Page 106 of Cursed Shadows 5

And I have no buffer.

Eamon and Rune have ended their embrace, but are knitted close together, murmurs low, and neither of them look our way.

I cut my gaze away from the unwelcome intruder and turn my attention back to the willowy female. “Candied plum.”

Her nod is brisk like her movements as she jabs a wooden twig through the fruit, then offers it to me with her other hand palm-upwards.

Eamon has the coin.

I don’t exactly have a place to store monies on my person, not with my cotton chemise set so flimsy.

Daxeel is beside the vendor in a heartbeat, and he drops a shilling into her waiting hand. That is robbery. One shilling—for a piece of fruit on a stick?

This would cost me just three copper pieces on any other day. But, well, Daxeel is paying for it, so I toss the worry out of my mind.

I take the impaled stick—and give no thanks before I turn my back on the lane. It doesn’t save me.

I feel him advance.

I keep my cheek to him and watch the swell of the crowd, the dances, the small scuffles starting to break out between fae tired of being shoved around.

A faint rustle approaches.

I shift a frowned look down at Daxeel’s sunkissed hand, stained with splintered ink lines. Between two fingertips, a crisp envelope is pinched.

“For you.”

My frown darkens into a scowl that I aim up at him. “I am not dead, despite your efforts.” I bare my teeth before I bite down on the crunching candied plum.

Unfazed, he says, “It is my message to our bond.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Then burn it. Bury it. But please, take it.”

I snatch it with a huff, then stuff it into my thigh holster. “You look rough. You should rest more.”

His smile is small and tight. “I leave at the end of the week for my unit. Rest is in short supply.”

“But I leave in an hour,” Rune says, swaggering his tall, broad-shouldered weight towards me. “Will you wish me luck?”

The face I made crumples my features. “In slaughtering innocents?”

His shoulder lifts, a half-hearted shrug. “In not dying.”

Before I can respond, he has lifted me from the ground and tugged me into an embrace. He holds me for a while, firm, and it feels exactly as it is, being hugged by muscle as hard as stone.

When he sets me down, I flick a glance around and see that both Daxeel and Eamon have left us.

I frown at them as they wandered off together, suddenly on the other side of the parade now, at a different table. Their heads are as low as their murmurs, Eamon’s arm draped over his cousin’s shoulders, and my interest piques.

Rune traces my gaze. “Tris,” he tells me.

That one name earns a quizzical look from me.

“Tris is leaving shortly with Eamon’s parents. She’ll spend her gestation period in the light lands, out of the time distortions.”

“So it worked? She is with child?”

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