woman who tried to
love what I’d become. “If ruling means becoming your ally and confidante,
then I want nothing more.” The darkness eddies around me as though I were
rising, but I’m not. I’m idling in the infinite fullness surrounding me. “All I
ask is that, if you do not want me, Mahananda, do not keep me.”
 What feels like two icy fingers glide along my brow and part my hair at
the temples before carving through the thick pink mass. When the caress
stills and a weight settles on my head, I lift my hand. Though I cannot see
my crown, I can feel the miniature ridges of sculpted scales and the sharp
points of diamond tusks.
“Your reign begins now, Daughter of the ocean, Daughter of mine.”
As the Mahananda channels my body upward, I scramble to ask, “The
Crows’ obsidian curse. Can it still be broken?”
“Tomorrow, Zendaya. Tomorrow, I will tell you what can be done.”
 Chapter 49
Zendaya

W
hen my head pierces through the surface of the Mahananda, crown-
first, I’m met with layered silence. It surges against my skin in
waves shot through with scorching scorn, balmy awe, and cool
caution.
“Sumaca,” Abrax murmurs. He must’ve shouldered past the thin crowd
while I was in the Mahananda because he stands right behind Agrippina,
whose eyes shimmer like the twinkling talons and beaks of the Crows
swerving over Shabbe.
My guard drops onto one knee and begins to bend his head, but then his
gaze trawls the courtyard and he bellows, “Kneel for our queen.”
Though every guard heeds his command, out of the Akwale, only Tamar
prostrates herself. The others, including Soorya the healer, huddle around
Malka’s supine form. Is the immortal sorceress dead?
Yes, Agrippina says. Struck dead by the Mahananda. Her voice lilts
over the words.
I shouldn’t be surprised by the power the Mahananda can exert on the
living, but it’s still astonishing. I do wonder why it didn’t punish Priya after
she disrespected its orders. Unless she didn’t? Perhaps Meriam misheard
and the Mahananda never planned on lifting the Crows’ immortality?
Questions for tomorrow.
I finally step over the hardened surface that reflects the stars and the
murder of Crows, that reflects me and the crown braided into my pink
locks. “I encourage those of you who do not want me as their ruler to leave
Shabbe.”
“You’re kicking us out of our homeland, Naaga?” Aori snarls.
“Prostrate yourselves, sisters. The Mahananda chose her to guide us,”
Tamar whispers.
None do.
“Come with us, Tamar,” Aza implores, holding Soorya’s arm.
Tamar looks at them, then at me, then at Malka’s bloodless body, and
then she shakes her head, splashing the stone beneath her with the tears
coursing over her deep-brown cheeks. “I trust the Mahananda.”
“Day!” Asha erupts onto the courtyard, then halts beneath the canopy of
honeysuckle that’s always in full bloom. Her eyes widen, and then the
corners of her mouth wobble around the title that’s now mine. “Sumaca.”
“I’ve tasked my people to spread the news of your rise,” Lorcan says.
“To Shabbe and beyond.”
I nod but don’t meet his golden stare. No, I track the retreat of Priya’s
coven and of Shabbe’s healer. I suppose we don’t need one now that I can
make Serpents. Our tongues best any crystals.
“How many do you suspect will leave, Lore?” I ask as I catch the giant
Faerie healer calling out to Soorya. They clasp hands and murmur
aggrieved farewells before Aza whisks her out of the courtyard. Did he
kneel, I wonder.
“When I returned to power”—my fellow monarch grows out his talons
and drums them against his leather-cloaked thigh—“there was a mass
exodus of pure-blooded Faeries.”
My breath hitches. “Shabbe’s so much less diverse than Luce that if
there’s a mass exodus of pureblooded Shabbins, I’ll have only the serpents
in the Sahklare to rule over.”
Fallon takes one of my hands and squeezes it. “Mádhi, many will stay.
Just look around you.”
“They’re not staying for me; they stay because they fear the
Mahananda,” I murmur, tracing the shape of Malka’s body with my gaze,
while giving my daughter’s fingers a squeeze, touched by her enduring
support.
“Some, but not all,” Lorcan says. “When I rose out of the Cauldron
seven centuries ago, your great-grandmother told me that a ruler should
never endeavor to please; only to protect and improve. Whatever you do,
Daya, do not expend energy on trying to shepherd those who left back into
your queendom. Concentrate on those who stayed.”
I bob my head, storing his advice. “I know nothing about ruling.”
“You’re in luck. I’ve a general to lend you.” Lorcan levels a smile on
the male who warms one side of my body. “He’s well-versed in politics.
And yes, I’m aware that he’s passably agreeable on good days, but you’re in
need of a fount of knowledge not a bucket of sunshine.”
“I know plenty about generaling, too, Day,” Agrippina says as she
marches toward us. Unless you want Cathal to stay?
Enzo crosses his arms and stammers something in Lucin that makes
Lorcan cant his head, Cathal scowl, Agrippina smirk, and Fallon bite her
lip. What did you tell them?
When he doesn’t answer, I ask Agrippina who’s only too happy to
convey his words: He just asked Lorcan whether he should really be
putting his general on loan considering the other is on the run. Seaweed’s
got bigger balls than I gave him credit for.
Agrippina, I chide her.
What? He does. And that’s a good thing. Her eyes roll over my crown.
Fucking queen, Day. Your dream came true.
It wasn’t my dream.
Right. She slides her lips together. You didn’t get your memories back?
I didn’t ask the Mahananda for them.
Will you?
I side-eye the Crow muttering something to Lorcan. I don’t know that I
want to remember all that I lost.
Maybe it can give you everything back?
He has a new mate, Agrippina.
She frowns. Says who?
He told me himself.
Her frown deepens. And Fallon confirmed it?
I’m not going to ask my daughter for confirmation. Besides, why
would he invent a mate?
Because bruised egos make idiots out of men. And women, she adds.
“This decision concerns only my parents,” Fallon suddenly says. “How
about we let them decide whether they want to work together?” And then
she’s looping her arm through Agrippina’s and tugging her away.
 When I glance across the Mahananda, I find Enzo following in their
steps. Enzo, are you all right? My mother told me she stunned you.
Without glancing over his shoulder, he gives me a thumb’s up and
though I’ve never been on the receiving end of a middle finger, it feels a
little like one.
It’s not, he says.
“Daya, if you need anything, you know where I lurk.” Lorcan inclines
his head before breaking into his five crows and swirling to the heavens.
Though Cathal and I aren’t alone in the courtyard, his magnetic stare
makes me feel like we’re the only two people left in the world.
“Do you want—do you want my counsel?” Though his tone’s flat and
the lines of his body as rigid as ever, his fractured speech betrays his
nonchalance.
“I’d be glad for your guidance.” I add a smile that I hope will relax him.
“Can the Siorkahd spare you until I constitute a new Akwale?”
His vambraces creak as the knot of his folded arms tautens. “Yes.”
“Even if it takes months?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll provide accommodations for you and your mate.”
He suddenly switches to Crow to mutter, “Cruaih.”
My nails bite into my palms. “If you think it’ll make her miserable to
move to Shabbe, then maybe you should reconsider⁠—”
“That’s her name. Cruaih.”
“Misery?” My fingers slacken before bunching back into fists. Not only
does a name make her real, but one of Crow origin makes her one of his
people. “Perhaps moving to Shabbe will make her miserable. How about
before giving me a definitive answer, you discuss⁠—”
“She’ll be fine.”
His lack of consideration doesn’t assuage my jealousy, but it does make
me feel a twinge of empathy for this subjugated woman who gets no say in
the matter.
“All right, then. I will see you in the morning?”
Cathal scans the courtyard. “Who will stay with you tonight?”
I tilt my head. “What do you mean?”
“Abrax is useless; Asha, less so, I suppose. Your Serpents are…do they
have blood magic now as well?”
 “Are you worried someone will spring an attack on me during the
night?”
“Tensions are high, so yes, I do worry about retaliation. Especially
considering your fellow female Shabbins can slip through walls unnoticed.
You’ll need to ward your wing of the castle.”
“I’m immortal, Cathal.”
“So was Priya. So was that one.” He nods to the dead sorceress whose
body still blights the sunstone.
“I’ll paint wards to keep the Shabbins out of my bedchamber. Besides, I
don’t intend to sleep.” Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t. Not in my present
state, not with my insides sizzling as though I’d swallowed a lightning bolt.
“I’ll be back before sunrise.”
Before I can tell the Crow not to rouse his poor mate in the middle of
the night, he melts into shadows and rises to the heavens in feathers.
Suddenly he swoops back down, snatches Malka’s body, and dumps her
onto the Mahananda. The second her body vanishes, he soars back up, his
powerful wings stirring the stars until he becomes one with the night.
“What did he decide?” Fallon’s query carries my attention down to her.
“To come back and aid me.” Before my heart can run away with my
reason, I remind myself that he’s only returning for diplomatic reasons.
“Apparently, Cruaih won’t mind.” Though I don’t formulate this as a
question, I wait with bated breath for Fallon to swallow my lure and tell me
all about this Cruaih.
“She won’t.” Fallon holds my stare…and holds it, and then she blinks
hard and looks down at the bloody sigils the Akwale left behind. “I’ll help
you lift their spells.”
Though I wish she’d told me more about Cruaih, I do not speak her
name again. I will meet her soon enough.
And I do. And she is nothing like I expect.
 Chapter 50
Zendaya

I
stand from the carmine seat I’ve been occupying since the stars faded
and dawn ignited the sky.
My knees click from how long they’ve been folded and my thighs
shake as movement rids them of numbness. I come to stand in front of
Cathal and cross my arms in front of the dress Asha went to fetch me earlier
so I could freshen up as she put it.
“Is she a shifter?” I ask Cathal as he strokes one large palm down
Cruaih’s spine.
“No.”
I frown. “So you’re mated with a…cat?”
His hand freezes mid-caress. “Mated? I may be an animal myself at
times, but I’m not some deviant, Príona.” He shudders. “Why the Cauldron
would you assume such a vile thing?”
I gape at him, not in shock. Oh no. I’m not shook; I’m deeply and
thoroughly maddened. “Are you fucking kidding me, Cathal Báeinach?”
His pupils contract at my robust tone, while Cruaih shrinks back and
burrows behind the bulge of his forearm, peaked ears flat against her head.
“You told me you’d met someone! You told me that she was the reason
you had no time to have tea with me!” My tone is far shriller than probably
becomes a queen, but I cannot seem to give a single fuck.
“She’s a kitten.” He lifts his arm, carrying the tiny ball of black fur to
his cheek. “She needs a lot of attention.”
 If I didn’t feel so duped, I may have melted at the sight of such
tenderness. But I’m currently not melting; I’m vibrating. “Well, silly me
assumed she was a Crow,” I say, tamping down the volume of my anger for
Cruaih’s sake. “And not the non-shifting kind.”
The kitten blinks wide, shiny eyes at me, one ear perking while the
other still lays flat, but that has more to do with the pressure of her
caregiver’s cheek.
“Why lead me to think she was a woman, Cathal? Why didn’t you just
tell me she was a cat?”
He lowers his arm. “I owed you no explanation.” His gaze slices toward
the closed doors of the throne room that he stepped past mere minutes ago.
Is he considering flocking out? “I still don’t,” he grumbles.
I unbind my arms. “If we’re to work together, I expect complete honesty
from this point on.”
“Honesty is a two-way avenue.”
I cast my stare off the spooked creature and onto the seething one. “I’ve
never been dishonest with you.”
He snorts, which snares his pet’s attention.
“What secrets are you accusing me of keeping, Cathal?” When the
hollows beneath his cheekbones turn concave, I realize that he thinks I’m
lying. “What secrets?”
He snorts.
I tilt my chin up. “Ask me anything.”
“I’m here to advise you, not to trial you.”
“Perhaps, but you’re obviously begrudging me something. Out with it.”
When he smooshes his lips, I understand that the stubborn male will not
give voice to what’s on his heart.
I whirl back toward the files stacked haphazardly on the sunstone table,
which Asha was helping me sort through. “No wonder Fallon seemed so
reticent about us working together.”
He remains quiet.
“This won’t work, Cathal. I cannot collaborate with someone who
resents me for something I’ve no⁠—”
“I’m not holding a fucking grudge, Daya.”
I crinkle the corner of one of the papers. “Really? Then why didn’t you
tell me the someone you’d met was a cat?”
“Because I was⁠—”
 When a minute ticks by and he hasn’t added any words, I turn back
toward him. “You were what?”
The whites of his eyes, still pink from too many sleepless nights, flush
redder. “I was jealous that you’d moved on with the Green One!” His raised
voice steals every beat of my heart. He drops his chin into his neck and
gazes at Cruaih. “Perhaps for Serpents, mating bonds are different than they
are for Crows, but⁠—”
“Enzo’s my denmate, Cathal, not my lovemate.”
His jaw begins to tick.
“I can hear Agrippina, too.” I try to catch his stare, but he keeps it on his
pet. “I thought you knew that my connection to them was like Lore’s to⁠—”
“I do know.”
“Then why in the world do you think that Enzo and I are more⁠—”
“Because I saw you together, Daya!”
“Again, he is my denmate. You will often see us together, Cathal.”
His searing gaze finally lifts off his kitten. “I’m not fucking talking
about seeing the two of you swimming.”
A dull buzzing resounds in my ears. “You saw him kiss me.”
“You were right. This was a mistake. I don’t know why I thought we
could work together.” He eyes my door, then eyes Cruaih, probably
calculating the best and quickest method to escape with a creature that
cannot dematerialize to smoke.
I move across the room and position myself right in their path. And then
I take blocking their exit a step further, because I don’t want him leaving
here thinking that Enzo’s kiss meant anything to me—I lock the lattice
doors and create a veil that hinders any wandering eyes from peering
through the decorative openings.
“What are you doing?” he growls.
I walk back toward him. “I want to explain⁠—”
“I don’t want your explanation. We aren’t mates. You owe me nothing.”
“What you saw was Enzo trying to prove to me that my connection to
him was stronger than my connection to Agrippina.” I stop an arm’s length
from him, sensing that if I get any closer, it will send him surging back, for
wild creatures do not like to be cornered. I’d know. I once was wild. “What
you saw was a boy acting on some misplaced crush.”
“What I saw was a woman declaring her love to another man! What I
saw was her kissing that fucking man!”
 Cruaih ducks once more behind his forearm. I’m tempted to tell him to
set her down before he crushes her, but I doubt he’d welcome my advice.
Still, I keep my gaze on her in case she needs rescuing. “I do love him,
but I love him like I love Fallon.”
His mouth twists in revulsion and he falls back a step. “That makes it all
so much more revolting.”
“It does. And it was.”
“Yeah.” He snorts. “You looked so revolted, Daya.”
“You might’ve borne witness to the scene, but you didn’t bear witness
to my thoughts.” Anger sours my palate. “I didn’t want the kiss.”
“Then why didn’t you bloody push him back! Why did you just…” His
Adam’s apple jostles twice before he manages to blow out the end of his
sentence. “Why did you just stand there? Why? Fucking why?”
“At first, because I was shocked.”
He snorts.
“I was. You don’t have to believe me, but I’ve never lied to you and
don’t intend to start today. I should’ve put an end to it immediately.” Enzo’s
face suddenly layers itself over Cathal’s. I close my eyes to whisk him
away. “But I didn’t, because…”
“Because why?” Pain bleeds through his anger.
“I was almost certain he wasn’t my mate before he kissed me, but it was
the kiss—the lack of…spark that erased all my doubts. I imagined he’d feel
it and pull away. Naively, I also imagined that he’d only get closure if he
was the one to put an end to it.”
Though I don’t voice my next thoughts out loud, they must be written
all over my face because Cathal mutters, “Clearly, he didn’t get closure.”
On a sigh, I pry my lids apart. “No, but he did fall into Taytah’s bed.”
Cathal’s crooked nose wrinkles. I presume he knew about my Serpent
and my grandmother for his face isn’t marred with surprise, only disgust.
“He might not like it, but he’s understood that I can never be his.” I
stare at the crown I set down on the cushion that still bears the indent of the
former queen’s body. “How I envy Lore. How I envy that the day the
Mahananda made him other, it gave him a whole tribe.” My chest lifts with
a deep breath that causes the braided cords of my gown to dig into my rib
cage. “Though I feel incredibly blessed to have the power to make others, I
wish that the path to understanding it all had been smoother. I wish…” I lift
my gaze off the crown and sweep it over Cathal, over the cords of his throat
and the cliffs of his cheekbones, before daring to meet his guarded stare and
confessing, “I wish I hadn’t lost you along the way, Cathal Báeinach.”
I want him to say that I haven’t.
I want him to set down Cruaih and take me in his arms.
But the Crow doesn’t speak and he doesn’t choose Serpent over cat.
I back up toward the doors. “Forgive me for locking you in, but I
wanted to speak my piece before you flew off.” I palm the wood, recalling
my blood, then open the door to free him.
Every guard stands to attention outside.
“Do you need anything, Sumaca?” Asha asks.
“Yes. I need you to stop calling me Your Highness and go rest.”
She rolls her eyes. “Should I send for some food?”
I shake my head just as a gruff voice behind me says, “Yes. I’d love
some food, and Cruaih would appreciate a bowl of milk.”
“Milk isn’t very good for…” When Asha’s recommendation fades, I
fathom that Cathal is firing a look her way about his desire for her
nutritional input. She presses her lips together before muttering, “We will
bring sustenance for all, immediately.”
After dispatching some guards to the kitchen, she hunts my expression
in the hopes of gleaning my mood.
I give my steadfast guard and friend a warm smile before murmuring,
“All’s well.”
But is it? He’s staying for a meal, I remind myself. He may depart soon
after, but at least, he isn’t departing immediately. I lower my hand from the
door, leaving it ajar so he doesn’t feel trapped, and turn back toward the
Crow.
As our gazes twine, my stomach swishes, and not from hunger. I don’t
ask if he forgives me for kissing another, the same way I don’t ask for how
long he’ll be staying.
Instead, I wander back his way, giving his companion my full attention.
“Hello, Cruaih. I’m Zendaya. I’m sorry for frightening you earlier with my
shouting. I’m not usually prone to raising my voice.”
I reach one finger toward her muzzle. “May I?”
“You can try, but she can be quite⁠—”
I stroke up the bridge of her tiny nose, my finger sliding through her
feather-soft black fur.
“—aloof,” he finishes.
 I smile. “I’d expect nothing less with a master like yourself.”
She tilts her head to sniff my finger, then wraps her coarse tongue
around my nail. My heart holds still because, although it’s scabbed, there
was a smear of dried blood that’s now gone.
“What?” Cathal asks.
“She licked some of my blood.” I look up at him, then back at her. “It
won’t poison her, will it?”
“Fallon’s blood doesn’t harm her, so I don’t see why yours would.”
“Because I’m part-Serpent.”
“And our daughter is part-Crow.”
Still, my pulse whooshes as hard as my stomach.
He crouches and sets Cruaih down, then strides over to the red velvet
circle. “Shall we get started?” When I don’t move or say a word, he glances
over his shoulder at me. “Daya, she will be fine.”
I nod.
He sits, muttering that my first order of business should be updating the
throne room with armchairs instead of floor cushions with stunted
backrests.
Cruaih twines her little body around my ankles, startling me out of my
daze. My surprise surprises her in turn and she skips toward Cathal and
skitters onto his lap.
When I’ve still made no move to follow, Cathal cants his head. “Shall
we get started, Sumaca?”
“You’re staying?”
“Unless you prefer I leave, then yes.”
“All right.” I make my way toward him, choosing to kneel on the floor
cushion instead of sitting cross-legged like he is. Cruaih scales his muscled
thigh, teeters there a moment, before hopping off and moseying on over to
me.
My hand sinks into her fur. “What about after you eat?”
“Zendaya”—my name on his lips has never sounded so gentle—“I’m
staying.”
 Chapter 51
Cathal

ho knew your grandmother was such a hoarder?” I ask.

“W Amongst the piles of documents Zendaya unearthed, there were
many interesting edicts and land divisions as well as
correspondence with kings of old and random foreigners, most of them with
titles preceding their names. I even found a letter that Lorcan penned to
Queen Mara—or Mórrígan as we call her—six and half centuries earlier
asking her if she could send a few more Shabbins to help combat the Fae
and their endless supply of obsidian weapons.
Zendaya smiles from where she’s reclined on the cushion beside mine,
Cruaih curled atop her chest, snoozing away. My little stray, who likes no
one save for myself and Fallon, is completely enamored by the Serpent
Queen. My cat isn’t alone. Even when I believed Daya harbored feelings
toward her fellow Serpent, my bruised heart never quit thudding for her.
“How does a big, growly Crow find himself in possession of such a tiny,
sweet creature?” she asks, languidly curving a finger up and down the
purring furball’s spine.
“I was visiting Rax when I found her. She was pawing at a burlap sack
which contained…” I roll my neck at the sordid memory, my nails
hardening into talons as I picture what I will do to the callous murderer if
our paths ever cross. “Which contained the rest of her family.”
Daya’s chest lifts with a gasp that disrupts Cruaih’s nap, but only for a
moment. After ascertaining that all’s well and that I haven’t abandoned her,
she slips right back into slumber. “Some people don’t deserve to live.”
 “I agree.” For a long moment, I stare at her elegant fingers tracking
across Cruaih’s fur. Her nails are long and painted the same shade as the
velour she lounges on. My mind suddenly places them on my body, on a
part of me that is at present growing so heavy and long that I have to
readjust the way I sit.
“I’m sorry the seating is so uncomfortable. I’ll order chairs before the
day is out and loftier feet for the table. Hopefully both can be manufactured
quickly.”
When the seam of my leathers keeps guillotining my cock, I decide to
stand, with my back to Daya, and stretch my legs.
“Even if you don’t stay.” The words bluster out of Zendaya’s mouth, as
soft as the patter of my cat’s feet. “Since I can read now that my Shabbin
side has been unbound and everything…”
It’s so unlike her to mumble that I stop fidgeting with my trousers and
turn, erection be damned. “What part of, I’m staying, didn’t you understand,
Príona?”
Her eyes don’t stray off my face.
“Sorry… Sumaca.”
Her hand promenades up my cat’s back twice before she finally says,
“Well, you didn’t exactly mention until when.”
“Until you form your new coven or government, or whatever you intend
to call it, I’ll be at your side.”
“That might take a while.”
It certainly will, since I’ll be dragging out the process. I smile. It must
be an alarming smile because the pulse at the base of her neck flutters her
scar. Unless alarm isn’t the sentiment I’m coaxing from her…?
When her throat moves over a swallow and she licks her lips, I consider
adopting my bird form to cool off, but not only would shifting inside the
throne room spook Cruaih, it would also confound Daya, so I stay there,
bulge in perfect relief. In truth, what point is there in trying to conceal the
effect she has on me? It isn’t as though she’s unaware of my feelings toward
her.
“Are your living quarters to your liking?” she asks, pulse still
thundering beneath her honeyed skin. What I wouldn’t give to stroke it.
“Yes, though I doubt I’ll be spending much time in them.”
She blinks. “You’re thinking of living elsewhere?”
 I tread right up to the back cushion upon which she’s pillowed her head,
pinch the seam of my trousers to transfer it to the side, and crouch. “I didn’t
only come back to advise you. I also returned to protect you.”
Her chest is lifting and falling with brisker breaths. Is it wrong of me to
appreciate how I affect her? “I have blood-magic, Cathal.” Her hoarse voice
tightens my balls some more. “So do Agrippina and Enzo.”
“Fallon mentioned it.” The first male with blood-magic. Though,
admittedly, I was glad to hear it, it’d be a lie to say that it didn’t irk my
already tender ego. The male was already so special to Zendaya. Did he
really need an added advantage over me? “But the people who want the
crown torn off your head also have blood-magic.” I flatten my palm over
Cruaih’s fur. When the side of my pinkie grazes the side of Zendaya’s
thumb, her breathing grows even more ragged.
“I’m immortal,” she murmurs.
“So are the people who want the crown torn off your head,” I repeat.
“Are you saying that you plan on moving into my bedchamber?”
“Only until you form your Akwale.” I stroke back up Cruaih’s back,
then back down toward Daya’s motionless fingers.
“That could be months. You said so yourself.”
Some might consider our conversation moving in circles; I see it
coming full-circle. I don’t carry my hand off Cruaih’s rump this time,
relishing the feel of my pinkie brushing against the Serpent Queen’s thumb.
“I hope my presence won’t cause you too much discomfort.” I realize
I’m a bastard for not presenting my guarding offer as a choice, or
suggesting other Crow contenders for the job—like Aoife, who’s returned
with me.
“I only have one bed,” she says.
Of course, the instant she says this, I picture her sprawled atop it, long
pink hair fanned over one of her pillows, coral nipples peaked, folds shiny
with… Fuck. Just because she hasn’t stolen her hand away from mine, just
because her lids are at half-mast and her nostrils pulsate, it doesn’t mean
she wants my desperate ass.
I swallow, trying to moisten my hunger-abraded throat, and cast my
gaze on my cat instead of on my…on the woman Cruaih is using as a
mattress. “I’d be there to guard you, not to sleep.”
“Do I have a choice in the matter of these living arrangements?”
 My gaze veers toward hers. “Naturally.” I try to smile but all my lips
manage is a manic twitch. “But I do believe you should have a presence in
your room at all times.” Not Enzo, I add internally. “Preferably someone
with iron appendages. Or, I suppose, an iron blade.”
“Iron doesn’t harm the Shabbins.”
My jaw hardens. “True, but Serpents can’t exactly shapeshift into lethal
smoke. We might not be able to asphyxiate sorceresses with it, but it would
hamper them.”
“Why not thrust the responsibility of vigil onto someone who doesn’t
intend to spend their days counseling me? I hear Aoife, Reid, and Aodhan
have returned with you and will be staying.”
“I don’t trust Reid to do a proper job. He’s too besotted by Agrippina. I
could ask Aoife, though.”
She cocks one eyebrow. “What about asking Aodhan?”
The vein at my temple feels a second away from rupturing. “The only
reason he’s here is because Imogen threatened to drive an obsidian blade
through his heart, so Lorcan asked me to bring him along.”
“So, no Aodhan?”
“That’s right. No fucking Aodhan.”
Is that a smile drawing up the corners of her mouth? “Then I’d prefer
Aoife stay with me.”
“Why—” I clear my throat so the rest of my question doesn’t come out
strangled. “Are you frightened of me?”
“Frightened?” A grin breaks across her beautiful face, tossing me years
back to one of the many conversations she doesn’t remember but that’s
embedded inside my soul. It was the day I’d regained use of my vocal cords
after five centuries of them being atrophied. I’d asked her if she’d gotten
over her fear of me, or if she still required time alone? She’d crossed her
arms and hissed into my mind that she’d never been scared of me.
Just of certain parts of me, I’d murmured through our bond.
My taunt had caused a lovely blush to steal across her cheekbones.
I’m not scared, she’d sworn, adding that she had no doubt that this
‘certain part of me’ would be massively underwhelming anyhow. I’d
challenged her to find out. She’d claimed that she wasn’t interested. But she
had been.
Could this new version of Zendaya be interested?
 Her thumb begins to move, caressing the edge of my pinkie that quit
moving when she alluded to someone else guarding her. “The reason I
prefer Aoife is because, although you might not need much sleep, I do, and
I’d be incapable of relaxing if you were in my bedroom, Cathal.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t you be capable of relaxing?”
“Because, Cathal of the Sky Kingdom…” Her hand scales mine, then
swirls around my wrist, before journeying back toward my unmoving
digits.
“Because what?” I rasp.
She delicately rakes those red-red nails of hers along my fingers,
knuckles, and wrist. “Because you’re not exactly a source of tranquility,
General.”
I don’t dare speak, afraid my breath will blow her fingers off my skin.
“I’m aware that you didn’t stay behind in Shabbe to⁠—”
When her lips stop moving and her hand grows slack, I blow out an
atypically nervy, “To…?”
But her eyes have gone bone-white. My heart damn near detonates until
I remember the same thing happening to Priya’s eyes when the Cauldron
conversed with her.
Still, I spin my hand and scoop Daya’s fingers before they can tumble
away from mine and curl them into my palm. The trance lasts a fucking
eternity. Cruaih wakes and stretches. And then she licks my quivering
thumb. She must sense my anguish because she winches her neck and peers
up at me.
“Everything’s okay, Misery,” I promise her. “Go drink some milk.”
She gives my thumb a quick cheek rub before traipsing toward the
glazed ceramic dish heaped with crumbs which Asha set beside a bowl of
milk. Though my kitten lapped at the milk, the dried food won her over, to
Asha’s immense pleasure. Recalling how she gloated helps quiet my
ramping nerves.
“Come back to me, Príona,” I murmur. In every way, come back to me,
Zendaya of Shabbe.
 Chapter 52
Zendaya

I
emerge from the darkness with the Mahananda’s words still prickling
my temples.
Fingers tighten around mine—Cathal’s. He hasn’t left. And not only
that, but he holds my hand.
I swallow, then squeeze his fingers and murmur, “I thought I’d slipped
into the Mahananda.”
He doesn’t say anything, his gaze roving over my face, hounding each
furrow for a sign of distress. Or perhaps he’s trying to extract what the
Mahananda had to say. When its words scroll through my mind, I snare my
bottom lip.
“What is it? What did the Cauldron say?”
“That it cannot—it cannot undo what Taytah led it to do.”
His eyebrows ruffle, bend, ruffle.
“It cannot immunize Lorcan to obsidian.” I lower my attention to our
twined hands before he spots the lie. The truth is that the Mahananda can
make Lorcan and his people impervious to the toxin, but it would cost
Fallon her Crow magic, for the cure is braided into it.
“It’s more complicated than that, isn’t it?”
I nibble on the inside of my cheek. “It is.” I hesitate to tell him. He
might be Fallon’s father, but would he pick her over his race? I hate the
thought almost as much as I hate possessing the coveted solution to the
Crows’ curse.
“It concerns our daughter, doesn’t it?”
 I meet his shadowed gaze. “Don’t ask me to tell you, for I will demand
an oath of silence from you if I do.”
He balks. “Do you think I’d endanger our daughter?”
“If it could benefit your people⁠—”
“What sort of monster do you think I am, Zendaya?” He sets down my
hand and straightens, his knees clicking in time with his knuckles. “I would
never hurt our daughter. Never.” He jams a hand through his disheveled
locks. “She’s one of the only reasons I didn’t ask Lorcan to turn me into a
forever-Crow.”
Am I the other? As I roll up to sitting, I nip this query in the bud
because this isn’t the time and place for it. “Swear that if you’re ever asked
whether the Mahananda gave me the solution to your curse, you will lie.”
He side-eyes me, anger jostling not just the air between us but inside the
entire throne room. “I wish you’d trust me.”
“This has nothing to do with trust, Cathal.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. This has to do with slips-of-the-tongue, torture sessions, or
confessions whispered upon pillows. I’ve heard that people have a tendency
to reveal all in the throes of passion.” When he gapes at me, I add, “I hold
this fact from several different sources: Taytah, Asha, Agrippina, Sybille,
and Phoebus.”
He mutters under his breath before giving his hair another violent tug.
“First off, my tongue never slips, so there’s no chance of your secret
popping out. Secondly, one would have to catch me in order to torture me,
and yes, I’m aware that I can potentially be caught. If that happened, I’d
stake myself in the heart with obsidian so my tongue turned into a lump of
stone. As for pillow-talk”—he tilts his head and spears me with a look
—“the only person I want to fuck already knows, so not much risk there.”
His words take a moment to land, but once they do, they soak into me
like water and irrigate the thing behind my ribs with so much blood that I
knead the palpitating skin.
“But again, I’d prefer to be gagged with magic than kept in the dark, so
tell me and then make me forget.”
“I know there’s a sigil for lifting memories from someone’s mind, but I
wouldn’t dare use it on you. I still need much practice.”
“Fine.” He takes a breath, releases it. “I owe you, Zendaya amMeriam,
Queen of Shabbe.”
 My bicep warms. The burning dot must stamp his chest, because the
angle of his jaw steepens and one of his eyes twitches. “After you tell me,
you’ll claim your bargain and make me forget the entire discussion.”
I nod. “Fallon’s Crow magic. That is the cost of transferring the
immunity from her veins into Lorcan’s.”
Cathal’s mouth flattens. “Why in the world did you think I would ever
tell anyone about this, Zendaya?”
“Because it would break your people’s curse once and for all.”
“But it would also break my daughter. Now make me forget or⁠—”
I rise and stride over the low backrest to stand in front of him. “Cathal
Báeinach of the Sky Kingdom, I call forth my bargain and strip your mind
of the Mahananda’s solution to your people’s obsidian curse. The source of
all magic has sadly offered no solution.”
His eyes seem to spark in the obscurity. Probably an illusion caused by
the flickering candlelight.
“I’m sorry for not bringing better news,” I say, while my mind replays
and polishes his earlier words until they burn through the shadows veiling
my mood: the only person I want to fuck already knows. “I’ll just have to
create more healers. Especially now that I’ve the responsibility of a
queendom. I cannot exactly afford week-long convalescences. Not to
mention, I’d prefer not to go around licking all your murder-mates.”
His pupils have shrunk to the width of dust motes. “Are you trying to
test the tenuous hold I have on my temper, Daya?”
The only person I want to fuck already knows…
I seize one of his hands and carry it to my waist. Once he grips it, I
reach for the other but it’s already finding its way to my body…to my
cheek.
“Can we start over, Cathal Báeinach?” When he doesn’t say anything,
after having said a lot, I add, “I hear the third time’s the charm.”
His forehead falls to mine. “Except I won’t survive a third ending, mo
Sífair.”
I grip his shoulders. “Then let’s never end.”
“What if—” His lids close. “What if the Cauldron mates you to
someone who isn’t me?”
“Mahananda, will my kind have mates?” I ask as Cruaih sniffs the
jewels on my crown before giving them a tentative lick.
 The Mahananda is quiet, probably resting from the magic it depleted
whisking my consciousness into its depths. Why didn’t I think of asking it
before? Because I feared its answer?
I raise my eyes back to the Crow, turning the question on him: “What if
the Mahananda mates you to someone who isn’t me?”
His thumb sweeps across my cheek, coming to rest on the apex of my
cheekbone. “Crows have only one mate. Once that mate is lost—” He
swallows. “There’s no stand-in waiting in the wings.”
“Then I guess I’ll swear an oath.”
“No.” He splays his fingers on the small of my back and rakes me
closer. Though armor and leather wall off our bodies, I don’t miss the
harshness of his heartbeats beneath. “I will not have you loving me out of
obligation or fear of physical pain.”
I thread one of my hands through his hair, which drags a weighted
exhalation from his lips. “I cannot be the reason for your death, Cathal. Not
only would Fallon never forgive me, but I—” Moisture pools behind my
lids as I bring his face nearer. “I couldn’t live in a world in which you didn’t
exist.”
He gives me a sad smile. “That’s my line, Príona.”
We must still be mates for there’s no rhyme or reason to how deeply I
love Cathal Báeinach. Either Serpents cannot communicate with their mates
through a mental bond or⁠—
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Day, Agrippina’s voice startles a breath from my
lungs.
What is it?
Are you in the Kasha?
Yes. What is it?
On my way.
“Daya?” Cathal’s gaze swivels over each one of my features.
“Something’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. It’s Agrippina. She’s coming here.”
 Chapter 53
Zendaya

A
sha says that you aren’t to be disturbed. Can you please tell her that
you can be disturbed? I really need to see you. The panic that grips
Agrippina’s tone makes me rush to unseal the doors.
The second she bursts through, I run my gaze over her. Her blue hair is
wild, her skin as pale as the milk inside Cruaih’s bowl, and her eyes are
pitched wide.
“Did something happen to Ceres?” I ask.
She blinks, then parrots, “Ceres?” as though she cannot recall who that
is. My heart slams into my ribs and I swing my gaze up to Cathal who
stands beside me, Cruaih tucked inside his palm. Has Agrippina lost her
memories again?
He must have the same thought, because he says, “Your mother. Ceres is
your mother.”
She snorts. “I fucking know who Ceres is, Cathal.” She starts kneading
her temples with such force I worry she’ll crack her skull.
After thundering, my pulse goes dead. “Did something happen to
Enzo?”
Cathal’s carriage rigidifies at the mention of my Serpent’s name. How
long will he stay jealous of that boy?
“No, Day, something’s happened to me.”
Since she’s alive, I take it that whatever’s going on with her isn’t a
matter of life and death. “What happened?”
 “Cathal, do you mind stepping—” She suddenly hisses because a
shadow streaks in beside her and morphs into a Crow, the one she does not
have a crush on.
Reid’s sun-kissed brown hair pokes out from his scalp, unruly like hers.
Unlike the desperate horror painting her features, he wears the smuggest
grin. Cathal mutters something under his breath that wipes the expression
from his mouth and makes his head jerk into a deferential bow.
“Forgive my eruption inside your throne room, Sumaca.” Reid mumbles
in Crow. It’s only my title that he pronounces in Shabbin.
I couldn’t care less about his manners. Not with Agrippina rocking from
heel to toe like a ship caught in a squall. Tell me what’s happened through
our bond.
I slept with him.
Well that explains the volume she’s acquired to her hair. What it doesn’t
explain is her distress.
Cathal’s leather and armor creak from how tightly he’s wound up. I
begin to wonder why my shifter’s anguish is causing him such discomfort
when Agrippina juts her finger toward Reid, whose lips have curled up
anew. I can hear him, Day! Please tell me you can too?
Why on earth would me hearing Reid make you feel better?
Because then that would mean he’s a Serpent and not my— She
squeezes her temples once more and goes back to rocking.
She doesn’t need to finish her sentence for me to understand what Reid
has become to her. “Reid, can you try to speak into my mind?”
Cathal frowns. Reid does as well.
“It’s to make sure you haven’t become a Serpent.”
“I’m not sure what Agrippina told you,” he says in Crow, “but when I
said I left my body when she rattled, I didn’t literally mean I’d died and
changed shifter race.”
Since Agrippina is fluent in Crow, his disclosure paints her cheeks red.
“I’m aware that you didn’t die, you idiot,” she snaps. “Santo Caldrone, I
cannot have a self-centered, promiscuous prick as a mate. I just cannot.”
“A self-centered, promiscuous prick?” he repeats, grin gone. “You think
my dream mate was a pretentious Faerie whose transformation into a
Serpent has only made her more arrogant?”
Agrippina crosses her arms.
 “Should’ve done more chatting and less banging,” Asha, who’s
stationed herself in the entrance, quips.
Where it brings a smile to my mouth, it merely deepens Agrippina and
Reid’s matching scowls.
“What’s done is done,” I murmur.
“What’s done can surely be undone,” Agrippina mutters before
gesturing toward us. “I mean look at…” Her voice fritters away when she
catches my stricken expression. Or maybe it’s Cathal’s clenched jaw that
makes her mouth stop moving over the dismal reminder of our broken
bond. Ah, shit. I’m so sorry. I forgot and—I’m so sorry.
It’s all right.
“The bond…when exactly did it click into place?” Cathal’s timbre is
coarser than usual, as though little Cruaih had used his vocal folds as a
scratching post.
“When she and I, um…” Reid’s light-brown complexion takes on a
deeper hue. He scrubs a hand up his face, then through his hair. “After…
Well, during, but at the end.” He glances toward Agrippina, who smiles
now, but like her earlier rocking, it’s slightly hysterical.
“You don’t need my help,” she says, which earns her a scowl. “You’re
doing a fantastic job of detailing the circumstances.”
He releases a shallow growl before blurting out, “We were locked
together for a while. That’s when it happened.”
Agrippina must say something to him, because his cheeks heat some
more, and so does his gaze, and then Agrippina is no longer smiling. She’s
swallowing. Hard.
Cathal grimaces before jutting his chin toward the door and muttering a,
“Labh.”
Even I know the Crow word for leave.
“Yes. Please,” Asha says, a smile digging into her cheeks as she sweeps
open the door for Reid and Agrippina. “No hate-fucking in the Kasha.
Unless it’s your Kasha,” she adds with a wink in my direction. When I don’t
reciprocate her pleasant humor, she sighs. “I’ll just see myself out.”
Enzo? I suddenly call out through the bond.
Yes, Day?
Could you and Taytah…could you communicate inside your minds?
No. Why?
 I’ll explain in a second but I need to understand one last thing. It’s
intrusive of me, so forgive me for asking, but I swear it’s important. Were
your parts ever locked together?
Our parts?
Your sexual organs.
I’d really prefer not to discuss this with you.
Trust me, I feel the same way.
Then why are you asking?
Because it just happened to Agrippina and Reid, and it opened a mind
link between the two of them.
He lapses into silence. So do I.
“Daya?” Cathal touches my elbow, making me jerk back to the here and
now.
“Sorry. I was trying to find out if Enzo had experienced this when he
slept with”—I grimace—“my grandmother.”
“Wouldn’t he have told you if he’d been able to communicate with
Priya?”
My fingers find their way to the scar on my neck. “I suppose he would
have.”
Cathal gently shackles my wrist and drags it away before I can scrub the
skin raw, and then he’s folding his fingers over mine. “The way I see it, this
is good news.” At my frown, he adds, “Mating bonds only clicking into
place through sexual relations. If you don’t lay with another man, then I
don’t lose you.”
His logic should appease me, yet I don’t feel at piece. No, I feel nervous
—anguished, even, because I now know that if our bodies don’t mesh like
Agrippina’s and Reid’s, then Cathal Báeinach is well and truly not my mate.
He squeezes our palms together. “Please say something.”
I try, but my throat has become so narrow that I can’t. Instead I press
my body against his, press my cheek against his armor, and sink my hand
into Cruaih’s long fur.
He sighs and kisses the top of my head. “No amount of magic will make
me love you more than I already do, mo mila Sífair.”
An easy declaration to utter now, before knowing.
“I hope you feel the same. If you don’t—” He inhales a hoarse breath.
“If you think the lack of a knot will make you love me less, then⁠—”
 Before he can suggest we part ways—again—I grip the back of his head
and drag his mouth down to mine.
 Chapter 54
Zendaya

T
he explosion that happens when our lips connect silences my worries.
I suddenly don’t care whether our bodies knot, because the connection
we share is tremendous already. Not only did it survive my
transformation, but its intensity has managed to augment in spite of the
mind links I forged with others.
He breaks away. “Wait.” He suddenly stalks toward the door, but twists
back, “Don’t move.”
All right…
He yanks open the door and calls out Asha’s name. Though she slides
into my line of sight and I see their mouths move, I cannot grasp their
exchange for my pulse thunders in my ears. I fathom it has to do with
Cruaih since the little feline ends up nestled against Asha’s chest.
Cathal stands there a moment, as though to make sure Asha will treat
his companion well. When my guard begins to coo at the tiny thing, which
earns her chin a swipe of Cruaih’s tongue, the line of Cathal’s shoulders
slackens and he pivots back toward me, eyes dark with lust. Right before he
kicks the door shut, I catch Asha waggling her brows at me. Of course she
knows why she was given custody of the Crow’s pride and joy.
Cathal stalks back my way, his fingers moving over the straps that keep
his breastplate in place. He plucks it off his head, then tosses it aside, and it
clatters against the stone. And then he’s working off the vambraces. A smile
touches my mouth when he struggles with the left one.
“Something funny?”
 “Your haste.” I step toward him and replace his juddering hands with
my steady ones. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not going to change my
mind,” I add, as I slip the leather off his arm.
My promise doesn’t turn his movements any less erratic. If anything, it
seems to deepen his fervor. He all but rips his shirt and boots off. “You’re a
queen now, Daya. Even though I asked Asha to keep everyone out, I cannot
keep you locked away from the world forever.”
My smile topples at the reminder of the responsibility I accepted, and so
does my gaze. I stare at the crown glimmering on the velvet, almost
wishing⁠—
Cathal brackets my cheeks with his palms, wrenching my gaze off the
diamond-tusked serpents. “Don’t. Don’t wish it away.”
“How did you know that’s what I was doing?”
“I’ve seen Lore glare at his crown once or twice over the centuries.” He
threads his fingers into my hair. “You might not be as free as you’d like, but
you can have it all.”
“Even another child of yours?” I ask, stroking up the hard ridges of his
clenching abdomen.
“Yes,” he says, his heart clocking the pads of my fingers as they venture
higher.
Though his chest isn’t smooth, the hair’s scarcer than on his jaw.
“You’re no longer worried about it being born a monster?”
“No child of yours could ever be a monster.”
When my palms scrape over his dark nipples and they contract into tiny
buds, he shudders. “I hope you’ll still think this way when we give birth to
a winged Serpent or a scaled Crow.”
Laughter suddenly spills from his mouth. It’s such a sultry, foreign
sound that it momentarily distracts me from my exploration. When he
grows serious, I instantly miss his carefree joy.
“I love you, Zendaya of Shabbe, no matter what happens next. No
matter if our bodies knot, or if my seed takes.”
“Why wouldn’t it take? We’re not that different biologically, are we?”
“No.” He shrugs one of the huge, rounded shoulders my nails are now
cresting. “But I’ve seen my fair share of couples struggle with having
children over the years.”
“We’ve already done it once.”
 He rolls his lips, probably to stop himself from reminding me that I was
a different person then. Before he can say this out loud, before old-Daya
can encroach on this moment, I slant my mouth over his.
She’s no longer here; I am. My kiss softens his body. Well, his face. The
rest of him has grown as hard as stone. His beard chafes my chin and
cheeks as he deepens the kiss, reaching his tongue into every dark corner of
my mouth. He’s wild and unbridled, a surging current muscling everything
out of its path to reach my heart and my soul.
I don’t even realize that I’ve started rattling until I feel his lips quirk
into a pleased grin. He pulls away. I start to protest, but my objection
morphs into quivering breaths, because he’s kissing his way down my neck,
his fingers working the braided straps of my gown off my shoulders which
he peppers with kisses next.
I don’t think I can rattle any harder, but manifestly, I’m wrong, for when
he leans over to tongue my bared nipples, my body all but blurs from how
hard I shake. I suddenly worry it will put him off and hunt what I can see of
his face. His eyes lock with mine as he continues to lavish my hardened
peaks, his big hands gripping my waist to keep me flush with his mouth.
He doesn’t look disgusted. Keeping one palm on his bare shoulder for
balance, I thread my fingers through his black locks and tug gently. He
moans and the tremor that passes between his teeth increases the headiness
of his ministration.
His hands wander toward the bow that holds my wrap dress closed. One
tug and the silver silk splits open. He leans back, drawing the shimmering
folds wider and wider, until they drape from my elbows and expose my
front. As he contemplates my nakedness, he inhales deeply, then exhales
even deeper.
His fingers, that are as callused as mine will surely become from
bloodcasting, skip over my pebbling flesh, sketching my paler scars and my
heaving breasts, before capering along the runnel of my ribs toward the
silken triangle that is as soft as it is sheer. Instead of rolling it off me, he
crouches lower and knuckles it, his breathing growing so abundant that his
exhalations feel like caresses.
I keep stroking his hair. Watching him watch me stirs my blood, making
it swirl more briskly through my veins.
“Just as fucking perfect as I remember,” he rasps, his knuckle curving
lower and lower, filling me with foreign sensations that are wreaking havoc
on my pulse. “Has anyone explored this body?”
I moan when he hits a particularly sensitive and wonderful spot. “No.”
My body, which had gone still, suddenly begins to rattle against his
crooked finger, and holy Mahananda… I grip his hair as fire streaks through
my veins and ignites me.
I gasp out his name, then pant, “What was that?”
“Haven’t you explored your body?”
“No,” I croak, as moisture and heat pool low, bleeding into the silk
between my thighs.
“Why the Cauldron not?”
“Lack of time.” I nip my lip, then release it. “Lack of guidance.”
For some reason, my answer makes him rise, his palms shaping the
outside of my body before returning to my waist and perching there.
“Had I known there was such a pleasurable spot, I would’ve taken the
time to ask for guidance.” I smile.
He doesn’t. “Then I’m glad you didn’t know.”
I roll my eyes. “I would’ve asked Asha or Taytah, not Enzo or Abrax.”
His lips still don’t bend.
I push on tiptoe and steal a kiss. As I settle back on my heels, I ask,
“Oh, jealous one, will you please see to my sexual education?”
That chips at the unyielding line of his mouth. “It’d be my pleasure to
bring you pleasure, Sumaca.”
He scoops me into his arms, coaxing an amused startle from my mouth,
and carries me to the velvet seating. As he lays me out, my dress, which is
still hooked to my elbows, settles beneath me like starlit foam.
He drops his knees on either side of my thighs. “It’d be my honor to
map out this exquisite body and teach you where the treasure lies.”
I observe the muscled quilt of his chest, the dark trail of hair that leads
to the bulge straining his leather trousers, the only item of clothing he hasn’t
parted with. “I want to learn about yours, too.” When I reach for him, he
snares my wrist.
“Yours first.”
I pout. “Can you at least remove them while you instruct me?”
“It’s best I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if I free myself, I will end up inside of you.”
“Isn’t that the destination?”
 “Yes. But there are many stops I want to make along the way, and I fear
I’ll skip over them all if I unleash myself.” He plucks my underwear’s
waistband and rolls it down my thighs. “Legs up.”
I oblige, maneuvering my feet between his legs before stretching them
up.
Instead of tossing my underwear aside, he balls it in his fist and carries
it to his nose. His eyes close on a long, slow inhale.
“What are you doing?” I ask, genuinely intrigued.
“Memorizing your scent.”
“Is that a lover thing or a bird-of-prey thing?”
Lids still clasped shut, he smiles. “I wouldn’t know. The topic doesn’t
come up with my friends.” He tucks the scrap of silk into the waistband of
his pants, then opens his eyes wide and sets them on my center, which he
unveils to himself fully by parting my knees as wide as they’ll go.
Considering I’m flexible, that is extremely wide.
He swallows, licks his lips, then without looking away from my mound,
he commands, “Give me your hand.”
I do.
“Point your index finger.”
I do.
He carries it to my seam. “Touch.”
I am slick and warm and soft like our mollusk-silk garments.
“Trace yourself. All the way to your ass.”
My flesh is so pliant and damp that my finger just skids, bumping over
one depression and then another. My breath catches but not as hard as when
I track my finger back up and bump into a tiny little bead that feels a lot like
the retracted tusk on my forehead.
“What’s that?” I ask, circling the bead gently.
“That is called a clitoris.”
“Hmm,” I whisper as I keep circling it. “And everyone has one?”
“Only females.”
“You’re missing out.”
He smiles. When my body begins to rattle, he tucks his fingers around
mine and moves them aside.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because my tongue was jealous of your fingers.” He carries said-
fingers to his mouth and sucks on them.
 When his pupils flood his irises, I ask, “Do I taste like the others?”
“What others?”
“I imagine you’ve had many others.”
“Not in the past five centuries. I don’t recall their taste, nor do I want
to.” His timbre is gruff, as though the subject irritates him.
“Do I taste like past-me?”
“You taste like my mate.”
I believe he’s saying that to settle my qualms that my Serpent scent
might not be as appealing.
He plants his palms on either side of my head and bends over my body,
taking my mouth in a kiss that tastes like, I suppose, me. His tongue
sweeps, his beard chafes. Although that spot between my legs was
enthralling, so are his kisses. I scrape my nails over his shoulders, causing
his skin to break out in goosebumps. Because he likes it? I pull away to ask.
“I fucking love it,” he growls, half in Crow, half in Shabbin.
I smile and scrape more of his back, any place I can reach, which soon
becomes only his corded nape as he travels down my body, suckling on my
nipples before attending to the puckered areola surrounding them.
“These are called nipples.”
My cheeks lift with another smile, another blissful breath. “You taught
me that already.”
“That’s right.” He glides lower, stopping only once his head’s leveled
with my center.
Bracing himself on his forearms, he thumbs apart the plump flaps
concealing my shiny trench. “These are called the labia or lips or
nethermouth.” When he runs his thumbs down their underside, my body
jerks. “Or you can simply refer to them as mine from now on.” He smiles.
This time, I’m the one incapable of bending my lips.
I gasp when his thumb circles the first puckered hole. “This is your
vaginal opening, the place in which I will be sheathing my cock for as long
as I have cock to sheath.”
“Why wouldn’t you have cock to sheath?” I croak, my voice coming out
in bursts, because he’s dipped his finger inside and is gyrating it as though
to widen the hollow. “Are you afraid someone may slice it off?”
“No. That isn’t one of my fears.” He glides his wet finger to the next
hole. “I might penetrate this one eventually as well.”
 I hope he means with his pinkie because there’s no way the cock I spied
when I healed him will ever fit inside.
“Some females are quite partial to rectal penetration.”
I’m tempted to ask if I was once partial to it but decide I don’t want to
know what old-Daya was like. I don’t want him to start comparing me to
her and find me lacking.
He rests his cheek on the inside of my thigh as he guides his finger back
out and up. When he hits that tiny hooded bead, I flop back and gaze at the
stars beyond the glass ceiling. “Great Mórrígan, how I’ve missed you,
moannan.”
The Crow word for mate makes my heart ache because what if I’m not?
He says he’ll still want me, but what if he doesn’t? What if it’s the
resemblance to the Shabbin Princess he loved and the possibility that we
might be mates that powers his hunger?
“Look at me.”
I stare at his ghostly reflection that’s blurring from my sudden surge of
panic.
“Not at my likeness in your skylight, Daya. At me.”
With a swallow and a quick bat of my lashes, I stare down the length of
my abdomen. Of course he spots the unnatural luster of my eyes. Of course
he doesn’t mistake it for anything other than what it is. He reaches for my
hand and twines our fingers.
“You and I, we start here. We start now.”
 Chapter 55
Cathal

Z
endaya bites her lower lip, denting the flesh that’s still reddened by my
kisses. I’m tempted to scale her body and force her teeth off her pretty
mouth before she injures it, but I also sense a kiss won’t blow her
torment away. I’m uncertain how she’ll react if our broken bond doesn’t
mend. The only thing I’m certain of is that I’ll yearn for this woman until
my last breath. Every part of her.
I place a kiss on the inside of her thigh, then higher, on her bare,
glistening cunt that smells like honeysuckle floating atop the ocean, floral
with a hint of brine. In truth, I don’t remember how she tasted before, only
that I’d loved every lick and swallow. I curl my tongue to slot it deeper,
noting that this hasn’t changed. She still tastes like the most delectable treat,
one I plan to spend an inordinate amount of time feasting on. She clutches
my hand so hard that her nails dig into my skin. One glimpse of them and
my painfully hard cock swells up some more.
When she begins to rattle, rubbing her body quicker against my tongue,
I hold still, making sure the flat of it remains at the perfect angle and within
reach.
That is certainly different. Though Crows do rattle to attract their mate’s
attention, not only do our bodies not blur, but it lasts a mere heartbeat.
Serpents, I’ve come to discover, can barely cease rattling. I found Zendaya
captivating when she was only Shabbin, but now, she’s become another
level of fascinating. Goddess below, I cannot fucking wait to see how she
will feel wrapped around my cock.
 The friction of her body against my mouth has her detonating far too
soon. After she screams my name and creams my tongue, I place languid
kisses around her drenched slit, giving her time to calm before the next
climax. Which, again, surges through her far too quickly.
“Cathal…I don’t…I can’t…” Her forearm is draped across her eyes, her
bright hair a tangled mess, her thighs chafed crimson by my beard.
I make a note to trim it. “Just one more.” I thumb her apart and barely
nip at her throbbing, swollen bud before her spine arches and she bastes my
tongue.
Like promised, I stop tormenting her and climb back up her sweat-
slicked curves. “I understand why everyone…” She inhales deeply, which
makes her nipples drag across my chest. “Is doing this.”
“Doing this?”
“Laying together”—a second deep breath—“naked.”
Between the press of her nipples, the scrape of her nails which she’s
now spiraling up my biceps, and the taste of her, I’m two point one seconds
away from blowing my load. I need a release before penetrating her or
she’ll find the act massively underwhelming. I’m about to head to the
ensuite bathroom when her body goes stiff beneath mine.
I check her eyes, assuming the Cauldron has whisked her away again—
another thing that’s going to require some getting used to—but they haven’t
gone white with magic. When she sucks in a breath, I realize she must be
mind-speaking with her Serpents.
Though I’d have preferred they didn’t intrude, I have to admit their
timing isn’t too dreadful. If they’d tried to contact her before, I may have
hunted them down.
“What is it?” I ask softly.
“Behati and Kanti’s ship has reached the western wall. They’re
demanding entry.”
“Turn them away,” I say, peeling myself off her to hunt down my shirt.
“On what grounds? The Mahananda communicates with Behati, Cathal.
If she were wicked, it would stop.”
“Perhaps, it did.” I yank the black fabric over my head, then hook on
my armor. The day the Cauldron offered to break our obsidian curse, I’d
had such high hopes to retire the heavy metal plating my chest. “Ask it.” I
don’t bother with the vambraces, which I only wear to keep my shirt sleeves
from ripping. Now that I live in the land of sorceresses where snags and
tears can be mended with drops of blood, I’ve no more use for them.
“It’s resting.”
It’s always fucking resting. If only we two-legged mortals and
immortals possessed such a luxury, but no. There’s no rest for the lot of us.
Never has been and never will be. Especially now that my mate’s queen.
Yes, my mate. Whether preordained or not, we’re mates, and from this
moment on, I’ll refer to her as such.
“Who contacted you to tell you of their presence in Shabbin waters?”
“Enzo. He’s fording up one of the Sahklare as we speak.”
“On a ship, I hope.”
“I think one tendu encounter was enough to last him a lifetime.” She’s
refastened the ties of her dress that bears a wet spot under her ass.
I should mention it. I really should; but I’m the maker of that wet spot.
Besides, since the fabric is slightly pleated, it’s only noticeable if one
focuses on her backside. If I catch any gaze straying there⁠—
“Cathal?”
“Hmm.”
“My undergarment, please.”
She holds out her palm.
I reach up and slot my fingers through hers, and then I carry her
knuckles to my lips and press a kiss to them. “I’ll take extra good care of
it.”
“Seriously?”
“Tà, moannan,” I say in Crow, before finishing my sentence in Shabbin.
“Seriously.”
The word mate in my tongue heightens the already rosy hue of her
cheeks. My woman glows especially bright tonight. I must pleasure her
more often. “Fine. Let’s hope it isn’t too gusty out on the water.” She smiles
as she strides toward her doors.
For a heartbeat, I almost give in and tender the scrap of silk, but the
knowledge that she’s bare under all that silver will be my only ray of
fucking sunshine until we retire for the evening, together, in her chamber.
Right before she opens the door, I readjust my tender cock, then scrub a
hand across my beard and through my hair.
“There’s a small bathing chamber through that door,” Daya points out.
“I’m aware.”
 “Would you like to use it before we set off?”
“No.” When a slender vertical furrow appears between the bridge of her
nose and her pearl, I explain, “Your scent will keep me calm. You’ll be glad
I didn’t wash it off.”
She shakes her head, then smooths a hand down her dress, blanching
when she feels the wet spot. “Great Mahananda, is that…?” When I laugh
softly and reassure her that it’ll dry, she skewers me with a look. “I cannot
voyage through the queendom looking like such a mess. The Shabbins
already don’t have much regard for me. What will they think?”
That pisses me off. “I don’t want you to care what they think. As for
their regard, if they have two braincells to rub together, they’ll see mighty
fast what a Cauldron-send you are to Shabbe. To the entire world.”
Though she gives her head another shake, a phantom smile plays on her
kiss-chapped lips. “Objectivity isn’t your forte, is it, mate?”
I don’t just smile; I grin. “I’m tremendously unbiased, mo mila Sífair.”
She laughs as she steals her hand from mine to put some order in her
wild locks. She begins to reach for the door, when I stride back to the sofa
and scoop up her crown. As I carry it over, I rub my thumb over the carved
golden scales and tusk-shaped diamonds. Like Lorcan’s, I suspect this one
was forged inside the Cauldron, for no artisan has this much talent.
“You won’t have to wear it forever, but you should wear it tonight. Just
in case Behati or Kanti have their doubts about who the Cauldron chose as a
successor.”
The mention of a successor collapses Zendaya’s happiness.
“Priya bound your magic,” I remind her.
“Yet I still loved her.”
I sigh as I place the crown atop her head, and then I crook a finger
beneath her chin to carry her eyes to mine. “My mother used to say that
death made saints out of sinners, for she never had more regard for my
lowlife father than after his passing.” I lean over to kiss her one last time
before the world rushes in with all its tribulations.
“She saved my life in Isolacuori.”
“She wouldn’t have had to if she’d made you immortal.”
Daya flattens her lips. Though I sense she wants to make more
apologies for the deceased queen, she doesn’t. She stays quiet.
Too quiet.
 Granted, I fly her to the beach, so it isn’t as though we can converse
when I’m in this form. But even after we land on the strip of pink sand
beside Asha, who flew over on Aoife, and Agrippina, who flew atop Reid,
Daya remains uncharacteristically laconic. Perhaps I should’ve shown her
some empathy, but falsifying my feelings goes against everything I believe
in.
As a smaller vessel is magicked off the wide, pearl-white Nebban ship,
fear suddenly percolates through me. What if this new version of my mate
never acclimates to my blunt pragmatism? Her past self didn’t truly have a
choice whether to be with me or not. This Daya does.
What if she decides I’m impossible to live with and love?
 Chapter 56
Zendaya

B
ehati gestures toward the Nebban commander who disembarked with
her, along with seven Faeries in forest-green military regalia. All of
them have pointy ears and long braids, and all of them are staring at
me—mostly at my uncommon eyes and retracted tusk, but my crown also
proves an object of great interest.
Nevertheless, no one stares at it more than Kanti. I don’t think she’s
blinked away from it once since I dismounted Cathal. I feel sorry for my
cousin, and genuinely hope that, in time, she’ll manage to stop coveting it
since I’ve no plans to hand it over. Not for the foreseeable future anyway,
and never to her.
Better lock up that crown when you’re not wearing it, Agrippina
singsongs into my mind.
From how close Reid stands to her, I take it they’ve made peace.
Mates… Though I don’t need a magical bond to feel sure of Cathal’s
feelings, I hold out hope that he is my mate. He may claim it won’t change
anything, but I sense he needs the peace of mind that I’ll not wander into
someone else’s bed.
Perhaps I should suggest marriage. That would appease him. If I do,
though, I’d need to suggest it before we lay together so he doesn’t view it as
some consolation prize. Yes, as soon as we’re done here, I’ll ask him to
marry me. I find my mood perking up, already imagining his reaction.
“It’s no laughing matter, Zendaya,” Behati says, squeezing the pommel
of yet a new cane, one made from that same white material as the Nebban
warship. “Why am I expecting you to care that your mother’s on the loose?
She just made you queen. For all we know, you played a part in freeing
her.”
My good humor withers. In a way, I did, but that’s none of anyone’s
business. Besides, it was unintentional. I’m about to retort that I didn’t
cavort with my mother, but I owe my grandmother’s advisor no
explanation.
Cool smoke slithers around my neck and arms as Cathal steps closer to
my backside, so close that I can sense his heart thudding as fast as mine
through the armor pressed along my spine.
“The Mahananda made me queen, Behati. All my mother did was make
me immortal.”
Clearly, Behati hasn’t learned of my immortality, for my words blow
her pupils wide. Kanti’s, as well. When the two exchange a look, I start to
question the intent of their voyage. But another musing takes precedence
over this one.
“Did you know that Priya had bound me?” I ask.
“With what? Rope?” Kanti asks.
Not the shiniest jewel on the crown, that one, huh? Agrippina’s
comment beams a sliver of light on my darkened mood.
“Behati?” I prompt when the pale-haired sorceress has still not replied.
“Were you aware that Priya bound my Shabbin magic?”
She scoffs. “She’s been gone one day, and already you’ve renounced
your kinship.”
What in the realm does she mean?
“How Daya processes her grief is none of your concern,” Cathal growls.
“Now bloody answer her question before I⁠—”
“Before you what, Cathal?” Behati’s eyes are narrowed. “Before you try
to drag it out of me with an iron talon? I’m Shabbin.”
A boat pops out of the ramparts, right behind the Nebbans. They jump
and scatter when the sand liquefies into a watery trench linking the Sahklare
to the open sea. I suppose that, because of my mother’s wards, none have
ever witnessed how ships sail out of Shabbe.
Enzo hops out, eyes glossed with a mixture of anguish and anger.
Though he begged me to wait when he caught us soaring over the ship, we
didn’t. Partly because I wanted to expedite this meeting, partly because
being immortal has boosted my confidence to dangerous levels, and partly
because the Mahananda said that, to replace Behati as its seer, she’d either
need to name her successor and enter the Mahananda with her chosen, or
breach the covenant she and it struck, at which point the Mahananda would
bestow the gift upon another.
“Did you. Bloody. Know?” Cathal all but shouts.
I reach behind me until I locate his clenched fist. Instantly, his fingers
fall open and seize mine. I draw little arcs across his skin with my thumb in
the hopes of calming him.
“Yes,” Behati blusters back. “Yes, I knew.”
Kanti whirls toward her, her unbound locks swirling and smacking the
nude silk gloving her hourglass figure.
“Why do you think it took so long to cure your people of their curse?
The Mahananda wasn’t only depleted, it was angry. Even after Priya
explained her reasons for doing what she did.”
“Which were?” I ask.
“Your grandmother wanted to ensure that the creature the Mahananda
delivered into her queendom was worthy of immortality.”
Cathal’s fingers clamp around mine. I draw more arcs, hoping to allay
his tension and communicate through touch how unaffected I am by
Behati’s opinion of me. I don’t need her regard or her affection, not as long
as I have the Mahananda’s, Cathal’s, Fallon’s, and my Serpents’.
“The creature?” Agrippina crosses her arms and cocks an eyebrow.
“Here we go,” Reid murmurs, his tone tinged with amusement. I
suppose he’s used to Agrippina’s strong opinions by now and is glad they’re
not directed at him for once.
“Sorry,” Behati mutters, not sounding apologetic. “The new shifter
breed.”
“May I enquire after the reason for your rushed return, Behati?” I ask
pleasantly, even though I don’t feel pleasant.
The seer’s mouth pops wide. “This is our home, Daya. How dare you
ask for the reason of our return!”
“Many are displeased with the Mahananda’s choice,” I say. “Many left.”
“I trust the Mahananda had Shabbe’s best interest at heart when it
crowned you,” Behati says. It sounds like a blatant lie. Like she thinks the
source of all magic made a mistake.
“What about you?” I tip my head to Kanti as I scrutinize her cruel but
lovely face. “Do you trust the Mahananda?”
 “I trust it picked you for a reason.”
I snort.
“What?” she snaps.
Still sweeping my thumb over Cathal’s hand, I ask, “Could the reason
be that I was there and you weren’t?”
She snags a long black strand and tucks it forcefully behind her ear that
shimmers with emeralds. “I’d be lying if I said no. For years, I’ve been
trained for this position. You’ve only just flopped into this world. So yes, I
find it unfair.” Smoothing one hand down the side of her dress, she adds,
“But like Taytah, I trust the Mahananda.”
“I appreciate your honesty, Kanti.”
You’re not actually considering letting them in? Enzo asks.
I’m not considering it, Enzo. I am letting them in.
Why?
For several reasons. One, we’re immortal, so we’ve nothing to fear.
Two, I’ve asked the Mahananda and Behati remains our seer. I proceed to
tell him the rest of it. Of course my wish is that she’ll bequeath the task to
another soon. Ideally, you or Agrippina, but we cannot force her hand.
We can hope for her to err though.
Can you imagine if she gives the power to Kanti?
I trust the Mahananda wouldn’t allow such an egocentric person to
carry its messages.
What if Behati doesn’t share her visions with us?
By touching her forehead, I’ve access to all she sees.
What if she doesn’t let you touch her forehead?
Then I’ll force her to touch mine. Ultimately, she has no choice, Enzo,
for keeping her visions from the queen is a breach which will cost her the
sight.
He purses his lips, seemingly unconvinced.
“Commander Fordal is itching to return to Nebba. He needs to know
whether he sets sail with us or not,” Behati says.
I like that she doesn’t assume I’ll let her and Kanti stay. As for
Commander Fordal, I believe he itches to leave because of all the tusks
carving through the moonlit waters of Samurashabbe. He keeps staring at
them. At the sky, too, for that matter. I only now notice an influx of large
black birds. Cathal must’ve requested some extra sky guards on our way
over. “Tell Commander Fordal that he and his crew can set out.”
 “With us or without us?” Behati repeats.
I gesture to our Shabbin vessel. “With Kanti, but without you.”
“We either enter together, or we leave—together.”
“You are the Mahananda’s seer,” I say.
Behati’s eyes seem incandescent behind her white bangs. “I’m aware,
but I can see just fine from anywhere in the realm.”
I hate her implicit threat. “Fine, but if Kanti tries to hurt me or mine,
then she’ll step into the Mahananda.”
Behati purses her lips. “She’ll be on her best behavior. Right, Kanti?”
When Kanti doesn’t confirm this, Behati repeats her question with a snap.
“Right?”
“Of course, Taytah.” She rolls her eyes. “I will always do what’s best
for the Mahananda.”
I nod farewell to the Nebban commander, who sketches a reverential
bow, and then I turn toward Enzo and ask him to escort the women.
“Behati, your palace wing is in shambles. You’re welcome to stay in Priya’s
bedchamber until yours is fixed.”
“My grandmother’s dwelling is destroyed?” Kanti shrills. “Who would
do such a thing?”
I release Cathal’s fingers so he can morph into a Crow like Aoife and
Reid. “The prisoner she stowed beneath her bed. Or perhaps, Justus. I didn’t
have time to enquire.”
Kanti grips her grandmother’s bony arm. “Taytah, what if this is an
ambush? What if Meriam and Justus are down there waiting for us? What if
Daya’s leading us straight to them?”
“They’re not down there.” Behati lifts a hand to her chest and rubs, as
though her heart were aching.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because Meriam owed me a favor, and I claimed it. She cannot harm
me or any descendant of mine.”
I wonder when the seer claimed this bargain—when she heard Meriam
had broken free, or when she imprisoned her in a cell beneath her bed?
As I climb up my mate’s wing, I turn back toward Enzo. Have them
and their trunks searched for any suspect powder or vial.
He glances at the six trunks two gray-eyed Faeries are floating off the
shiny white Nebban ship and onto the wooden Shabbin one.
I’m sorry for saddling you with them, Enzo.
 He stares at me, then at Cathal. You have a mate now. That is all he
says, and he says it so flatly, it makes my heart twinge.
I send down a prayer to the Mahananda that he finds his other half soon.
One worthy of him.
 Chapter 57
Zendaya

A
ll three Crows land in the courtyard. Four…
Aodhan has joined us. He touches two fingers to his forehead and
flicks them in that same odd gesture Cathal did once. “You got it,
boss bird.”
At my frown, Cathal presses his palm to the small of my back and leans
over to murmur, “I’ve tasked him with keeping Kanti entertained.”
Reid coughs a word that’s foreign to me into his fist, which makes
Aodhan’s grin burn brighter.
“Have you seen Kanti?” The Crow no one can seem to stand flicks back
a lock of midnight hair. “It’s not exactly a punishment.”
“Gods, you and her are like the same person,” Agrippina says.
I catch a soft smile playing on Aoife’s lips. I take it that she agrees.
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment seeing as Kanti is hot as fuck.”
He waggles his eyebrows at Agrippina. “Admit that you’re disappointed the
Cauldron didn’t mate you with me.”
She bursts out laughing, which makes Reid grin smugly. I glance up at
Cathal whose expression wavers between amusement and nerves. When he
senses my stare, he wheedles the corners of his mouth up. I wish he didn’t
feel the need to fake anything with me.
Asha appears beside us, her eyes bright in spite of the dark circles
rimming them. “I fed Cruaih before putting her in Daya’s bedchamber like
you asked, Cathal.”
Oh, Mahananda, Cruaih! I’d completely forgotten about her.
 “Thank you, Asha,” Cathal says.
“Anytime. And I mean it, anytime. She and I have a bond.”
Aodhan’s eyebrows wiggle again. “What sort of bond?”
“I know you want him to distract Kanti,” she murmurs to Cathal, “but
any chance the two of them could distract each other in the Sky Kingdom?”
Cathal smirks. “Lorcan would turn me into a forever-Crow if I sent him
back. Especially if I sent him with Kanti.”
I hiss. Even though I understand he meant it as a joke, I don’t like the
mention of dying, not even in jest.
He slides his palm to my waist and gathers me against him, then places
a soothing kiss against my temple.
“I heard that, Cathal,” Aodhan says, with a tilt of his chin and a scowl
that leads me to think his arrogance isn’t entirely impermeable.
“If you stopped flirting with every woman in a one-mile radius—
especially the mated ones”—Cathal’s fingers crinkle the silver pleats of my
dress—“Lorcan and I would hold you in higher esteem.”
“Not my fault the ladies find me so irresistible.”
“I hear Glace is lovely at this time of year,” Asha says, which makes
Cathal’s lips curl.
“I prefer my dick not to turn into an icicle, thank you very much.”
Asha sighs as though greatly aggrieved by his refusal to relocate. “I’ll
hold the fort down until Abrax gets back. Now off to bed, imNaage. And I
do mean to sleep.” She gives Cathal a pointed look that makes his fingers
crimp my waist a little harder.
Since no one intimidates the male, I deduce that his sudden edginess
comes from within.
“Reid and I are going to get some food. Should we send anything to
your room, Daya?” Agrippina asks.
“No. Thank you.” Right before slipping past Asha, I wind my arm
around her shoulders and hug her tight. “You, too, need your sleep. It’s been
a long twenty-four hours.”
She pats my back. “As soon as Abrax returns, Sumaca.”
Right before I pull away, I remind her, “Day or Daya, or even imNaage,
just never Sumaca.”
She smiles, then with a wink, she says, “Fine. I’ll only use your title
when I’m mad at you.”
I snort as Cathal tugs me away. “You’re often mad at me.”
 Her smile grows. “By the way, I know you can bloodcast now, but I
added a few wards around your wing that should last until sundown, even
though I’ll be back by then. Promise.”
“She should be part of your Akwale,” Cathal murmurs as he cracks open
my door and crouches. I’m guessing he sensed Cruaih was waiting right
behind it.
“She is. I asked her this morning. Along with Agrippina and Enzo,” I
say, closing my door. I reach up and push my finger against one of the two
diamond tusks. When the skin tears, I bring my finger to the door and paint
the sigil that will prevent anyone from bursting inside. “Tamar elected to
retire—she may have stayed but I don’t think she likes me very much.” I try
not to let her opinion affect me. “Asha’s suggested two new Shabbin
candidates. I asked her to bring them over in the morning.”
As Cathal scratches Cruaih’s neck, his throat works over a deep
swallow. “Your Akwale will be formed in no time.”
I suck on my fingertip as I study the crinkled corners of his eyes and the
deep hollows beneath his bladed cheekbones. Does he think I’ll send him
home once I’ve assembled my government?
I walk over to him and seize his jaw, then angle his face toward mine.
“Cathal Báeinach, I know Taytah ruled alone, but I don’t want that. I want a
king at my side. Forever at my side.” My proposal’s met with complete
silence. “Please say yes.”
“Old-Daya told me that I couldn’t be king for I’d terrorize the
Shabbins.”
A jolt of anger swarms me, and I let go of his face. “Old-Daya isn’t
me.”
Cathal’s silent, probably lost in thought about this mate who apparently
loved him but not enough to make him king. As I remove my dress and
climb into bed, I hear water running in my bathing chamber. Is he thinking
of her? I wait and wait, and still he doesn’t join me in bed. Does he plan on
spending his entire night hiding from me?
Exhaustion collapses my lids before the Crow has joined me in bed. But
when I wake, he’s there, lying next to me, Cruaih curled up on his pillow.
Though he said he wouldn’t be sleeping while I did, he sleeps as soundly as
his kitten. I watch as the sun crawls beneath my curtains and scratches over
his form. Oddly enough, it’s only once it reaches his face and dances over
his jaw that I realize he’s reduced his wild beard to a mere stubble.
 He must sense me watching him because his lashes flutter and then his
head turns. He sits up so suddenly that Cruaih lets out a little yelp. “Focá. I
didn’t mean to nod off.”
“My chambers are warded.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have fucking passed out.” He scrubs his eyes that are
bare of their usual black stripes.
I wouldn’t say the male seems younger without a beard and makeup, but
he does look different—less terrifying. The thought carries me back to the
last thing he said the night before. I decide not to let my jealousy encroach
on my mood. “Have you thought about my proposal?”
He glances over his large shoulder at me. Though he removed his armor,
he’s fully clothed. I suppose he didn’t want to risk guarding me in the nude.
“I have.”
“And?”
“You don’t need to marry me to ensure I’ll stay at your side. I promised
I would.” His Adam’s apple rolls as he sketches the slope of my bare
shoulder with his eyes. “I’ve no intention of breaking my promise to you.
Any of my promises.”
“I still want to marry you.”
With a deep sigh, he lays back on the mattress and turns onto his side,
his palm settling on my waist. “I know why you asked me to marry you,
Daya. You think a marriage bond will comfort me if our bodies fail to
knot.”
I’m a little surprised he’s guessed my underlying intent. Actually. No,
I’m not. Cathal Báeinach knows me inside and out.
“Mo mila Sífair, I don’t need a matching crown or blood magic to feel
confident in your affection. Besides, I’ve never aspired to marry or to rule a
kingdom. Do I worry you’ll leave me? Yes. But that’s because I lost you
once.”
“You lost a woman who looked like me. You didn’t lose me.”
He bobs his head, his fingers walking up and down my ribcage.
“Please stop comparing me to her.”
His fingers hold still.
“I can’t explain why, but it makes me mad.” I roll my lips together.
“And jealous.”
“Done.” He starts caressing the edge of my body again.
 Wanting to feel his skin on mine, I push down the sheets and nod to his
clothes. “Off.”
His lips quirk as he sits again and yanks off his shirt. And then he’s
climbing off the bed, kitten in hand.
I push up onto my forearms. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t want to scar little Misery.”
I frown until I hear a door click. “You put her outside?”
“In your closet. Her kibbles are there so she’s plenty happy.” He tugs on
the laces of his leather pants. “If she becomes as large as a tendu, I will
have words with Asha.”
I smile, but then the smile trips off my lips because the male is bare, and
I’m overwhelmed by another emotion, one that isn’t humor.
His curved cock is so hard it juts out and bobs as he climbs back onto
the bed. He settles beside me while I stare at him down there with a mixture
of trepidation and anticipation. Mostly the latter.
“Tell me what to do,” I ask.
“Wrap your hand around me.”
I reach out and curl my fingers around him. His flesh is hot and silken
like mine. Unlike mine, though, it pulses as though his heart dwells there.
“Why did you shave your beard?”
He slides one hand between my thighs. “So I don’t irritate your delicate
skin next time I go down on you.”
“It didn’t hurt.”
“It was too red for my liking.” He scrubs a hand across his jaw. “If you
prefer me with a beard, I’ll let it grow out again.”
“You look handsome with it and without it. I’ve no preference.” When
my thumb grazes his engorged tip, it comes away damp.
Cathal’s breath catches. “Actually. Change of plans, my Sweet Serpent,”
he says in rapid-fire Crow, shackling my wrist and tugging it away.
I quirk a brow. “Why? Was I doing it wrong?”
“Daya, you could jab your fingernail into my cock, and I’d still come.
You could never do anything wrong.”
“Then why are you pushing me away?”
“Because I want to last once I get inside of you.” He sucks on his
fingers and then reaches between my legs and slicks his saliva over me.
I don’t know why he feels the need to dampen me considering how wet
my core already is, but I don’t ask, getting lost in the sensation he kindles.
My heart begins to palpitate as eagerly as the rest of my body, which leads
me to climax against his skilled fingers in no time.
“To think I’m going to get to do this every single fucking day of my
life,” he murmurs around a pleased smile.
As my body settles around the lazy strokes he now draws up and down
my folds, he explains that it might hurt when he gets inside me, if the
Mahananda revirginized me. At my quirked brow, he clarifies what that
means. I suddenly hope that the Mahananda did revirginize me, so that it
doesn’t feel like a recycled body to Cathal.
I smooth a black curl off his forehead. And then I scoot closer, still on
my side, and seal my mouth against his. His lips part mine, and then his
tongue surges in and caresses. For a moment, his hand stops moving over
me and he loses himself in our kiss, but then he begins to caress again,
targeting that hole he plans on stretching.
When he dips his finger inside, my body gives an involuntary jerk that
makes me click my teeth around his tongue, not hard enough to draw blood
but hard enough to make me break the kiss and swing my gaze down our
bodies to check that it was his hand and not his cock. And yes…it’s his
hand.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks, worry scoring his features.
“No. Do it again.”
His finger glides back in, a little farther this time. When I grit my teeth
and clench around him, he sighs.
“What? Are you afraid my body won’t fit yours?”
A corner of his mouth tugs up. “No.”
“Then why did you sigh?”
“Because I’m worried that our first time will be uncomfortable for you.”
Relief floods me and I expel an almost violent breath. One that turns a
little choppy when Cathal starts strumming my clitoris, all the while
spearing me with his finger, going deeper with every flick of his wrist.
Predictably, I start to rattle. There is no pain. At least, none I can feel
over the pleasure coursing through my veins, propelling heat low in my
belly. Though the male doesn’t paint me with any sigils, I burn and shake. I
seize his shoulder that pops with muscle and hold on as he thrusts and
teases.
The pleasure that streaks through me is brighter, rougher, headier. It
wrenches a scream from my lungs, one that’s so shrill, I worry it’ll fissure
the ceiling tiles. I flop onto my back and just lay there, attempting to catch
my breath as Cathal carries his hand to his face.
I think he’s about to lick my juices off like he did last night, but instead
he just studies his fingers. “What?” When I notice a smear of black on his
middle finger, I prop myself onto my forearm, almost toppling against him.
“Where did that blood come from?” I frown, sweeping the covers fully off
myself, because⁠—
“When a woman’s hymen tears, she bleeds.” Twin spots of red bloom
over his cheekbones. “Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never deflowered a virgin.”
I’m inordinately glad to learn that this is going to be a first for him like
it is for me. He wipes his finger down his muscled thigh, smearing my
watery blood against the skin I once healed, which still bears a puckered
scar, and then he flops onto his back. “Climb on top of me. I want you in
control.”
I kneel, wrinkling my nose at the gray mess on my pristine sheets, then
carefully swing one leg over him, keeping my hips high. The head of his
cock is puffed and shiny, pointed upward, in the direction it wants to go.
He braces his large, callused palms under my backside. “When you’re
ready, just guide me in.”
His chest grows still when I curl my fingers around the veined flesh and
brush him across my folds, moistening him some more. And then I hold him
at my entrance and lock my stare with his. Cathal’s eyes are dark with
anticipation yet bright with an emotion that weaves itself around my ribs
and swathes my heart.
“I love you,” he says suddenly. Though he doesn’t add, “Whatever
happens next,” I hear the words. Or maybe I make them up. Perhaps I’m the
only one inherently worried about what’s about to happen…or not happen.
I want to return his words to make sure he knows that I feel the same,
but my throat is so tapered I can barely levy air. What little of it I manage to
reel in escapes as I lower my hips and he breaches my walls. I stop when I
reach my fingers that are strangling his poor, throbbing cock. Fearing I’m
hurting him, I spring them wide. I gasp then, because we’re both so slick
that I’m in freefall. By the time Cathal realizes I don’t mean to sheath him
inside of me so precipitously, I’ve slammed all the way down to his root.
“Sorry. Focá. Are you all right?”
I swallow, trying to gather my wits. He wasn’t jesting when he
mentioned there might be a little discomfort.
 “Príona?” His stomach muscles clench as he rolls up, changing the
angle of his penetration. “Please say something.”
“I’m”—I claw at his shoulders as though I were part tendu instead of
part Serpent—“fine.”
His lips twist. “Clearly.” He begins to lift me, but I push back down.
“I’m fine,” I all but growl.
“Tears are spilling out of your eyes. You’re not fine.”
“I am,” I grit out.
“It’ll feel better next time.”
“No.”
“It will.”
“I wasn’t saying no to how it will feel. I’m saying I want to stay on your
cock until you get your release.” I want our bond to form.
“Because you think I could come knowing that I’m causing you pain?”
He shakes his head, then thumbs my cheeks to clear away the dampness.
“At least try,” I croak.
“No. Not this morning.” He disengages himself from me but doesn’t lift
me off his lap. Instead, he winds his arms around me and holds me against
him until the tears stop tripping past my lashes.
Stupid tears.
If only I hadn’t wept like some injured creature.
If only he could’ve come immediately.
If only we could’ve known…
 Chapter 58
Zendaya

I
go for a swim in scales after our disastrous attempt at lovemaking.
Cathal flies overhead as I muscle through the Amkhuti, past clouds of
shimmering minnows, past clumps of rainbow coral, past a white stick.
Not a stick. A cane. I almost miss it for the coral it sits on is as white as
bone.
I nudge the cane with my nose to jimmy it out and am about to carry it
back to the surface when the current tumbles the body of a barracuda my
way. The listless body. Imagining it scuffled with another fish, I inspect its
flesh for teeth marks but find none. Perhaps it died of old age. Its seems
rather small to be old, but like land creatures, not all sea creatures have the
same shape or size. I let it be, knowing it will be nibbled on by others. The
ocean only ever takes to give back. I cast one last look at the cane that now
rests at an angle, bubbles springing from its hollow center. Such an odd
design for a cane. Then again, the Nebbans had an odd boat.
I resume my lap. I’m almost back to my starting point when I spot green
coils on the sand. Enzo?
His lids open at the sound of my voice.
Did you sleep down here all night?
I did. Too much noise next door.
Noise?
Agrippina and Reid. I can’t tell if they’re murdering each other or
having a blast.
 I’ll have your things relocated to another wing of the palace. Your
own wing.
His eyes grow huge. Day, that’s too much. I could never⁠—
You could and you will. And if someday you want to share it, then
you’ll get to choose your wingmates.
Serpents don’t weep, yet Enzo looks on the brink of tears.
Now that that’s settled, Asha mentioned two contenders for the
Akwale. I want you to meet with them.
Sorceresses?
Yes.
Is Tamar one of them?
No. She hasn’t shown any interest in being part of my coven. Which is
probably for the best since I’m not certain I’d trust her, I add with a sigh.
Do we need sorceresses?
Yes.
All right. Enzo bobs his big green head. He may be healed, but his body
—in both forms—still bears the bite marks of the tendu attack. But
Serpents cannot be in the minority. Do you give me permission to recruit
contenders for our species?
Explain.
We announce that we’re looking to make new Serpents.
I really doubt the Shabbins⁠—
I’m not talking about spreading the word in Shabbe. After a beat, he
adds, Perhaps your mate could help us?
The mention of my mate tosses me back to this morning and dulls my
mood.
Enzo tilts his long head. Everything all right?
Yes.
Liar.
Since I don’t intend to share the reason my heart feels as dense and
sharp as my tusk, I say, The word will be spread.
And it is. When after two days no one comes, Enzo questions whether
Cathal actually did broadcast it. Which of course does nothing for their
relationship besides damage it further. My Crow mate is so angry that he
spends his night in feathers. We haven’t had time alone since the morning I
bled and cried. I think he keeps his distance on purpose. He may claim he
desires me to heal, but deep down, I think he, too, has qualms about
completing the act.
When he finally returns, it’s with Connor, Phoebus, Fallon, and Ceres.
We don’t get a second alone after that. Though I love every moment of the
two days I spend with my daughter, catching up on anecdotes from Luce
and poring over the pages of her beautiful Serpent dictionary—which I
acted surprised upon receiving—though I laugh at Phoebus’s nonstop
chatter about the newest fashion trend he’s created and how it’s a great hit
with Crow women, but much less so with men, I miss Cathal and am
wholly unsatisfied by our snatched glances.
At the end of supper on the second day—another meal Cathal has
avoided, claiming business in Luce—Lorcan finally joins us and asks to
speak to me in private. Though my daughter frowns at not being included,
she takes Ceres by the arm for a promenade through the gardens.
I start to lead Lorcan toward the Kasha, but he has another place in
mind—the Chayagali.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” I ask.
“No.” He adds a smile that does little to alleviate my intensifying fear.
“You do realize that tendus are fond of serpent meat?”
“Tendus are the only creatures the Shabbins keep their distance from.”
I deduce it isn’t Cathal he wants a word about but one of my people.
“I’ll keep you safe, Daya.” I wait to feel magic cuff my bicep, but
Lorcan doesn’t add the magical binding words. Cautious man. I’m about to
ask him for one, when he leans over and murmurs, “It’s about Kanti.”
 Chapter 59
Zendaya

T
he foliage in the Chayagali is so dense that it traps what little
moonlight trickles from the crescent brightening the sky.
“What about Kanti?” I ask Lorcan the second he’s in skin.
“You know those listening sigils she drew in Tarespagian homes? She
also painted some here. One of them, inside the Kasha. There could be
more. If I were you, I’d have the entire castle swept for hidden ones.”
After balking, my jaw clinches.
“Anyway… Antoni came to me with something he’s overheard.
Something which he wants to use as a bargaining chip. Something about my
people’s curse. I cannot afford to give that male a bargain, Daya. I worry
he’d use it to harm my people. I imagined Cathal would know, since he’s
been assisting you, but he claims the Cauldron told you that there existed no
remedy. I’m not sure who to trust. This is why I’ve brought you here—
where no one can eavesdrop—to ask if the Cauldron has offered you a
solution to aid my people, or if Antoni’s trying to fool me.”
Though I hear rustling nearby, I cannot seem to care. I loathed Kanti
before, but now…now I want to pitch her into the Mahananda and implore
it to keep her there for putting my child in danger.
“There is a solution, isn’t there?” Lorcan is inspecting my face.
Perceptive male that he is, he adds, “It involves Fallon, doesn’t it?”
“Please don’t ask me.”
“If there was a solution to keep your Serpents safe from that chemical
that closes off your airway, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to
know?”
“Not if it meant harming someone I love.” My heated murmur rids his
complexion of color.
“Fallon is my mate. If the Cauldron’s solution harms her…”
“It does,” I say just as a growl sounds beside us.
Lorcan’s outline trembles. One of his crows must break away from the
others because I suddenly hear a wet snap followed by a muted whine. And
then the man is back in sharp focus. “Spare me from accepting Antoni’s
bargain.”
“Then strike one with me. Right here. Right now.”
“Fine. Zendaya amMeriam, Queen of Shabbe, I⁠—”
“There’s a way to break our curse?” The feminine voice that rings out
through the jungle is soon accompanied by the shape of a body.
Two bodies.
I should’ve known our flight out of the Vahti wouldn’t go unnoticed.
“Mádhi?”
I glower at Lorcan for having opened up a box that was safer left sealed.
“I’ve a right to know,” Fallon says, her boots crunching over the silty
soil as she moves closer. “Especially if it concerns me.”
“You said there was no solution, Daya.” Cathal’s arms are crossed in
front of his breastplate that gleams black like his eyes.
“Before you accuse me of keeping secrets from you, know that it was
your idea that I strip the Mahananda’s words from your mind.”
“My idea?” Though I cannot make out his features in the obscurity, I
picture him frowning. “Why would I ask you to mess with my mind?” His
tone rolls with so much anger that I must be wrong about the frown.
“Because you were afraid Lorcan or Fallon would eventually steal it
from your mind,” I say between barely separated teeth.
“If Antoni knows, others will, too, so please just tell us before he uses it
to hurt me or Lore,” Fallon beseeches me.
I close my eyes. When another guttural growl resonates nearby, I almost
turn and walk straight for the tendu so he could steal me away from the
Crows. But I’d only be delaying the inevitable. “Your Crow magic, Fallon.
That’s the Mahananda’s price. You’ll lose your ability to shapeshift, to fly,
to communicate⁠—”
“Goodness, Mádhi, I thought the cost would be my immortality.”
 “Perhaps it will be! Perhaps you’ll lose your Shabbin magic, too.” I toss
my hands in the air.
“Did the Cauldron say I would?”
“It didn’t speak of your Shabbin magic.”
“Then chances are, I’ll get to keep it.” My daughter, forever the
optimist. I wonder who passed this trait down to her, because it certainly
isn’t me or her father. Perhaps old-Daya was an insufferable optimist.
“Thank you for telling us,” Lorcan murmurs.
“It isn’t as though I had a choice in the matter,” I grumble.
Fallon inhales sharply. “I’ve a great idea!”
“I’m listening.” Lorcan clearly doesn’t believe it’ll be great for his tone
is as bleak as the ambient air.
“If the Cauldron were to remove my Shabbin magic, then Mádhi will
make me a Serpent.”
My heart holds still.
The whole jungle holds still.
“Fallon, no,” I murmur.
“It’s my body. My magic. My choice. But most of all, it’s my people.”
“Fallon, our curse is manageable, thanks to the Serpents.” Pain abrades
Cathal’s inflection.
“Yeah. It just drains Mádhi every time she heals us. What if it ends up
draining her completely someday? What if she loses her ability to shift?”
I shake my head. “The Mahananda will keep me safe, Fallon.”
“Like it kept imTaytah safe?” she volleys back.
I try to catch Lorcan’s eye but his stare is fastened to his mate. I hope
he’s forbidding her from entertaining the idea.
“Fine.” Fallon huffs. “But if the Cauldron swears to keep my Shabbin
magic and our mating link intact, then you will consider it.”
“Lore, no…” Cathal’s voice is barely above a whisper.
Fallon reaches up and takes Lorcan’s face in her hands. “Mara made
you king because she knew you would always take care of your people. You
owe it to her and to them.” After a beat, she says, “I will always be yours,
Lore. Albeit less downy, but always yours.”
“Tell Fallon that her altruism has just secured both her blood magic
and mating link. If they’re ready, then I’ll welcome the Crow King and his
mate tonight.” The Mahananda must read my next question, because it says,
“No need for an obsidian blade or your blood, my child. All I’ve need for is
them to enter together.”
“What did the Cauldron say, Daya?” Cathal must’ve brushed past
Lorcan and Fallon because he’s suddenly standing right there in front of me.
I inhale deeply. I’m aware the cost of her Crow magic isn’t my fault,
that it’s my grandmother’s, but still, it pains me. “The Mahananda has
sworn that it will not strip you of either blood magic or mating link. And
that it’s ready to receive you and Lorcan tonight. I’d tell you to take some
time to think about it, but⁠—”
“We can’t risk it changing its mind. Besides, what is there to think
about?” Fallon’s eyes shimmer, and though her lips curve, I sense there’s
heartache mixed into her relief and enthusiasm.
I may never have dreamed of shifting into a Serpent, but if someone
were to strip me of my power now…
“Swear to always carry me on your back, Lore?” Fallon asks, a slight
tremor to her pitch.
He must close his eyes for the twin pinpricks of gold vanish. “I hate
this.”
“I know you do, mo khrá, but it’s a small price to pay to keep our
people and our kingdom safe.”
He shudders. “Zendaya, do you swear to me that this is what the
Cauldron said?”
“I know you’ve been duped before, Lorcan Ríhbiadh, so I won’t take
offence in your question, but understand that I will never intentionally hurt
my daughter or your people. Never.”
For a long moment, the four of us stand there in the quiet stillness of the
Chayagali. Though tendus surely prowl nearby, though my daughter is
about to lose her ability to shift, a sense of righteousness drapes over the
four of us. I know I’m not the only one to feel it because Lorcan asks Cathal
to carry me back, and then he takes off with Fallon for her final flight.
“Dalich,” Cathal murmurs, a second before transforming and crouching.
As I climb onto his back, I wonder what he’s sorry for—not believing
me when I told him it was his idea to be stripped of the memory or avoiding
me? I decide to leave it be for now. Once my daughter and her mate
reemerge from the Mahananda, safe and sound and immune to obsidian, I’ll
request that Cathal and I have a long and private conversation.
 When we reach the Vahti, Fallon and Lore are already stepping onto the
source of all magic. My pulse hitches when they sink, and my fingers
tighten around the feathers at Cathal’s neck. He cycles over the courtyard.
When he doesn’t angle lower, I realize he has no intention of landing. I
suppose we’re just as well off pacing the stars.
I don’t blink. Not once. I stare and stare at the opaque silver surface.
Can they see us like I saw them?
Are they in pain?
Why’s it taking so long?
It had been much quicker the day Fallon went in on her own, hadn’t it?
A ripple disturbs the Mahananda’s surface.
And then a head of black hair. Lorcan’s.
I wait with bated breath until a second head pierces the surface, and
even then, my lungs refuse to contract.
Fallon twirls, surely looking for us.
Lorcan must tell her we’re still flying, because she cranes her neck up to
find us. I didn’t think I still had air in my lungs to breathe out, but I must,
for a gasp whooshes out of me when our eyes collide.
Pink.
Her eyes are Shabbin-pink.
 Chapter 60
Zendaya

A
s soon as Cathal lands, we find an obsidian blade. It penetrates
Lorcan’s skin without even leaving a blemish. Cathal tries it on
himself next, choosing to slice across his pinkie this time. He heals
instantly. The relief that paints Lorcan’s features is only shadowed by the
altered hue of his mate’s eyes.
“Is pink not your new favorite color, mo khrá?” she teases him.
Like Cathal and me, Lorcan hunts her face for any sign that her cheer is
false.
She purses her lips. “All right…can we stop with the pity party you’re
all throwing me? I’ve no regrets. None.” She says the word none in every
language, save for Crow, which she no longer understands, but which she’s
decided to relearn immediately. “I’m extremely serious. If you don’t all
stop, I will go find Phoebus and a bottle of date wine and—and make new
friends.”
She starts a countdown. Afraid she truly will up and vanish, I smile and
ask her for help canvassing the palace for concealed sigils. We find six—
one in the queen’s chambers, one in mine, one in the Kasha, one in my
Serpents’ common room, one in Behati’s ruined quarters, and one in Fallon
and Lore’s wing. I assume there are more.
“How does Kanti still have blood to cast with?” Fallon asks.
As we bleed the walls to cleanse them, I imagine it’s Kanti’s chest that’s
bleeding. A terrible but not unwarranted thought.
“Why did you allow her back into Shabbe again, Amma?”
 I startle that Fallon uses the Shabbin term for Mother instead of the
Crow one before remembering that she must no longer know the Crow one.
In truth, I don’t much mind. As long as she considers me her mother, she
can call me by any name.
“So?” she prompts me as we do one more sweep of my Serpents’
quarters.
“Because if I didn’t, then Behati wouldn’t come back, and I need her
here. I need to be able to access her visions. Eventually, I also need to
convince her to bestow her power upon someone else.”
“Surely you can boot Kanti out for sticking listening sigils around the
palace without losing Behati, no?”
I twist my lips. “What if she decides to leave with Kanti?”
“If her allegiance is truly with Shabbe, she’ll understand your decision.
She might even second it.”
I nod. “I’ll pay her a visit tomorrow, then.”
Just as we head for the door, Ceres enters, along with Agrippina.
At the sight of Fallon’s eyes, both do a double-take and gasp in Lucin:
“Your eyes!”
“What about them?” Fallon answers in Shabbin—surely for my sake.
When their jaws slacken, she bursts out laughing. “You should see your
faces.”
“You should see your eyes,” Agrippina deadpans.
“How about we go brew some tea and I’ll tell you why my irises
changed color?”
“I sense I’m going to need something stronger than tea,” Ceres
grumbles.
“Any excuse to tipple, ah, Mamma?” Agrippina winks, hooking her arm
through Fallon’s and leading her toward the communal kitchen.
Ceres begins to follow with a shake of her head, but stops when she sees
I’m not heading in the same direction. “Zendaya, I wanted to ask you
something.”
I nod, indicating for her to continue.
“Would you grant me asylum indefinitely?”
“I’m offended you’re asking me for permission, Ceres.”
“I would never presume that your grandmother’s invitation remained in
vigor.”
“My home is your home, Shrima Rossi.”
 Before she joins her daughter and granddaughter, she offers me her
condolences for Priya’s passing. I thank her, genuinely touched. Though my
grandmother wronged me, she also loved me, something too few
understand.
When I reach my bedchamber door, I find Lorcan and Cathal deep in
conversation with Aodhan, who’s just come from the house Behati and
Kanti moved into upon their return—a home that borders the Amkhuti and
which belongs to Behati’s cousin. I heard through my grapevine of loyal
guards, and through Aodhan—who’s taking his task of seducing Kanti to
heart—that my cousin spends her days spreading cruel rumors about me
and my shifters.
Though it grates on both Asha’s and Enzo’s nerves, I don’t mind my
cousin’s badmouthing for, like Cathal pointed out, it’s helping us weed out
potential dissenters. Every day, Agrippina adds names to the list she’s
meticulously keeping.
“Everything all right?” I ask.
“Where’s Fallon?” Lorcan asks.
“With Ceres and Agrippina in their wing.” I nod in the direction I came.
He begins to dissolve but solidifies once more to say, “Thank you,
Zendaya.”
Though I did nothing to warrant his gratitude, I accept it and wish him a
good night.
“Aodhan said that Behati’s eyes turned white,” Cathal explains. “I think
we should go pay her a visit.”
“Not tonight.” I reach for my bedchamber door.
“I’ll go alone, then,” Cathal says.
“Not. Tonight. Please. We’ll go see her first thing tomorrow.”
“I think that’s a mistake. Visions are⁠—”
“Is that the only thing you believe is a mistake?”
He narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say.
Aodhan begins to whistle.
“Fuck off, Aodhan,” Cathal grumbles.
“You know what? You, too, Cathal. Until you figure out what you want,
you can leave.” I fling my door wide and stride inside.
He trails me in, shutting the door with such force that the wood rattles in
its frame. “I was waiting for you to heal completely.”
 “Liar.” I whirl on him.
He glances at Cruaih, who’s poked her head out of my bathing chamber
and stares between the two of us as though undecided whether to step out of
her haven. She must decide she’s safer inside because she retreats.
“It’s not a lie,” he says.
I stride back toward him and poke his armor with my finger. “But it’s
not the full truth.”
The corners of his eyes twitch.
“You said it wouldn’t change anything, but you aren’t convinced, are
you?”
When his lids close, I realize I’ve hit the mark.
“I thought you’d love me no matter what?”
His nostrils flare and he grits out, “I will.”
My head rears back. “But you think I won’t?”
His silence rings louder than words.
“You’ve such little faith in my heart, Cathal.”
“Everything’s a first for you, Daya. Everything’s a last for me.”
My throat burns. My lids, too. “I don’t even understand what that
means!”
“Not only are you a queen, but you’re also so fucking…beautiful.
Contenders for your heart will throw themselves at your feet. Especially
once you begin to expand your den.”
“Why would I look at any of them if I have you?”
“Because I’m old and unpleasant.”
“You are unpleasant.”
He grimaces.
“You’re a cantankerous curmudgeon.” I seize either side of his face.
“But you’re my cantankerous curmudgeon.”
His gaze skips over mine as though to check I’m speaking the truth.
“When I look at you, I see the man I want by my side always. I see the
man I choose as my king.”
His throat dips.
“Choose me back, Cathal.”
His pupils dilate.
“Choose us.”
His lids snap closed. When they reel open, gone is his shifty gaze. Gone
is the anxious male. He palms my ass and lifts me. And then he kisses me.
And oh, Mahananda, how I’ve missed his lips. My legs snap around his
waist as he carries me down the wide hallway, moving with such
determination, the wicks on every candle bow in his wake.
He sets me down on my mattress, then gets rid of his armor, boots,
pants, shirt. Cathal Báeinach may feel ancient, but his body is that of a man
in his prime—chiseled and padded to delectable perfection.
The sight of him unclothed floods my core. I begin to reach for my
underwear when he drops onto his knees in front of me, cinches my thighs,
and drags me to the edge of the bed. And then he’s hooking my legs over
his broad shoulders and pressing his face against the scrap of silk. After
licking and kissing around the soaking fabric, he tugs it aside and flattens
his tongue against me. I rattle with such violence that it must shake my
sunstone land.
Cathal suddenly spears one finger into me, all the while twirling his
tongue over the little magical bead. My climax gushes out of me, literally
gushes, splashing Cathal’s nose and mouth. I jerk onto my forearms and
stare in shock and horror as he sits back on his heels. I expect a grimace to
reshape his face, but I’m met with a smirk.
“What was that?” I ask.
“That, mo Sífair, was a sign that your body really enjoyed what I was
doing to it.” He wipes his face on his forearm. “Fuck, that was hot.”
“It scalded you?”
He chuckles. “No. Not that sort of hot.” He gets back to his feet, then
bends over me and hovers his mouth over mine. “Can I kiss you or would
you prefer I go wash off?”
“I don’t know.”
He touches his lips tentatively to mine. When I don’t pick up on any
unpleasant smell, I slant my mouth to deepen the kiss. He reaches between
my legs for my underwear and snaps it off with a hard tug, and then he’s
pulling back, lifting my legs, and positioning his cock at my entrance.
“Ready?” he murmurs, solemn again.
“Yes, Cathal.”
His chest lifts with a deep breath as he uses one hand to guide himself
inside of me. He goes slow, hunting my face for any sign of pain.
There’s none.
When he stretches me, it’s all pleasure and I start to rattle. He gapes at
my vibrating body, the tension receding from his face because he knows
what it means.
He sighs as he pulls back and thrusts into me anew. But then his sigh
turns into labored pants, and he curses a blue streak. “Fucking underworld,
woman, if you don’t get that rattling under control, I will blow.”
It’s cute that he thinks I have any control over my body’s physiological
reaction to his. My stomach tightens like a fist and pools heat into my core.
I think I’m about to release another burst of wetness and worry it will carry
him out. I try to warn him but end up gasping from the intensity.
His fingers clench like his jaw as he rocks his hips back, then slams into
my drenched core with a feral growl. With a groan, his head falls back and
he paints my quivering center with ribbons of heat.
My throat bobs and my heart catches as I watch him. How could he
doubt for a second that I’d look anywhere but at him?
Even my core is pulsating with love, hugging his softening shaft, which
snaps his neck straight and makes his eyes bore into mine.
I don’t dare hope that this is anything more than a spasm. Until it
happens again. Not so much a twitch as a tightening. A gripping.
“Cathal?” I whisper.
Daya, he whispers back. Except…
Except his lips don’t part, only bend, while mine…they tremble. He
hinges forward as my core swells around him and clinches so tight I worry
it must hurt.
Nothing has ever felt so extraordinary. He scrapes his lips over mine,
tracing their quivering contour before filling them in with a kiss that trickles
down to my very soul.
As he sweeps away the salt of my tears, I murmur through our mind
link, I love you, my Crow.
Never as much as I’ll love you, my Serpent.
 Chapter 61
Zendaya

D
ay, we have volunteers! Enzo’s voice jolts me awake.
The light that seeps beneath my curtains is watery and gray. I roll
onto my back and stretch to realign the bones and muscles I strained
making love to Cathal multiple times after we knotted. I smile at the
memory, then twist to locate my mate but he doesn’t lie on the other side of
the bed.
Day? Enzo says again.
I’m awake, Enzo.
Reid’s about to fly me and Agrippina up to the beach. Aoife’s waiting
there with Asha. Come on! He sounds giddy, like someone about to go on
some great adventure.
I toss the sheets off my legs and jump out of bed, calling out my mate’s
name aloud. The only sound is the skitter of claws against stone. I must’ve
awakened Cruaih. Sure enough, the tiny feline comes pouncing down my
hallway, meowing as she wraps her body around my ankles.
I scoop her up and kiss the top of her head. Cathal?
I’m outside your door with Erwin, mo Sífair.
Unlike my Serpents’ voices, Cathal’s resonates not only in my mind but
also in my blood. It tightens my abdomen and spurs my pulse. I wonder if it
affects him the same way. Apparently, two volunteers have arrived.
I’ve heard. Get dressed. I’ll fly you up to the beach.
I forgo my usual dose of flakes—I’m at twelve now, and barely have
any reaction—and dress in a bathing suit, then slip on a robe as pink as my
hair and cinch it closed with a belt made of golden pearls. Enzo’s
excitement must’ve rubbed off on me because, after replenishing Cruaih’s
water bowl and making sure she has plenty of what Asha calls kibbles, I all
but skip out of my bedchamber.
My excitement takes a slight nosedive at the tension wreathing my mate
and Erwin. “What is it? Did something happen to Liora? To Lore?”
“No, Sumaca.” Erwin smiles and though it looks genuine, it’s not quite
as bright as I’d like. “Everyone’s just fine. Even the injured.”
“Then why do the two of you look so fretful? Is it because volunteers
finally showed up? Are you worried about me expanding my den?”
“Of course not.” Cathal shakes his head, winding his arm around my
waist and pressing a kiss to my hairline, which is crown-free this morning,
as it is most mornings.
Though I like my crown, it isn’t the most convenient accessory. “Must I
keep making guesses or will one of you spit it out?”
“Erwin was saying that there have been other volunteers, but most of
them have drowned before making it to Samurashabbe. They’ve been
collecting floating bodies for days now.”
“Humans tried to swim across?”
“Most humans do not know how to swim.” Cathal slides his jaw from
side to side, making it pop.
“Cathal, please. Just tell me everything,” I all but growl.
Their boats have been sinking. He gestures to Erwin. “Lore sent a few
Crows to survey the waters to find the culprit. We assumed it might be the
former members of the Akwale, but it’s not; it’s the serpents. They’ve
ringed Shabbe and have been splitting every hull that tries to come through
with their tusks.”
I gasp. “Serpents have only ever saved people. Since when have they
become homicidal?”
“We believe it’s either some side-effect of that Nebban-made toxin,” he
says. “Or some collective decision to keep foreigners out of Shabbe to stop
its spread.”
I frown. “I thought it was no longer being manufactured and poured.”
“It’s not”—Erwin scrapes a hand through his orange hair—“but the
waters around Eponine’s shores and around Isolacuori are still depleting
themselves of salt and underwater life. No solution to counteract the toxin
has been found yet, even though Arin believes we could try and combat it
with clay.” The blood must leach from my cheeks because Erwin says,
“We’re just about to start trying it, Sumaca.”
I mull all he says over. “The boats that were sunk…did they all
originate from Nebba?”
“No. From all over the realm. The twins I collected from the surf and
dropped off on your shore were sailing in from Glace. Mórrígan only knows
how they managed to ford the Northern Sea on their bonafide raft, but
where there’s a will, there’s a way, I suppose.”
Day, are you coming? We’ve explained everything to them and they’re
ready. Enzo’s entreaty pulls my mind off one problem and pitches it toward
a more immediate one. Though is transforming two new souls into shifters a
problem?
Yes, if the ocean keeps ridding itself of salt, my mind parries.
My musings must penetrate Cathal’s mind, because he says, “An
antidote will be found.”
I hope he’s right because the memory of what it did still haunts me.
Ready?
I nod. As he shapeshifts, a thought strikes me. One that I share with him
through the mind link. The Shabbins can communicate with serpents.
When his voice doesn’t flare through my mind, I ask, Can you hear me?
Yes. I can hear you. I didn’t realize there was a question in there. He
extends one of his wings for me to climb.
It’s not so much a question as a deliberation: what if a Shabbin—my
gaze strays to the house Behati and Kanti have moved into—has
commanded the serpents to keep aspirants out in order to stop me from
growing my den?
We’re already exploring that avenue.
Of course, Cathal’s already entertained this idea. He’s so much more
learned about the world and cautious about its people than I am. We reach
the beach just as the sun pokes over the horizon and turns the ocean molten.
Heads crane as we land.
When Erwin mentioned twins, I expected them to look identical like the
Glacin sisters, but these twins are vastly different. Yes, their eyes are both
hazel and their hair cropped within a millimeter of their scalp, but one is
female and the other male. Not only that, but the boy is as tall as a date
palm while his sister is as petite as Behati. The hue of their shorn hair is
also vastly different—the boy’s the same white as the Glacin King, whereas
the girl’s is Crow-black. That will change soon, though.
Where Erwin had wondered how they’d survived their voyage, I wonder
how they’ve survived, period. Both are agonizingly skinny, with bones
pressing into severely sunburnt skin, patches of which have begun to peel.
As I approach, my bare feet sinking into the soft sand, the girl shuffles
the slightest bit nearer to her brother.
“They’re orphans,” Agrippina explains in Shabbin. “Their mother died
in childbirth, while their father, like many, succumbed to frostbite wounds
acquired during the Great Dig.”
I nod, having heard of the Great Dig during lunch in Isolacuori. King
Vladimir raved about how his mountains were being excavated to
accommodate a railway system that would revolutionize Glacin life and
commerce, quieting only when his son asked a question. One I’d forgotten
to have translated with everything that had happened subsequently.
Conceivably, these children can explain their kingdom’s inner workings
once they speak our tongue. If, I correct myself, not once. Though it worked
with both Agrippina and Enzo, neither intentionally sacrificed themselves.
“Tell them there’s no guarantee that the transformation will take,” I say
in Serpent, which blows the twins’ lashes wide. “I won’t make empty
promises.”
Agrippina, who speaks their tongue, dispatches my words. Brother and
sister exchange a look, link hands, and nod.
I ask the Mahananda for advice, but it remains quiet.
“How do we kill them?” Enzo asks.
“We don’t.” Agrippina’s nose rumples as she tucks her shoulder-length
blue strands behind her ears. “At least, I don’t think we should. Daya?
Thoughts?”
“I agree with Agrippina.”
“I’ll do it,” Reid volunteers. “On your command, Sumaca.”
I unknot my robe and hand it over to my unsettled mate, then approach
the ocean’s edge. Agrippina, Enzo, keep any curious serpents at bay.
They nod and tread into the waves, shifting almost instantly. “One at a
time,” I tell Reid.
Cathal slings my robe over one shoulder, then crosses his arms as the
brother releases his sister’s hand and follows Reid. I don’t ask for his name.
I’d prefer not to know it yet.
 “May the ocean reshape you,” I whisper in Serpent, before sinking into
scales.
 Chapter 62
Zendaya

A
lexei and Katya. Those are the names of my new Serpents. Where in
skin they looked nothing alike, in scales, they are one and the same—
aside from their proportions. Katya remains markedly slighter than
her brother.
My heart brims with relief and admittedly, a little bit of awe as they
acclimate to their new bodies in the loose fence Agrippina, Enzo, and I have
woven around them with our own bodies. Their scales shimmer like their
human eyes used to—a grass-green edged in cocoa-brown.
I suddenly wonder if the next generation of Serpents will have black
scales or if they’ll inherit their parents’ coloring.
Almost ready to shift back? Cathal asks as his winged shadow drapes
over the water.
When I changed forms, he’d hooked my robe around his torso like a
sash and shifted, drawing circles with Erwin, detracting serpents from
coming too close with shrill caws that resonated inside the ocean and sent
any wanderers scuttling away.
I still can’t believe they would’ve murdered people. No one else is even
a little bit alive? I ask my mate.
They’ve yet to find a single person with a pulse.
Not even a Faerie?
We’ve only come across half-bloods and humans. If there were any
Faeries, they must’ve swam back to Luce.
 I concentrate on my Serpents. How about we pursue this swim in the
Amkhuti?
Alexei curls his tail into his body, then stretches it back out. How do we
shift back, Your Highness?
Please, call me Daya. As for how to shift back, you must visualize your
human form.
You know what just struck me? Agrippina asks. Deia in Lucin means
Goddess. It’s not spelled the same, mind you, but still…I think it’s the
perfect moniker. Mare Deia—Goddess of the Sea.
Agrippina, the children. I nod toward the two dappled Serpents. Let’s
give them our full attention.
Katya morphs almost instantly, but then she starts flailing her arms and
sinking.
I think it’s because her tattered wool dress is weighing her down, but
then Alexei yells, She doesn’t know how to swim!
I snatch her with my tail and propel her to the surface, passing her over
to Cathal who carries her back to safety. Head to the beach before shifting,
Alexei.
Once we’re all back in skin, sister and brother embrace and whisper
animatedly in Glacin, before twirling toward me and sketching reverential
bows.
“There will be none of that,” I tell them out loud, in Serpent.
Their eyes round. Either they’re surprised to realize that our mind-
tongue can be spoken out loud or they’re surprised that they’re fluent in it.
Aoife flies both children back to the Vahti where Asha welcomes them
with open arms and a breakfast table laden with delicacies. I’ve realized
that Asha is a nurturer and that her love language is food. That’s how she
won over Enzo’s heart, or rather, stomach. Though I consider her my friend,
he considers her the mother he never had. I wish he’d consider me that way,
as well. Perhaps if I plied him with bowls of fried dough…
The children eat very little, picking at the heaps Asha has ladled onto
their plates. Though they promise the food is tasty and express their
gratitude multiple times in Serpent—a language Asha understands rather
well thanks to Fallon’s dictionary—she side-eyes their clavicles like the
salient bones are personally affronting her.
“Their stomachs have probably shrunken from years of stinted rations,”
Agrippina explains. “It was the same in Luce. I used to smuggle bags of
grain to Rax, and they would last certain families months, whereas those
same bags would be used up in mere days in the Fae lands.”
Ceres, who’s joined us at the breakfast table, side-eyes her daughter.
“You smuggled food to Racocci?”
She pats her mother’s hand. “Pappa’s secrets are a little more shocking,
wouldn’t you agree?”
Ceres squeezes her lips. I imagine that, yes, she does agree, though I
also imagine she’s not done discussing her daughter’s parallel life.
“Can you show Katya and Alexei to a room and find them some clothes
to wear, Asha?” I ask in Serpent, so that my words aren’t lost on the twins.
“And organize a fitting with the seamstress after they’ve rested.”
Their eyes widen.
“Tomorrow, we begin swimming lessons.” Before they can assume
these lessons will be taught in scales, I add, “In skin.”
Color leaches from their sunburnt cheeks.
“My Serpents, I will not have you drowning if your magic ever fails
you.”
“Why would our magic fail us?” Katya’s voice is just as slight as she is.
That of a girl who’s always needed to live quietly.
“Because even magic isn’t infallible. Besides, I’m certain you’ll both be
quick learners. Once you’ve mastered swimming, we’ll start bloodcasting
lessons.”
“Bloodcasting?” they gasp out in unison.
Here, I assumed the news of our blood magic had spread, but apparently
not.
“We Serpents are so much more formidable than Crows.” Agrippina
adds a wink that makes her mate cock a brow, Aoife smile, and Cathal…
Cathal doesn’t react, evidently elsewhere.
“Off we go, my sweets.” Asha winds her arms around the twins’ backs
and rakes them down the winding path, chattering all the way.
Aoife leans forward and plants her elbows on the table, her long black
braid flopping over her shoulder. “Zendaya, I know it’s no my call, but
maybe we cancel invitation we spread. Though we Crows can ensure safe
passage of contenders, Agrippina is right. Sífair have a lot power.”
Cathal studies the spoon he toys with, the iridescent mother-of-pearl
handle casting shards of color over his heavy-lidded stare.
What’s wrong, mate? I ask.
 He glances up, sets down the spoon. “Though there’s power in numbers,
the amount of magic you now wield can be dangerous without guidance.”
“We wouldn’t be converting just anyone to Naagaism,” Agrippina butts
in. “We’ll have rigorous criteria. If they don’t tick all the boxes, we’ll send
them on their merry way.”
“So you will turn away starving children with no prospect back in their
homeland?” Cathal challenges her.
Her lips press together. “We’ll give them coin. Right, Daya? We can do
that?”
“Of course.”
Cathal blows out a breath he seems to have held on to since we left for
the beach. “I just worry you all may end up choosing with your hearts
instead of your heads.”
“We are f-five!” Enzo exclaims. “If we’ve any ch-chance at being taken
seriously, we c-cannot stay f-five.”
Cathal reclines in his seat, but there’s nothing relaxed about his posture.
“So you’d prefer to balloon your numbers and risk that your extraordinary
and dangerous magic land in the wrong hands?”
“Th-That isn’t what I s-said,” Enzo snaps. Day, you once said this
decision was ours. Please let it stay ours.
I keep my gaze on his a long, long while. “Aoife, let’s change our
invitation process. Everyone can put in a request for consideration, but they
must send in a written application.”
Agrippina twists her lips. “Most humans are illiterate, Daya.”
“If they’re incapable of writing, the application can either be penned by
another, or one of us will travel to meet⁠—”
“No,” Cathal says. “Until Shabbe’s secure and an antidote is found, you
are safest here. All of you.”
“Then a Crow can interview them,” Agrippina suggests.
“We’re stretched thin already,” Cathal says.
Agrippina plucks a candied orange rind off the top of the curd dish.
“Lorcan can surely spare one of you?”
“We can ask, Cathal,” Reid offers.
Cathal’s eyes twitch.
This solution displeases you. I reach over and brush his muscled thigh
that jiggles from nerves. I’m almost surprised when he slips his arms out of
their tight knot and scoops up my hand to twine our fingers. Why?
 Do you know how many dead bodies were found? The last count was
over three hundred. Three hundred in under one week. And we’ve only
announced it in Luce, he adds.
My retracted tusk dips. Yet the twins are Glacin…
There’s much trade between the kingdoms. A Lucin ship must’ve
docked in Glace and spread the word. But that’s beside the point…
“Can we be included in your little aside?” Agrippina sweeps a piece of
flatbread in the bowl of curd, then tosses it into her mouth.
“I don’t think the three of you realize how many people lust for magic,”
he says.
“You’re wr-wrong,” Enzo counters. “I kn-know. I was human b-before.
I kn-know.”
“Then you know that the majority of people who will apply are humans.
Even though we’ve opened countless schools since our return, like
Agrippina pointed out, almost all are illiterate. Which means they’d have to
be interviewed in person.”
Enzo musses his green hair that now curls around his ears. “Then Asha
c-can conduct the interviews.”
“We cannot spare her, Enzo,” I say calmly, sensing his mounting
agitation.
We cannot spare her, or you’re siding with Cathal?
I bristle. We cannot spare her.
Enzo stews in silence, gaze affixed to his empty plate.
“I could do it,” Ceres offers. “I could be your envoy.”
Enzo spins in his seat to gape at her. I try to read from his posture
whether he’s pleased or horrified, considering his complicated past with
Faeries.
“Mamma!” Agrippina adds nothing else but a wide grin, which makes
Ceres’s green eyes beam with gladness to have her daughter look upon her
with such admiration.
Enzo? Would you be on board with Ceres interviewing future
candidates?
Yes! He spins back toward me, his expression brimming with renewed
excitement. Please say yes. Please?
How could I say no to something that makes you so happy?
Because your mate probably hates that we’ve found a solution, he
mumbles.
 Enzo, just because I welcome and value my mate’s opinions on
matters of state, he’s not a Serpent nor does he have the responsibility of a
pack. I give Cathal’s hand a squeeze before letting go and sitting upright in
my chair. “Ceres, we would be honored and grateful to let you be the judge
of our future denmates.”
Ceres glows, and so do my Serpents. If only every challenge we face
could be so easily resolved.
“Could we please get a pen and paper?” she asks one of the attendants
waiting on us.
“Right away, Shrima Rossi.”
As Enzo and Agrippina begin to throw out conditions, Aoife mentions
how serpent killings may dissuade people from wanting to be transformed,
while Reid reminds her that serpents were already considered homicidal
beasts, so he disagrees.
A shadow blunts the sun over our heads as a Crow circles. My first
thought is that another survivor has been pulled from the ocean and brought
to me for healing. Though the Crow does have a rider, she’s not a contender
for my magic, only for my throne.
 Chapter 63
Zendaya

ood morning, chacha!” Kanti’s voice trills with false cheer.

“G It was a good morning until she showed up. “Hello, Kanti.”
“I’m ravenous.” Aodhan comes up behind Aoife, leans over, and
nicks one of the flatbreads.
“To what do we owe the displeasure of your visit?” Agrippina asks,
never one to conceal her feelings.
“Dear Mahananda, you were so much more agreeable when you were
cognitively challenged.” Kanti’s comment causes Ceres’s mouth to thin and
Reid’s eyes to slit.
But in Agrippina, all it triggers is a giant smirk.
Kanti asks for someone to fetch her a chair and some tapioca pudding.
When they glance at me for approval—which I give them—annoyance
flushes her cheeks.
Once seated, she says, “I heard you made new Serpents.”
At least she doesn’t—how did Taytah used to say? Ah, yes, beat around
the Amkhuti. “News travels fast.” I glance at Aodhan when I say this, but
he’s busy heaping grilled cheese onto his flatbread.
“Was it supposed to be a secret?” she asks.
“If it was supposed to be a secret, I wouldn’t have transformed them on
the beach for all to see, now would I?” I lean my forearms onto the polished
stone that remains cool however much sun beats down on it. “Since you’re
here, perhaps you could weigh in on something that’s been troubling me.”
The line of her shoulders harshens. “Perhaps.”
 “It’s come to my attention that serpents—the animals—have been acting
out of character.”
Her pupils contract, but aside from that, her expression remains
perfectly neutral. “In what way?”
“They’ve been sinking boats and drowning humans.”
“Have they?” Her lack of emotion is just as damning as her lack of
surprise.
“You wouldn’t know who’d command them to do such a thing, now,
would you?”
“You may think yourself superior to the common serpent, but you’re
not. Serpents are extremely perceptive creatures who’ve always protected
our island. If they’re keeping boats at bay, then it’s because they sense
incoming danger.”
“Keeping boats at bay would be one thing, murdering humans is quite
another, Kanti,” I say.
“Humans aren’t taught how to swim in the Fae lands, so they died from
their own shortcomings.”
Cathal rolls his neck. “Crows saw them drag people into the deep.”
“They were probably trying to ferry them back to Lucin shores but
forgot they couldn’t breathe underwater.” Kanti shrugs. “Once you’ve
constituted your Akwale, Daya, you should put a ward up around Shabbe to
prevent any more deaths. Though you are Meriam’s daughter, so perhaps
you don’t need an Akwale to create such a massive spell? And since we’re
on the topic, how is your Akwale formation going?”
The fevered smile curling her lips tells me that she knows exactly how
it’s going. The two sorceresses Asha had in mind ended up not showing.
When she asked them why, they told her that Shabbe belonged to
sorceresses not to shifters. I suddenly wonder if they’d change their minds
if I offered Kanti her seat back.
I almost ask Cathal’s opinion on the matter, but then picture having
Kanti living in the Vahti again and shudder. “Well, I was hoping to elect an
equal number of sorceresses to Serpents, but it seems as though it’ll be
mostly Serpents.”
Kanti seizes a glass filled with water and raises it so fast, half of it
sloshes over the rim. “Hear, hear. To peace and harmony between the
Shabbins and Serpents.”
 Though I comprehend full well she means my kind and not the
mammals inhabiting our waters, I say, “I didn’t realize we were at war with
the animals so intent on protecting our land.”
A spasm disturbs her cheek.
“Oh, did you mean us?” I gesture to my bright-haired denmates. “Just
call us Shabbins. After all, that’s what we consider ourselves. Isn’t that
right?”
“Absolutely,” Agrippina says.
“Yes,” Enzo says without stutter.
Another tic agitates Kanti’s cheek.
“Wait. Keep your glass up. I’d like to propose a toast.” Agrippina boosts
her coffee mug. “To widening narrow minds and promoting inclusivity.”
“Beautifully put, mate.” Reid reaches over and clinks his mug with hers.
Enzo agrees with a nod and a gulp of his juice.
“Throughout all the lands,” Ceres adds before drinking.
If only toasts could be magically binding like bargains. Hmm. Perhaps I
could strike one with Kanti.
No. That is all my mate says as he tips his water glass to his lips. “I hear
Antoni’s much aggrieved that you abandoned him.”
Kanti sets down her glass—without even wetting her lips—and sighs.
“My lovers always are.”
Is he truly heartbroken? I ask.
Keeping his expression blank, Cathal replies, No. Last I heard, he was
relieved she was gone and has begged that she be kept away.
Did she seduce the wrong enemy?
Either that or Behati fabricated the vision to get Kanti out of Shabbe.
Or the Mahananda gave her that vision to get her out of Shabbe so
she wouldn’t fight me for the throne.
I like that theory best.
“I vote you head back to Tarespagia and put the Governor out of his
misery,” Agrippina offers pleasantly.
Kanti frames my Serpent with a smile that’s so frigid, it drops the balmy
temperature by several degrees. “As soon as Meriam’s found, I’ll be out of
here.”
“What if she’s never found?” Agrippina asks.
“She will be. Taytah had a vision of her last night. She’s in Luce with
Justus, hiding out in Selvati. We’ve warned Lorcan.”
 My lids go wild with annoyance. “Matters of state are to be run by me.
All of them. Especially those concerning my blood relatives.”
“We thought you wouldn’t want to be bothered with such things, busy
as you are trying to grow your little pack.”
“I very much want to be bothered with such things,” I snap, any
semblance of congeniality gone.
Agrippina runs her index finger over the rim of her mug. “Your
consideration knows no bounds, Kanti.”
“None. I care fervently for my queendom.”
“Daya’s que-queendom,” Enzo corrects.
Kanti turns her frostbitten smile on him. “That’s what I meant.”
“Aodhan, could you please go fetch Behati?” I ask. “I’d very much like
a glimpse of her vision.”
“Aye, aye, Sumaca.” The Crow sucks oil off his fingertips before
wandering farther to shapeshift.
Kanti plants her forearms on the table, easing her torso forward. “I
might not worship you, Daya, but I would never lie about a Mahananda-
given vision.”
“Then you’ve nothing to fear,” I say.
She snorts. “Why would I have anything to fear?”
Cathal squares his shoulders. “Because you screw with my mate, you
screw with me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. Not only am I immune to iron, but also
to toxic masculinity.”
Shadows puff from my scowling mate.
Though I’ve no doubt he could hurt her, I place my hand on his lap and
squeeze his joggling knee to keep him from trying. She’ll get her
comeuppance.
Will she? The Cauldron didn’t punish your grandmother for binding
your magic.
I believe that, in time, it would have.
“The Mahananda sees all,” Agrippina tells Kanti. Well, warns her. “I
know you missed it, but it drained Malka when she challenged its choice of
monarch.”
I expect this to rid Kanti of a modicum of smugness, but steady as ever,
she says, “Good thing I’m not lying, then.”
 Shockingly enough, she’s not. The instant I place my hands on Behati’s
forehead I see my mother wandering around sandy streets. Not only that, I
see her leaving behind a trail of bodies. Which just doesn’t make sense.
Why would she go on a killing rampage? In the human district of Luce, no
less?
I understand why, when that night, a ship manages to penetrate the
fortifications and drift down the Sahklare right into the Amkhuti.
One with a message inked in human blood: Build your army, batee.
 Chapter 64
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eventy-one corpses. That is how many dead bodies lay aboard the
warship flying a Lucin flag. Though I do not retch, my stomach
spasms with horror and my fingers ball with anger as I tread across the
tacky deck.
Fallon, who was luckily already on her way over to Shabbe when she
heard about the boat, closes her fingers around my fist. “I know Meriam,
and this isn’t something she’d do.”
“Um, yeah it is,” Kanti says from where she sits high above us on the
Amkhuti’s embankment, legs swinging, palms flat on the grass as though
sunning herself instead of observing a horror show. “Plus, how would the
ship penetrate our fortifications and sail down our rivers were it not
powered by Shabbin magic?”
When news of the boat spread, Kanti was one of the first Shabbins to
traipse out of her abode to take in the spectacle.
“There are other sorceresses who could’ve floated that boat in,”
Agrippina counters, while my daughter steadfastly insists, “Meriam
wouldn’t murder a bunch of innocents, Kanti.”
Yet some of the corpses from Behati’s vision are there.
Right.
There.
The newborn babe nestled in a scarf knotted around its mother’s back.
The pubescent boy with a star-shaped birthmark on his jaw. The woman
with a tattoo over her heart representing an anchor wrapped in a rope that
spells a name—Raphaelle.
They might be dead but they’ve still got blood in their bodies, Day,
Enzo says. It could work.
Seventy-one.
Seventy-one.
Seventy-one…
The number clangs between my temples like a death knoll, springing
chills down my spine.
“Lazarus, maybe you could try to heal them with crystals?” Fallon
suggests.
“I’m afraid crystals only work when the subject has a pulse, Your
Majesty.” The giant’s sapphire robes flap in a gentle breeze. The lax wind
feels discordant with the brutal scene. There should be a tempest, or at the
very least, harsh gusts. “But I can try.”
He rubs one of the beads hooped through his ear and leans over the
babe. We all watch the infant’s diaphanous lids, willing them to flutter,
willing the child’s rosebud mouth to part around a wail.
Nothing.
The healer unfurls his broad body, lips twisted in sorrow. “Perhaps if we
sunk the ship and reversed the trajectory of the waterrises, your namesake
beasts could be herded into the Amkhuti to try and heal them.” The healer
squints at the algae-lit Sahklare. “Where are the serpents, anyway? They
usually swarm when they scent blood.”
“That is odd.” Fallon peers over the boat’s railing. “Aoife, can you fly
and see if you spot any?”
My heart pinches that my daughter cannot just spring off the deck of
this ship and take to the sky at will.
“I don’t like this.” Cathal’s apprehensive timbre carries my stare back to
the massacre.
“None of us like this, Dádhi.” Fallon must’ve learned that word before
the Mahananda removed her Crow magic for she’s never once called him
anything but that.
“I mean, I’ve a bad feeling about this.” He claps. “I want everyone off
the ship.”
“Serpents aren’t lying in wait beneath the boat to ambush Mádhi and the
others,” Fallon says.
 His dark gaze cuts to hers.
“Wait…you think that’s what’s happening?” The vein in Fallon’s neck
swells and strikes harder.
“I don’t know what’s happening, ínon. I just want everyone back on
land.” When no one moves, Cathal growls, “Now.”
I get to my feet and am about to step away when Reid gasps. He’s bent
over a wooden barrel, fishing something out of it.
“What is it?” Agrippina traipses over. “Another corpse?”
Her mate straightens, hauling out a broad body clad in black. I suddenly
worry it must be a Crow before remembering that Crows can no longer be
harmed.
Fallon palms her mouth. It’s only once a name tumbles from her lips in
a muted whimper that I understand why this cadaver shocks her more than
any other.
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s this Kanti’s Antoni? I ask Cathal.
It is. Which means that our daughter’s wrong. It is Meriam’s
doing, for Kanti wouldn’t murder her lover.
I lock eyes with his. Wouldn’t she?
“Reid”—Cathal’s tone snaps his gaze to his—“bring him to Kanti, but
wait for us to land before dropping the governor at her feet.”
Both men shift. Cathal hovers until Fallon and I have seized his iron
talons, and then he plucks us off the deck and carries us up to Kanti.
“You’re not even going to try to heal any of them?” My cousin gestures
to the ship.
“They’re dead. Serpents cannot revive the dead,” I say.
“Yes, you can. Taytah saw you revive lots of them.”
I frown because she didn’t show me that part of the vision.
Cathal gives a short whistle.
I don’t take my eyes off Kanti. When her lashes sink and rise as briskly
as hummingbird wings, I again question her involvement.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I venture.
Her jaw tightens, and she rams a hand through her hair with such vigor
that she pops out some of the jeweled pins clamped around artfully twisted
strands. I can’t tell whether she’s aggrieved or furious.
“Still think your mother isn’t a heartless bitch?” And then she’s standing
and striding toward her deceased lover.
 What do you think? I ask Cathal, as Aodhan drops off Lazarus beside
Governor Greco’s remains.
I think that was true shock on her face.
I try to make sense of all my thoughts. What keeps coming back to me
is that this might not be some sick ploy of Kanti’s to discredit my mother
after all. This might actually be my mother’s doing. Which begs the
questions:
What sort of monster put me on the throne?
What sort of monster believed I would appreciate such an offering?
What sort of monster murdered seventy-one—seventy-two innocents in
cold blood?
“I want Behati fetched,” I snap as Reid returns to the ship to grab his
mate. “I want to see that part of the vision.”
“Of course you don’t trust me,” Kanti snipes, just as Aodhan streaks up
the path toward the large sunstone mansion bordering the Amkhuti.
I ball my fingers until my nails chew into my palm. “Well, you did paint
listening sigils all over my palace walls.”
Her pink eyes swivel toward mine. “Always so quick to lay the blame.”
“It was your blood, Kanti,” I say.
She stops fussing with the buttons of Antoni’s collar and just shears the
fabric with magic. “Fine. I confess. It was me. But it was Priya’s idea. She
wanted to monitor all that was being said behind her back.”
Sensing this is another lie, I ask, “Can you show me the memory?”
“I would, but I’d prefer we try to save my lover’s life.” She parts his
shirt, then paints carmine whorls around his wound that is so precise, it was
unquestionably made by a sorceress.
“His eyelashes moved!” Fallon falls to her knees on Antoni’s other side.
“Antoni’s alive! Lazarus, a crystal!”
“His wound was made with Shabbin magic, Fallon,” I murmur, having
learned my fair share about our therapeutic crystals from Asha since Soorya
failed to teach me. Though my grandmother had tasked the healer to
educate me, Soorya was always too busy brewing lucent remedies or curing
ailing humans and half-bloods. “There are no crystals for Shabbin wounds.
Only the witch who inflicted the damage can repair it.”
“Or serpents,” Lazarus adds. “Has Aoife spotted any?”
The sky’s so dark, I can’t discern any wingbeats. Do you see her,
Cathal?
 He works his jaw from side to side. No. Though loath to step away from
me, he pounces upward and shifts. After a moment, he says, She can’t spot
any in the Sahklare.
In none of the rivers?
She’s investigating the last one now. An endless minute passes before
he says, No serpents.
Ice slicks down my spine. Can she check the ocean?
I’ve already asked. She’s on her way.
He lands just as Behati emerges from the house. The seer’s golden cane
gleams as she totters toward us, which reminds me of her other cane, the
one I found at the bottom of the Amkhuti. I peer over the ledge as though I
could possibly discern it in the recessed water, but it lies so deep, and
there’s such faint moonlight, that I see nothing.
“Is it?” Cathal is asking, arms crossed over his black shirt that was
tailored to fit his large chest but looks maladjusted from the strain of his
stance. “Or is there something wrong with the corpses?”
Kanti skewers him with a look. “If Antoni dies because you’re
distracting me, Cathal, then his blood will be on your hands.”
“My hands are already filthy.” My mate ticks his head toward the wan
governor. “Besides, Antoni’s not exactly a favorite amongst the Crows these
days. Fallon, ask Lore to send more people.”
“Why? Do you think⁠—”
“Just please do it, ínon.”
“Done.”
“Taytah’s vision!” Kanti suddenly exclaims. “She said I would turn one
of Lorcan’s enemies into a friend. This must be what she meant! That Daya
would make him a Serpent.”
Fallon’s cheeks hollow from how quickly she inhales. “Do you think…?
Do you think that…?”
“Why don’t we try to heal Antoni with our blood first,” I suggest.
“Surely our three magics combined⁠—”
“—would kill him.” Kanti purses her mouth. “It would overstimulate
his organs. Probably even make his heart burst. Great Mahananda, did Priya
teach you nothing about blood magic?”
Before my mate can detonate into smoke, I step in front of him and take
his cheeks between my palms. Shh. Don’t let her get to you.
 A wet gurgle erupts from behind me. I twist around to find Antoni
arching and coughing. And then his eyes are opening.
“Kanti, you managed to heal him,” Fallon murmurs.
My cousin shakes her head. “I’ve just resorbed some of his internal
bleeding. In other words, I’ve prolonged his life. Only Meriam or Daya can
truly heal him. Or I suppose one of Daya’s shifters. Want to give your
tongue a whirl, Agrippina?”
My Serpent grimaces, but then she glances my way.
“No,” I say out loud. “If anyone heals the injured, it’ll be me.”
Do you think the corpses were poisoned? she asks me.
I don’t know, but I also don’t care for you to find out.
“We could carry Antoni out to the ocean,” Fallon suggests, her voice
shaking with emotion.
“He won’t survive being moved. Hold on, abi.” Kanti strokes Antoni’s
lips, then his cheeks, adding more blood to his sticky-red jaw, which makes
his eyes pitch wide. “We’re going to fix you.” Is it Kanti’s crazy stare that’s
frightening him or the lethal depth of his injuries?
When pink foam glides out of the corners of the governor’s mouth,
Lazarus murmurs, “That’s not a good sign.”
Fallon balls her fist and bites down on her knuckles to stifle a sob.
“Mádhi, please do something.”
“No.” It’s Cathal who answers for me.
Fallon looks up at her father with so many tears in her eyes that they
shine violet. I presume she’s adopted the hue to keep the Shabbins in the
dark about the Crows’ new edge. “He’s not a bad man, Dádhi.”
“He could be a fucking saint and I still wouldn’t let your mother get
close to him. I’m sorry, ínon.”
Fallon whimpers.
I hate seeing my daughter this distraught. “Should I save the governor,
Mahananda?”
Silence.
“Please, Mahananda. I implore you. Guide me.”
But the Mahananda does not offer me guidance.
When I realize I haven’t heard from Enzo in a while, I call out to him. Is
he still on the boat? I walk over to the cliff’s lip and squint down at the
galleon, sighing with relief when I spot a head full of green curls.
 Again, I call to him through the bond. When he doesn’t look up, I yell
his name out loud.
He finally cranks his head back. “Yes, my queen?”
I gasp and teeter, clutching my throat in utter horror.
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he boat creaks as it rotates.
“Whose blood is on your face, Enzo?” My tremulous query widens
his nightmarish grin.
“I revived some of the dead. We can bring back corpses, Daya!” He
gestures to the woman with the anchor tattoo.
She bows. Her hair’s cut so close to her scalp that it’s impossible to spot
its hue, but her forehead bears the pearl and her eyes are black orbs. Two
others hinge at the waist before meeting my perplexed stare—both round-
eared men in drab garments.
“What the fuck?” Cathal snarls against the shell of my ear.
“We’re going to raise them all!” Enzo cries out like some lunatic
warrior. And then he claps for his new Serpents to follow as he pounds the
deck to sort through the cadavers.
“Tell him to stop before I cut out his tongue,” Cathal mutters.
No, I gasp. A Serpent without a tongue would be like a Crow deprived
of a wing. No severing of tongues. Please, Cathal.
It was a turn of phrase.
I place my palm over my spasming stomach. Don’t raise any more
humans, Enzo. Not until…not until I speak with Behati. Please.
Though he keeps staring at me, he doesn’t nod or acknowledge my
request through our bond.
The nearby click of Behati’s cane steals my attention off him.
“Apparently your vision showed me rousing the dead, Behati,” I sputter.
 I spy her eyebrows slanting. “Which vision, Daya? I’ve had so many.”
“The vision you had last night. The one you showed me at breakfast. I
want to see everything you saw,” I say reaching out to touch her forehead.
“And I mean everything, Behati.”
Her frown strengthens. “I showed you ev—” The bottom of her cane
suddenly skids, and she wobbles. And then she’s tipping.
“Behati!” I screech just as my fingertips graze her bangs.
Her eyes are huge as she lists. Huger still when she crashes into the
ship’s deck, splintering the blood-soaked slats before vanishing right
through them.
“Taytah!” Kanti rushes to the edge. “What have you done, Daya? What
have you done?”
“She didn’t do anything,” Cathal rumbles. “Behati slipped.”
“Well don’t just stand there, Crow,” Kanti shrills. “Go get her.”
A muscle pops in Cathal’s jaw. “Enzo’s down there. He can fetch her.”
“No!” My hair flies as I shake my head from side to side. “I don’t want
him to go inside that water. Send Aodhan.”
Cathal swerves his attention to the grounds and the glowing house at
our back. “Where the fuck did he go? Aodhan!”
“I’ll go find him. Keep an eye on…” Reid tips his head toward
Agrippina, whose complexion is as bloodless as the corpses she cannot
seem to look away from.
I suddenly want her far from this lurid spectacle. I want both my
Serpents brought to Asha and tucked behind the walls of my palace.
As Agrippina’s mate shifts and soars toward the house, I turn toward
mine, whose nostrils flare. Cathal, can you carry Agrippina back to⁠—
A booming snap followed by a reverberating crack makes me whirl
back around. I scream just as the vessel fractures and sinks, drawing every
corpse and Serpent into the liquid abyss.
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yell Enzo’s name through the mind link, one heartbeat away from diving
into the Amkhuti to succor him.
Silence.
Why is he so silent?
“Mádhi?” Fallon calls out. “Antoni’s convulsing. Kanti’s blood—mine
—it’s not working. Lazarus even tried a crystal, but⁠—”
“Not now, Fallon! I cannot deal with a stranger right now. Not when
Enzo⁠—”
“Enzo’s a Serpent, Daya. He’s not going to drown.” Kanti’s reminder
does nothing to appease me.
I whirl on her. “How about you fucking jump in?”
Her gaze tightens. “With a bunch of new zombie Serpents? Hard pass.”
“You’re immortal,” I hiss.
“Yeah.” She pops a shoulder in a shrug. “But I can still be tortured, so
again, no thanks, chacha.”
“What about your grandmother? Don’t you care about her?”
Kanti must suck in her cheeks because they dent. “She’s resilient.”
“She didn’t have time to stripe her neck,” I say.
Kanti grimaces. “At least she won’t be conscious if the Serpents decide
to snack on her. Actually, why don’t you talk to them and ask them to locate
her?”
New Ones, can you hear me?
Yes. It’s Alexei who answers. We can hear you.
 I snare my lip. Although glad for the sound of his voice, I wasn’t calling
to him. Everything all right? I ask, since he’s listening.
When Alexei says, Sort of, my poor heart almost fails.
I knead the scar on my neck. What do you mean sort of?
We’re playing cards with Ceres, and naughty Cruaih keeps stealing
the cards and chewing them up. When Alexei chuckles, I think I might
expire from relief. Will you join us soon, Day?
Yes. Very soon, my darling.
Is something wrong? Intuitive child.
No. Everything’s fine. I inject as much litheness as I can muster into my
tone. Let Asha win a round. She’s a terribly sore loser.
Ha. She totally is. I’m convinced she’s encouraging Cruaih to snatch
the cards.
I smile, but it trips off my lips when I call out—yet again—to the
Mahananda, and I’m met with silence. “Abrax!” I yell to my guard, who
stands on the opposite embankment, gaze pinned to the Amkhuti. “Go
check on the Mahananda please.”
He doesn’t question why I want him to pay it a visit, or what exactly
I’m looking for. He merely turns on his heel and races through the palace
gardens.
My pulse whooshes against my eardrums, amplifying the feeling that
something’s off. It agitates my blood, unlike the Amkhuti that lies flat. Too
flat. No tusk, no bubble…nothing disturbs its surface.
No. That’s not true.
I catch the flash of silver scales.
A palm-sized fish seesaws on its side. Not just one. Hundreds, as though
the sinking ship has stunned them. But they’re not stunned…they’re dead. I
can feel it inside my blood as though I were connected to all aquatic life.
“Cathal!” Agrippina’s shriek stops my heart.
I whirl just as my mate stumbles into me, sending us hurtling over the
cliff’s edge. As we fall, I see the tip of a black blade sticking out of his
chest.
“You killed the true queen!” Lazarus cries out, rubbing his palms as
though glad to be rid of me. “Zendaya isn’t the leader we want!”
I try to shape Fallon’s name and the word “help,” but both transform
into a strangled breath when I catch her shoving Agrippina into the watery
trench.
 As I stare at my Serpent’s flailing arms and streaming blue hair, at her
saucer-wide eyes and slack jaw, I yell down the bond, Alexei, tell Asha to
ward your wing and to let no one in! Not even if they look like me. Not
even if they look like Fallon.
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or a beat too long, we sink because I’m too stunned to swim and
Cathal is too hurt to shift.
Violet eyes.
Mádhi.
That wasn’t our daughter! It must’ve been an enemy Shabbin wearing
her face. Which means the Crows aren’t coming. Which means we’re on
our own. Unless Aoife or Aodhan or Reid managed to call to them? Where
did they all go?
Agrippina? I rasp through the bond as I swim around Cathal, seize the
handle of the sword Lazarus—or some other Shabbin wench wearing his
face—plunged into my mate’s chest, and yank.
His body jerks and a thin stream of bubbles erupts from his flaring
nostrils. He might be invulnerable to obsidian and immortal, but what will a
blade through the chest do to him?
Cathal? I say too loudly.
Daya, he says too quietly. I can’t shift.
I drop the sword. Because you’re wounded.
I don’t allow my dread that the blade was basted in Shabbin blood, or
that someone managed to paint a sigil to immobilize his magic, pass
through the mind link. Is there such a sigil? I try to recall all the ones I
learned and witnessed…all the ones I practiced, but my mind has become a
blank canvas.
 Get out of the Amkhuti. Cathal’s supplication hones my focus on him.
Him and his bleeding heart. Get out, now.
Not without you. I level off in front of him and hook the torn fabric of
his shirt. Never without you. And then I rip it open and smack my tongue
against his wound. A tingle races across my teeth, along my jawbone, down
my throat.
Keep your mouth shut, mo Sífair! Don’t drink the water.
I lick him again just as something knocks into me from behind,
dragging my tongue off its mark. Cathal’s gasp has me twisting. A scream
clambers up my throat when I spy one of the corpses. I kick my feet to
propel us up and away, only to push Cathal into another drifting body.
Can you shift yet? I ask him.
No.
Clasping my lids to keep the horror at bay, I swim around his body and
tend to his back. Daya, I said no.
I’m fine! My chest stings with bursts of heat that skip from rib to rib
like steel scraped over flint.
It’s fear.
Just fear.
If it were anything else, I’d be floating like those fish, lungs saturated
with water, heart still. Do immortal hearts stop beating? No, they probably
keep beating.
As Cathal’s skin firms, I see Behati’s hollow, white cane. Not through
the water, but in my memories. I see the dead coral it rested on and the
lifeless barracuda beside it.
It wasn’t a cane—or at least, not just a cane. It must’ve been a
cylindrical container packed with poisonous flakes. Behati infected my
haven!
I see red, and then I see her smashing into the boat. How stunned she’d
looked. Like she’d truly tripped when she must’ve purposely flailed to keep
me from pilfering the vision from her mind and witnessing Kanti’s trickery.
How I wished the seer weren’t immortal and that the fall could’ve
broken her neck.
How I wished Meriam had taught me the death sigil, so that I could’ve
drained my cunning cousin.
Agrippina! I holler through the mind link, but my Serpent doesn’t
answer me. Enzo! Nothing. Alexei! Katya! Though the sky sparks, my
mind does not.
When another body thumps into mine, I shove it aside with a fury that
burns hotter than my lungs.
The second Cathal’s wound seals, I ask him if he can shift.
Silence.
I swirl around to find his lids closed, his neck curved, his mouth parted.
He’s lost consciousness. He needs air. I snatch him around the waist and
kick, my dress tangling with my feet and slowing me down but not stopping
me.
What does stop me is the sight of long white hair slithering around an
apathetic body. I gape at Behati. How come she’s still down here with me?
Shouldn’t she be up there with the rest of her vile coven?
Of course. It mustn’t be her. It must be some unsuspecting soul
magicked to look like her.
Aodhan…
It must be Aodhan!
My anger weighs so heavily on my soul that, again, I sink, our bodies
wedging through a cloud of stiff silver fish. But then, I recycle this anger,
converting it to adrenaline. I bend my knees and undulate my legs as though
I’d grown out my Serpent tail.
Bend. Flick. Bend. Flick.
Through the throng of silver scales, I spy the surface, and beyond it, a
sky veined with lighting. I pray the storm is Lorcan-made, because I don’t
think I can fight a blood-magic war on my own.
One more kick and Cathal will be able to breathe.
Bang!
My sight goes momentarily black. My ears ring. And my skull…it
thuds.
Keeping one arm locked around Cathal, I reach up with the other. My
trembling fingers meet what feels like smooth glass.
The fucking sorceresses warded the Amkhuti!
They’ve locked us in!
 Chapter 69
Zendaya

A
midst the slow bend of my pink hair puffs inky black. It settles
between my upturned face and the magical wall overlooking my
queendom. My hammering heart holds still. Could it be a Crow?
Could Cathal have managed to break into shadows?
I call to him.
Silence.
Another blot of ink lifts and glides along the warded surface. I comb my
fingers through it, realizing it’s viscous like⁠—
I touch two fingers to the top of my head. They come away slick and
black with my blood.
I expect it will wash away like Shabbin blood but it lingers.
My spine tingles as I carry my fingers to Cathal’s throat and draw
stripes on either side. When the sky flares, the stripes are gone. Because my
blood washed away, or because it penet⁠—
Daya? Cathal rears his head so fast that it knocks into my chin and
clicks my teeth together.
I can bloodcast underwater.
I feel like weeping.
I feel like fighting.
My mate turns in my arms. For a moment, we hang there, suspended,
our hearts and stares pressed against one another.
Can you shift? I finally ask him.
When he vanishes, another wave of relief dashes against me.
 He knits back into flesh. They painted a fucking ward!
I nod.
He must catch sight of my bleeding skull because his livid gaze tapers
there. Your head⁠—
Is fine.
It’s not fucking fine. It’s bleeding. You’re bleeding. I will fucking
eviscerate⁠—
Voices ring out nearby.
Don’t let go of my hand. I dip my fingers into my blood and paint the
invisibility sigil on Cathal’s brow, then sketch it on mine.
The voices grow louder. I pick out Kanti’s, Soorya’s, and Rosh’s.
I hear Kanti saying, “Did you really have to kill Antoni, Soorya?”
Their footfalls resonate against the ward as though they were traipsing
over it. They are!
“Fallon likes the guy and so do you.” The Shabbin wearing my
daughter’s face shrugs. “I felt that if Zendaya would try to heal anyone, it
would be him.” She shrugs as she steps right over us.
“She probably would’ve if her little Crow hadn’t been so fucking
suspicious,” beautiful, blonde Rosh adds. “Can you get rid of Fallon’s face,
Soorya? It looks too much like the Naaga we banished.”
Cathal’s nails must be morphing into talons for I can feel their cool,
hard shape digging into my skin—not hard enough to stab but hard enough
to dent. I knew that wasn’t our daughter…
May our child be safe.
May she be with Lorcan.
Kanti stops walking. When her pink eyes lower toward me, I think that
my invisibility sigil mustn’t have worked.
Can you see me? I murmur through the mind link.
No. Can you see me?
No.
Cathal’s body suddenly jostles mine. What the—is that Behati?
Aodhan, I say.
Aodhan?
I imagine the real Behati’s up there with them. I imagine they made
him look like her.
Cathal’s quiet for an instant. He would’ve shifted when he fell if it had
been him. Not to mention, he wouldn’t have gone along and acted like
Behati…
Unless he turned against us.
He may be arrogant but he’s still a Crow.
And what? Your people cannot be traitors?
His nostrils must flare for little bubbles stream out and pop against the
ward. Touch her forehead to see if there’s any blood to lift.
I bite back my disgust and reach over. Her skin doesn’t tingle with
magic. I frown. Could Behati truly not have been embroiled in her
granddaughter’s scheme to remove me from power? But her cane…
Could it have been just a cane and not some giant vial of poison?
I get my answer when Kanti crouches and flattens her palms against the
ward above her grandmother’s ghoulish face. “Look at where your loyalties
to the Mahananda brought you, Taytah.”
“Honestly, I’m sort of surprised she turned you down.” Soorya lowers
her palm from her forehead, her skin tone browning, her violet eyes
pinkening, her hair lengthening. I suddenly hate her the most for having
used my daughter to placate me.
“Really?” Kanti crooks her head to look up at the former healer. “She
threatened to leave Shabbe the day Priya led Fallon into the Mahananda
instead of Lorcan. I heard them argue. She told Priya it would cost her her
life.”
“If she hadn’t been with you in Nebba,” Rosh says, “I would’ve been
convinced she’d had a hand in freeing Meriam.”
Kanti draws a slow oval over Behati’s face as though sketching her.
“You were right, Taytah. But you’re not going to be right about the rest of
it. The Mahananda will never turn down my bargain, for if it does, not only
will we never release it, but we will also draw out every single drop of its
magic until it’s as dry and desiccated as the Selvatin desert. And then we
will create a new source. One that won’t turn humans into monsters and
monsters into humans. One that will put Shabbe and the Shabbins before
every other species.”
“That’s why you haven’t been speaking to me, Mahananda. Not because
you’ve abandoned me but because you’ve been trapped. Like me.” Even
though my question will never land, I ask, “How do we break free?”
Thunder growls and lightning sparkles, illuminating a thousand Crow
wings. But not just Crows. I see two women with pink eyes and one man
with long orange tresses kneeling in midair, drawing knots of blood on what
must be another ward.
Lore’s here, Cathal murmurs.
He is, and he’s not alone. My eyes sting because, not only did my
daughter come, but my mother and Justus did as well.
 Chapter 70
Zendaya

I
suddenly want to rip the invisibility sigil from my forehead so they can
see me.
Not yet, Cathal says, drawing my attention back to the clustered
witches huddled over us.
Can you communicate with Lore?
Let me check. His fingers melt out of mine. Don’t move.
I won’t.
“What just sent Behati’s body skittering?” Rosh’s pitch is unsteady.
Kanti jumps to her feet and scuttles back so fast that she almost trips
over her long white skirt that’s streaked with blood. Hers? Antoni’s?
“Crow,” she gasps.
“Didn’t Lazarus plant the sword inside his heart?” Rosh whirls toward
the embankment where the Faerie healer stands planted like a tree, his face
as stark as the lightning-striated heavens.
I’m guessing I’m no longer invisible? Cathal murmurs.
No. Did his shapeshifting shorten the duration of my spell or is our
watery environment to blame? I check my own body. Find that I’m still
concealed.
“Hey, Lazarus, you fucking missed his heart!” Rosh’s hair gleams as
though shot through with the same molten gold that decorates her ears and
neck and wrists. “Shit,” she suddenly says, “Meriam’s here.”
“They won’t be able to carve through wards drawn by a hundred
witches.” Soorya gives them a little wave. “At least not for a while. Come,
sisters, let’s not tarry.” She starts walking, the other two falling into step
beside her. “Aori!”
Of course Aori’s involved. Did Tamar also rejoin her old Akwale, or is
she staying out of this conflict?
As Aori’s familiar, hateful form comes into view just beside my ladder,
Soorya asks, “Did you manage to penetrate the guest wing?”
I grit my teeth so hard my mandible squeaks.
“No, Asha warded it.”
I love you, sweet Asha.
“Have the children lost consciousness? Were we right about the curse of
the shifter monarch?” Kanti asks, just as hair that’s too long to be Cathal’s
coils around my bicep.
I whirl to find it’s Agrippina’s. I stroke her cheek, then touch the base of
her neck to make sure her heart beats. The exhale that drifts through my
teeth is so powerful, it manages to relax my jaw.
All of a sudden, two hands shape my waist. I must go rigid, because
Cathal murmurs, It’s me, mo Sífair. Just me.
“I heard the boy’s voice, so I don’t think it applies to this new shifter
breed.” Aori’s bright eyes tighten on Cathal. “Unless Daya’s not knocked
out?”
“The boat’s hull was packed with Serpent poison.” Kanti grabs onto my
ladder and climbs. “Not to mention I started dosing the Amkhuti the second
we got home in case you couldn’t get the boat inside. There’s no way she’s
conscious.”
I glance over Cathal’s shoulder at the red robe ballooning around the
seer’s child-sized body, picture her white cane again, the dead barracuda,
the colorless coral. Pity plaits with my anger and my thirst for revenge.
They used her just like they used me. I kick away from Cathal.
Where are you going? he asks.
I’m going to wake Behati, for I could use a little guidance to shatter
these wards.
“We’re coming, abi.” Water snakes into my flaring nostrils at the sound
of my mother’s voice.
My throat tightens. I press my palm to my forehead and coax out my
invisibility spell, done hiding.
“I see you, batee,” she murmurs.
 The word daughter gusts warmth down my spine. I don’t ask whether
she sent me the corpses because I know it cannot be her, but I do ask, “You
haven’t killed lots of humans recently, have you?”
“Humans? No.”
My ribcage swells with relief. The killer—killers—must’ve worn
Meriam’s face when they committed their heinous crimes, which is why
Behati saw Meriam. If only the Mahananda could’ve seen through their
spell. I dip my fingers in my headwound, reawakening the sting which had
abated, and stripe Behati’s throat. Her spine arches. Her lashes flutter.
“Your magic works underwater…” I hear a smile in Meriam’s voice.
“How incredible.”
For a moment, Behati floats there on her back like the benumbed fish,
like the corpses fanned around us. Though Cathal’s wings had driven them
away, they’re closing in around us once more. Behati startles and kicks her
legs. She must whack her head against the ward, because with a hard blink,
she sinks, and air bubbles stream from her nostrils.
She flattens her hands against the red fabric puffing around her bowed,
bony legs as though to keep a wall between her and the dead, and then she
reaches up. It’s only when her fingers connect with the skin of magic that
she sees me. Her mouth rounds around my name, then around Cathal’s.
I proffer my hand. When her fingers slide over mine, I tell Cathal, Hold
on to me.
The instant his fingers pinch my waist again, I draw the lock sigil and
flatten my palm against it. My heart slams with anticipation for the revenge
I will reap.
But then it slams with something else: frustration.
 Chapter 71
Cathal

O
ur three bodies don’t magically glide through the congealed surface.
Zendaya draws a circle to shear a hole through the wards. The black
ring of blood just sits there like a stroke of charcoal. I give my mate’s
waist a squeeze.
Tell me, mo Sífair, how’s this water not affecting you?
I’ve been dosing myself.
…Pardon?
I’ve been ingesting flakes of the poison since Isolacuori. Asha read
that taking a little each day can build a tolerance. And it has.
I cannot decide whether to growl at Daya for having taken such a risk or
praise her farsightedness. How come Agrippina’s out?
Because, until I knew for certain whether it would work, I didn’t want
to harm my Serpents.
But you didn’t mind harming yourself? Anger rides me so hard that
my molars click. When were you going to tell me that you were ingesting
fucking poison, mo Sífair?
She snorts. Never. Look at your reaction. You would’ve made me stop.
And if you had, I would’ve been unconscious like Enzo and Agrippina. As
she draws waves atop waves, she adds softly, That wasn’t him on the boat.
Not only did he call me Daya and never once answered through the mind
link, but he didn’t stutter. Her gaze suddenly snaps upward.
I think the Crows must’ve breached their ward, but a glance upward
shows my daughter, Meriam, and Justus still swirling blood.
 While I rake aside corpses, Daya attempts to tame her cloud of pink
hair. Mara’s sling! she says suddenly. Amma says that’s the sigil I need to
paint. How do I ask Behati to guide my hand? She can’t hear me.
Your mother says?
She and I can communicate.
Crafty Meriam. For once, I’m glad for her slyness.
How do I ask Behati, Cathal?
Write your query in blood.
And so she does. And then Behati wraps her fingers around Zendaya’s
wrist, touches them to the wound atop her head, which I’d really like to see
gone, and begins to paint. Whorls and whorls bisected with lines.
As they bloodcast, I keep the surrounding water clear of dead fish and
dead humans, save for Agrippina. I keep her near. I suddenly see the woman
Enzo “turned.” Daya was right. The unhinged boy on the boat was a
sorceress playing pretend, for the Lucin female’s face is bare of tusk and
her eyeballs have marked irises. The sorceresses must’ve been hiding
amongst the cadavers, biding their time. The weight of a stare prickles my
nape.
The Faerie healer who stabbed me in the back—fucking traitor—is
watching us.
Not wanting to worry or distract Daya, I ask, Almost done?
I don’t know.
Behati peers past her intricate sigil at the one Meriam, Fallon, and
Justus are doodling, and readjusts a swirl here, a line there.
Come on, come on… I shove a corpse so hard that it repels four others.
Lazarus flexes his finger, pointing us out to Kanti’s inner circle. Behati
must take notice, because her speed augments considerably.
Just as a dozen guards leap off either side of the embankment onto the
Amkhuti’s rigid surface, Daya’s extraordinary blood ignites, its beam
shooting so high that it strikes the glowing sigil above, creating a radiant
column.
A heartbeat later, a tremor like I haven’t felt since Meriam vanquished
her wards shakes Shabbe and propels us beneath the water.
Daya! I scream.
Right here.
Where the fuck is here?
 A ray of light nicks the obscurity. I trail it toward an elegant hand. My
clever mate. I shift into my Crow and scoop her onto my back, erupting
from the chaotic, toxic moat like a creature from the underworld.
Behati! she says, directing her beam toward the pale hair of the seer,
who’s getting accosted on all sides.
I dip and hover my talons in front of Behati until she latches on, and
then I take off just as one of the guards manages to snare the seer’s ankle.
Since the former hangs strong, I fly right for the Vale, swooping just high
enough so that Behati clears the cliff but not the female dangling from her
foot. No, that Shabbin gets well acquainted with the flavor of sandstone.
I’m a tad tempted to head straight for Lazarus and plant a talon through
his neck, but Daya asks me to carry her to the Cauldron.
Had a pleasant dip, brother?
Though hearing Lorcan’s voice gores me with relief, I’m not in the
mood for humor. Not yet. Lazarus stabbed me with obsidian. He’s working
with Kanti and the others. Anyway, keep him alive for me, all right?
After a beat, in a voice crackling like his sky, he says, He will be kept
alive.
I’ve got Behati, Aoife says, diving beneath me.
We both hold still until the seer has taken a seat atop Imogen’s sister,
and then in tandem, we set sail toward the lowest point of Shabbe.
Everyone, I tell my pack mates, Aodhan and Reid vanished in the
home Behati and Kanti have been staying at since their return. The
sorceresses probably warded it. You’re welcome to leave Aodhan in there,
but I’m sure Agrippina would appreciate getting Reid back.
Several snorts resonate through our pack link.
Lastly, Enzo and Agrippina are inside the moat, along with a bunch of
corpses. Fallon, can you and Meriam drain the water? I soar over a trail
of bloodied bodies—brave palace guards who must’ve tried to fight back. I
spot Abrax but kick him from my mind before I inadvertently broadcast his
death to my mate.
I’ll tell her, Lorcan says.
I think he means Daya, which makes me wonder why the underworld he
would tell her…but then I realize he means he’ll tell Fallon, and my selfish
heart stops. Just stops. How could I have forgotten that my daughter no
longer has access to our pack’s mind link?
 I cast my sorrow aside to focus on the Cauldron that’s ringed by dozens
upon dozens of sorceresses. The traitresses’ number is so great that they
form six circles.
They’ve emptied it! Daya hollers.
My gaze judders off the kneeling witches and sets on the birthplace of
magic. It’s hollow, shallow, no more than a drained washbasin.
“What have you done, Kanti?” Behati’s ancient voice hurtles against all
eight wings of the palace.
“We’ve done nothing but correct all the wrongs committed by our
mothers, Taytah.” Her long black hair snaps in the turbulent winds of
Lorcan’s anger.
Cathal, Meriam says she needs me to go inside the Mahananda! Daya
cries out.
Go inside? There’s nothing left of it!
She says that the medley of our royal blood will revive⁠—
She can feed it her blood. You’re not going anywhere near that
courtyard.
Cathal, if we don’t nourish it, then⁠—
I. Said. No.
Blood suddenly stains the bottom of the basin. It doesn’t bubble from
the stone, though. No, someone’s painting a sigil. Someone who’s made
herself invisible. It better be Meriam, for if it’s my daughter…
Lore, where’s Fallon?
On my back. Why?
My relief is short-lived, for one of my fellow Crows barrels toward
Priya’s Akwale.
Erwin? I snap. What the fuck are you doing?
I’m distrac⁠—
Rosh swings her arm, spraying my fellow shifter with blood that makes
him shriek and…
And…
No.
No…
It must be a spell.
One that’ll wear off.
I don’t know whether I speak these thoughts or if my fellow shifters do.
All I know is that a small black bird is flitting around the courtyard like
some distraught bumblebee.
“Anyone else want to become a forever-Crow?” Rosh taunts.
Erwin? I croak through the pack link.
His answering silence echoes as loudly as Cian’s the night Lorcan
allowed him to pass to the next realm. Where my brother had desired
nothing more than to die, Erwin just found his mate and is about to become
a father.
Please let it be an illusion.
Please let it be a spell.
Home! Lorcan roars. We fly home, now!
The Crows rise like smoke toward the stars.
Imogen swoops over me, then under. Where’s Zendaya?
What do you mean, where is she? I twist my head. She’s on my⁠—
My mate isn’t on my back. How could I not have felt her weight
vanish? Fucking, how?! Did she fall off? Did she jump off? She may be
immortal, but a fall from this height…
Daya? I roar, whirling on myself, my feverish gaze scrolling over the
dark land. Daya! I shout again, before yelling at Lorcan to draw back his
clouds so I can fucking see something.
But Lorcan doesn’t listen, and land and sky keep trembling.
I dive through his thickening clouds, only to spot him doing the same.
Lore?
He turns toward me, his golden stare lambent like the lightning-veined
night, but that isn’t what arrests me…
Where’s Fallon?
She vanished. Just…vanished. And now she’s not… She’s not…
I’ll go find them. You stay up here.
My mate is down there, Cathal. Not up here! Down. There! He dives.
I arrow past him, then swerve into his path. He breaks into his five
crows and streaks around me.
Lorcan Ríhbiadh! I rage. Our obsidian curse may be a thing of the
past, but if they turn you into a forever-Crow, it’ll probably affect us all.
I’ll go find our mates. I’ll bring them home.
Immy and I will stay with him, Cathal, Aoife says. Please be careful.
Propelled by razor-sharp raindrops, I dash back toward the land, toward
the eight petals of stone that shape my mate’s palace. Except…except
they’re gone.
 So is the moat.
The scooped land.
The Shadow Forest.
The fortified walls.
The whole of Shabbe is gone.
Did Lorcan drown the queendom, or is this the Cauldron’s punishment?
My mate’s a Serpent. Water is her element. But what of my daughter?
Daya? I rasp. Where are you? Is Fallon with you?
I can’t have lost her again. I can’t have lost my child. Not again.
I soar back and forth over the inky spill, low and high. Not even the
faintest glimmer of stone shines through the surf. Could I have flown past
the isle?
I’m about to ask Lorcan to quiet the skies when I spot a swirl. I hover
over it, my deadened pulse ratcheting when it begins to expand into a
shimmering whirlpool. It isn’t the ocean that floods Shabbe, but a torrent of
magic.
 Chapter 72
Zendaya

t’s almost over, my darling,” my mother murmurs into my mind.

“I I cannot see her face, nor can I see Fallon’s, but I can feel their
hands. Our fingers have been welded together since Meriam portaled
us off our mates’ backs with a sigil. We stand atop the heart of Shabbe, the
heart of the entire world, palms bleeding, magic eddying around us, brisk
like the ocean yet light as air.
Magic that we, descendants of the first queen, wrung from the
Mahananda’s stone by mixing and dripping our blood onto its parched
bedrock. When Kanti and the others had finally spotted us, they dove, but
their bodies never landed—they swirled, lengthening, broadening until they
were no more than shapeless, bloodless shadows.
Until they were no more.
What will be left of Shabbe after we’re done feeding the Mahananda the
magic it was robbed of?
“A better world.”
I startle because that wasn’t Meriam’s voice. “Mahananda?”
“Yes, Daughter of the ocean?”
I don’t ask it whether it’s truly returned for I know how it loathes
rhetorical queries. Instead, I say, “I will guard you better this time.”
“As will I.”
I feel its promise swathe my heart as though it had sent a little bit of
magic inside me.
 “You’re pure magic, my daughter.” Its words are so gentle that they heat
my lids with emotion.
“Mahananda, my Serpents were poisoned⁠—”
“They’re safe. That toxin will never harm your kind again.”
I bite my lip as I consider asking it one more question, but it feels
greedy.
“Do not confuse greed with compassion, Zendaya. Tell me what irks
you.”
“Rosh stole a Crow’s magic before we reawakened you. Can you bring
him back?”
“Ferry him inside my depths, and I will try.”
Another wave of gratitude dashes over me but it swiftly retracts. How
will I pick Erwin out of a murder of regular crows? Hopefully, Cathal or
Lorcan will know how to recognize him.
The churning suddenly ebbs, the darkness thins, and Meriam’s face
appears. Fallon’s, too. Their matching pink irises glimmer just as wildly as
mine must.
“You are pardoned, Meriam amPriya of Shabbe,” the Mahananda says
out loud this time.
Meriam’s lids clasp as she murmurs, “Thank you.”
“Daughters, Meriam has asked me to unbind your fates, but in order to
do so, I will need a unanimous accord. Fallon, Zendaya, do you accept?”
“Yes,” I say, still ravaged by guilt for having subjected them to such a
spell.
“Fallon?”
“I’ll accept only if Taytah strikes a bargain with me not to go slumber in
the Mahananda for at least another century,” my daughter says.
“Fallon!” Meriam gasps. Was this her plan? Was this why she wanted
our fates untangled? “I’ve lived many years, abi. It’s time for me to⁠—”
“You were tortured and cursed. That’s not living, Taytah.” Fallon lifts
her chin. “Anyway, that’s my deal. Take it or leave it.”
I cannot help but smile at my daughter’s tenacity.
On another deep exhale, my mother says, “The world hates me.”
“No, Taytah, you hate yourself. Not remotely the same thing.”
“Meriam, I’d prefer the Crows not start pecking at me to collect their
mates.” I can feel the Mahananda smile. “Also, I’m tired. What will it be?”
 “Fallon amZendaya, if you accept to unbind our three fates, then you
have my promise that, for the next hundred years—at least—I will stay
alive.”
I give Meriam’s hand a squeeze. “Good, because you have much to
teach me, Amma.”
Emotion must overwhelm Meriam, for her skeletal throat bobs and her
eyes glitter like the teardrop gem Fallon wears around her ring finger.
As the bargain fastens to Fallon’s bicep, she says, “You may unbind us
now, Mahananda.”
My navel tightens as though a key were being inserted and turned,
sending a burst of hot magic skittering through my veins. To think that the
woman I was had the power to draw such a spell…
“Zendaya, would you like your memories back?” When neither Meriam
nor Fallon glance my way, I understand the question was intended for my
ears only.
I hesitate. “Was I a good person before?”
“I wouldn’t have carved you out of your scales if you hadn’t been.”
“Then yes, Mahananda. I want to remember.”
My forehead grows so hot that my tusk feels like a wick that’s caught
fire. Centuries-worth of moments flash and keep flashing as the Mahananda
glides us upward.
I remember my childhood spent swimming and roaming our hallowed
isle.
I remember my beloved grandmother and how I would run to her for
stories of old, and with stories of new.
I remember my first time with a man. My tenth. My hundredth. I don’t
recall their faces or their scents.
I remember the day Agrippina and Bronwen sailed over to bring me to
Luce in order to break Lorcan’s curse.
I remember the first time Cathal’s voice slipped into my mind, then the
first time he slipped into my body. And all the times after.
I remember the feather that Arin inked onto my cheekbone and the
stripes which my mate taught me to paint.
I remember the weight of life inside my womb, but I also remember its
absence. The terror. The pain. The screams.
My emotions must glisten on my cheeks for both my daughter and
mother draw me into an embrace and hold me as I shake. “I remember you,
my little Raindrop.” I don’t tell Meriam the same thing, for in truth, I have
no memory of her. I was too young when she left.
“Farewell, my daughters.” As our heads crest the surface, it adds, “All
four of you.”
Four? Was someone else in here with us? Behati, perhaps? “Did you
hear it say four?”
Meriam smiles and nods to Fallon.
My daughter gapes at her, then at her midriff. “Holy Mother of Crows.
Me?”
“Yes.” Meriam’s eyes are tear-bright. “Can’t you hear her heart
beating?”
“I didn’t—I—Santo Caldrone…” Another hard blink and then she’s
whirling, calling out to the Crow with eyes of gold and a heart to match.
Joy wells behind my breastbone as we surface in the courtyard emptied
of enemies, under a sky that isn’t illuminated by a new dawn, but by
celestial flares of greens, pinks, and violets. A spectacle of light rendered all
the more dazzling by the thousand black wings beating against it.
Though many Crows land and weave their feathers into flesh, I’ve eyes
only for one.
Only for him.
 Epilogue
Cathal

“Dádhi, if you don’t stop fussing with your collar and hair, I will magick
away your hands,” Fallon warns as she refastens the top button on my
stand-up black collar before smoothing a lock that my restless fingers tore
out of alignment.
Cruaih winds her long, agile body around my ankles. As I drop my
fingers into her fluffy coat and caress, I ask, “What if your mother finds me
lacking?”
Fallon laughs. When I don’t, she squats in front of where I sit on the
opulent, legged sofa Zendaya had designed for our bedchamber.
For me.
“Dádhi”—my daughter has to spread her knees to accommodate her
swollen abdomen—“not only are you and Mádhi mates, but she adores you
—tetchy side and all.”
I arch an eyebrow and grunt, “Tetchy?”
“Yes. Tetchy. Thank the Cauldron that trait of your personality didn’t
bleed into mine.” Fallon pats my knee before rising and readjusting the skirt
cinched high around her ribs with a jeweled ribbon.
I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that I’m about to become a
grandfather. I’m far more eager for this milestone than I am for the one
looming ahead. Though I want nothing more than to live with Zendaya for
all of eternity, I want nothing less than to profess my passion for this
woman in front of a rowdy horde while she crowns me her king.
I was entirely satisfied with being just her mate.
 “Isla,” Fallon suddenly murmurs.
“What?”
“That will be her name.”
It takes me a moment to understand whose name, but when I do, my
gaze perches on the hand Fallon lovingly strums across her stomach.
“It’s the last thing I saw when I flew. The island of Shabbe.” She
swallows, blinks. And then she smiles. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”
I, too, swallow and blink, but even though I try, I cannot muster a smile.
Though I’ll forever be grateful to the Cauldron for not only bringing my
mate back but also my friend, Erwin—after weeks of canvasing Shabbe
with a frantic Liora—a part of me will always grieve the cost of curse-
breaking.
“Shall we?” Fallon holds out her arm.
“I love you, ínon,” I blurt out, unsure whether I ever spoke the words
out loud.
Fallon smiles. “If this is some underhanded way to placate me so I don’t
lead you out there, then⁠—”
“It’s not. I was just⁠—”
“I adore you, too, Dádhi. And I couldn’t have dreamed of a better
father.”
My throat bobs. My nose stings. Goddess below, I cannot be about to
weep. Can I?
“Up.” Fallon joggles her forearm to remind me to stand. As I comply,
she adds, “You’ll be so practiced for next week.”
“Next week?” I ask, linking our arms.
“My nuptials, Dádhi. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? Then again, you
live here and not in the Sky Kingdom, so you haven’t been exposed to the
whirlwind team of party planners that is Arin, Phoebus, and Sybille. You’d
think an infant would’ve slowed her down, but it just upped her vitality and
efficacy. She is exhausting—in the best possible way. Do you know that
Bottom is turning such a huge profit, she’s asked to buy a concession on
Isolacuori to open a fancier tavern?”
My daughter’s cheerful rambling chips away at my crackling nerves.
“Oh, and on midsummer, we’ve all been invited to Eponine and Gia’s
nuptials. Can you believe Giana’s going to be a royal?” Fallon snorts. “I do
believe she wants a crown as much as you do.”
There goes my calm…
 “So many weddings and births. Can life get any better, Dádhi?” She
gives a happy sigh as we step out into a courtyard…not overflowing with
people.
Only three women and one man darken the sunset-lit sunstone—
Meriam, Behati, Lorcan, and my mate.
I tried to keep it small, but you’re in possession of a surprisingly large
number of friends, my love. Zendaya nods to the sky, to the swarm of
Crows carrying riders. And even though my gaze isn’t done stroking over
the magnificent body she’s cloaked in pleated bronze, I glance at the fiery
sky and the familiar collection of faces—some in skin, some in feathers.
The twins, Enzo, Agrippina, Asha, Ceres, and Justus sit astride my
people, hovering, waiting. As do Antoni and Abrax. Then again, both men
are part of my mate’s den now. The only two souls Daya brought back to
life with her magic.
Though I hadn’t enjoyed watching her tongue ribbon over their skin, I’d
suppressed my jealousy by reminding myself that she was healing them, not
pleasuring them. Nevertheless, I had begged her to entrust Serpent-making
to Agrippina and Enzo. Agrippina had yet to add someone to their growing
numbers, but Enzo had—he’d healed a human who’d wandered too close to
the Chayagali and had lost her arm to a tendu.
“Could you walk any slower, Dádhi?” Fallon murmurs, towing my
attention off the airborne gathering.
“I’m just taking it all in, ínon.”
As I penetrate underneath the circular arbor, I peer past the frolicking
honeysuckle at the golden sky, and I picture Cian and my mother. I imagine
them watching over me. Mórrígan, how I miss them…
I massage the skin over my heart as I finally join my mate beside the
Mahananda.
She must sense my sorrow for she reaches out for my hand and
squeezes. They watch.
I think she’s trying to dispel my pain until she gestures to the Cauldron.
My lungs squeeze when I see my brother, my mother, and Bronwen. I don’t
know whether it’s some generous illusion or if it truly carried them up from
the underworld. I don’t care. I glut myself on their smiles and exultant
stares until it plugs some of the fissures scarring my heart.
Ready? she asks.
 I kiss her fingers before turning toward Behati and Meriam, who’ve
decided to officiate our nuptials together.
I’m glad there are no strangers and that the only sounds are the wind
twisting through feathers and the ocean lapping at the nearby cliff. Though I
would’ve married Daya under any circumstance and in front of any crowd.
After I’ve sworn to protect her, the Cauldron, the land, and all of its
people, she takes the crown she’s had designed for me—a simple band of
blackened scales shot through with knife-sharp black feathers.
As she places it atop my head, she murmurs, When I kneel before you
tonight, Cathal Báeinach, I want you in your crown and nothing else.
My heart damn near pops from the sudden influx of blood.
After supper, she adds, with a taunting smile that makes my jaw tick.
Fine, but I require a drink before we sup. I add an evocative smile so
the source of my tipple isn’t lost on her. “Are we almost done?”
“Almost.” Meriam nods to my palm.
“I don’t want blood-magic, Meriam.”
Zendaya winds her fingers through mine. I know but I want you to
have access to it. It will make me feel safer.
I hate that she doesn’t already feel safe.
I do.
But clearly not enough.
It’s my gift to you for the gift you gave me.
What gift? I grumble.
She glances at Fallon before carrying our twined palms toward her
abdomen, brushing my knuckles over the taut flesh with a secret smile. My
eyelids twitch. Is she saying that…? Is she…?
Zendaya keeps smiling while I keep gawping like the wee version of
Erwin we found pecking at a half-eaten worm before we wrangled him into
the Cauldron.
I don’t realize she’s given my hand to Behati, or that the seer has sliced
it open, the same way I don’t register the incantation ribboning out of
Meriam’s mouth as she loops blood around Daya’s and my twined hands.
I’m going to be a father.
Again.
My vision suddenly goes gray before shimmering and filling with pink
and bronze.
 “Cathal?” Zendaya frames my face between her palms, the scent of our
mixed bloods coiling off her skin and making my stomach heave. She
growls something about what an idiot she was, believing that Crow and
Serpent blood could blend, and⁠—
“Abi, the rings stain your palms, so they can blend.” Meriam is
reassuring her. “Something else must’ve sent your mate to the ground.”
A small, coarse tongue wraps around my earlobe, followed by a fretful
meow. Fallon leans over and scoops up Cruaih, then straightens and
scratches her between the ears.
“Does he need food?” I hear Asha bellow from somewhere above.
Food?
What?
Can you hear me? Talk to me. When I don’t, still too damn dazed by
her news, Zendaya’s hands slip off my cheeks and fold over her mouth. The
mind link! Please don’t tell me blood-binding canc⁠—
Are you sure?
Daya blinks so hard that her lashes resemble my wings when Aodhan
suggests tagging along on one of my hunts. But then her hands drift off her
blood-stained lips, which part around a bolt of laughter that’s as glorious as
every single thing about this woman.
“May we learn the reason for your hilarity, Mádhi?” Fallon asks.
“I laugh because of why”—another throaty chuckle—“your father”—
laugh—“fainted.”
“Is it the blood that made him woozy?” Fallon asks.
Lorcan snorts. “Doubtful considering his fondness for…justice.”
Fallon grimaces. “You make it sound as though my father bathes in
blood on the regular.”
“Well, there was a time⁠—”
“Lore,” I growl, shooting him an eloquent look as I roll up to sitting.
“There are certain things that children need not be told.”
My fellow king smiles.
As I readjust my crown and roll onto the balls of my feet, I level him
with a matching grin. “I cannot wait to fill my granddaughter’s ears with all
her father’s exploits.”
Lorcan’s grin dims an iota.
Fallon rolls her eyes. “How old are the two of you. I swear.”
 Zendaya holds out her hand to me, the one that bears two interlocked
rings. I study the matching symbol on my palm before slotting my fingers
through hers. I don’t rise, though. Not yet.
I press my lips to that place where my seed has taken root—once more
—and whisper a promise of forever-love to our unborn child. And then I
rise and repeat the same promise to the mother before kissing her under
thunderous applause and booming caws.
As our hearts pound as one, I murmur into Zendaya’s mind the story I
will tell our children and grandchildren, and though she shakes her head at
me, her lips curve against mine: Twice upon a time, the fairest princess in
the land fell in love with the coarsest beast in the sky.

NEXT UP: H ouse of B urning F rost .

B ut before you depart for G lace , flip to the next page for a bonus
epilogue from F allon ’ s point of view .
 Bonus Chapter

Attend by using the link below, or by scanning the QR code with your
phone:
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 Acknowledgments

Returning to my Crow world felt like a true homecoming, like taking a

(very eventful) vacation with old friends. Although I loved every moment
of being with Zendaya and Cathal, what a challenging story it was to write.
Partly because this new couple had huge wings to fill, but mainly because
my main character was reborn with no understanding of the world and of its
languages.
One of the solutions I found to Zendaya’s character’s challenge was
starting the story a few weeks after the events of House of Striking Oaths.
The other, was adding chapters from Cathal’s point of view. It turns out that
I loved being in his head so much that I have every intention of reproducing
this model in the subsequent books.
Yes, books. Plural. There are a few more characters inside this series
that deserve a happy ending, don’t you think? Make sure to join my
newsletter or my Facebook reader group, Olivia’s Darling Readers, to
avoid missing out on any news pertaining to this series.
And now…onto my favorite part of finishing a book: giving thanks to
all those who made it happen by either enduring my madness while I wrote,
or by sifting through my manuscript, sentence by sentence, to draw out its
finest version.
Katie Hayoz—I don’t think you understand how much your friendship
and support means to me. I know I tell you this often, usually over
margaritas in our favorite taco haunt, but in case you believe it’s the tequila
talking, then let me repeat this to you here and now and entirely sober: You
are the absolute most incredible woman. What an honor to be your friend.
 My husband and children—thank you for giving me time, space, and
your unrelenting encouragement to make my dreams come true. What a
boon and a curse when one’s passion is one’s work…
Rachel Cass—you hardworking, hardloving woman. Not only are you a
comma and typo queen, but you’re also an incredibly incisive editor, who

(over and over and over 🤪

never fails to challenge me and my characters. Thank you for reminding me
) that although House of Shifting Tides was first
and foremost a love story, it was also the tale of a family.
Mom, Dad, Siblings, Cousins, extended family—I love you. I hope I
say it enough, and that if I don’t, I hope I show it enough, and that if I don’t,
I hope you can forgive me and still love me.
Last but never, ever least, my readers—this story would never have seen
the light of day if you hadn’t loved my Crows so fiercely, so thank you from
the bottom of my crazy little heart.

Love always,

Olivia
Also by Olivia Wildenstein

PARANORMAL ROMANCE

The Kingdom of Crows series

HOUSE OF BEATING WINGS
HOUSE OF POUNDING HEARTS
HOUSE OF STRIKING OATHS
HOUSE OF SHIFTING TIDES
HOUSE OF BURNING FROST
Novella: HOUSE OF RISING SANDS

The Lost Clan series

ROSE PETAL GRAVES
ROWAN WOOD LEGENDS
RISING SILVER MIST
RAGING RIVAL HEARTS
RECKLESS CRUEL HEIRS

The Boulder Wolves series

A PACK OF BLOOD AND LIES
A PACK OF VOWS AND TEARS
A PACK OF LOVE AND HATE
A PACK OF STORMS AND STARS

Angels of Elysium series

FEATHER
CELESTIAL
STARLIGHT
 The Quatrefoil Chronicles series
OF WICKED BLOOD
OF TAINTED HEART

Wicked Retellings series

MY DARK BEAST
MY STRIKING BEAUTY

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
GHOSTBOY, CHAMELEON & THE DUKE OF GRAFFITI
NOT ANOTHER LOVE SONG

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Cold Little Games series
COLD LITTLE LIES
COLD LITTLE GAMES
COLD LITTLE HEARTS
 About the Author

Olivia is a USA Today best-selling author of romantasy. When she’s not swooning over her
characters’ steamy escapades, or plotting their demise, you can find her sipping wine and crafting her
next twisted, romantic masterpiece, all while trying to convince her children and leading man that she
loves them more than her laptop.

Love freebies? Grab A Pack of Blood and Lies:

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http :// oliviawildenstein . com

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