Page 218 of Curse of Darkness
“North.” Thalia sighs. “I’ll look into it later. I wish I could tell you to lock the doors to your chambers and enjoy the next couple of days, but I can’t. It’s why I’m here. You have guests awaiting you both. One set in the audience chambers for Vi. They’ve been waiting for you to return.”
“Guests?” Who would be calling so soon after we returned? And why me?
“And Finn’s back,” Thalia says, looking Thiago in the eye. “Alone.”
His face turns grim. “Is she—?”
“Gone, Finn said. Eris came back to herself somewhere to the north of Eidyn and told him she wanted to be alone. She gave him the slip, and took the Hallow somewhere.”
Thiago sighs. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“This way, Vi,” Thalia says, clapping her hands and turning toward our bedchambers. “I’ve had the maids lay out a gown for you.”
I groan. Not another torture contraption.
“If I have to rip her out of it later,” Thiago calls, “I will do so.”
“You tear the buttons off this dress, and I’ll stitch them to your ass,” she throws over her shoulder. “It took seventy hours to have them all sewn on!”
“For fuck’s sake, Thalia.” He stalks after her.
“Fashion!” Thalia retorts. And then she winks at me. “Though I must admit, there might be a certain pair of boots awaiting Her Highness as my little gift.”
“Really?” I squeal. “You got me the boots?”
Thalia rolls her eyes. “You were practically planning to mug me for mine. What else could I do?”
And everything is right with the world again.
49
It’s not an enemy.
Nor is it, precisely, a friend.
“Your Highness,” Theron says with a rasp, a red handkerchief knotted around his throat where my mother cut his tattoo from his skin. He goes to one knee. “I owe you a boon.”
“A boon?”
The assassin tilts his face toward me. “You came for me. You sent your men to rescue me. I’ve never—” He breaks off then with a curse. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
He was in bad condition when we arrived at the Hallow. Somehow, when Baylor’s elite group stormed Hawthorne Castle and rescued Imerys, they managed to stumble across each other, and Baylor dumped him here in Ceres, before meeting us at Eidyn. Thalia sent him immediately to the infirmary, and with everything that was happening, I’ll admit I hadn’t managed to spare him a thought until this moment.
“I sent you into that,” I whisper, hating the fact he was injured on my behalf. “I knew better. I knew it would be a trap. And I still sent you into that.”
“You were right,” he admits wryly. “Your mother left an opening. I saw a chance and it was too good to resist. It was a trap.”
I wince as I examine the bandage around his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” This time, he turns around, gesturing to someone near the door. “Because I succeeded in my task. I managed to rescue the girl before I took a swing at your mother. I had her hidden beneath the castle when you arrived. It’s why I had to go back.”
I recognize the fae woman by the door as Lithia, one of Healer Mariana’s acolytes. She tugs on the hand of the small hooded figure at her side, and my breath catches as I realize who it is.
“May,” Theron says in the gentlest voice I’ve ever heard him speak with. “May, come here and meet the Queen of Evernight.”
“Hi,” I whisper, kneeling down so I’m level with her. “You must be May. We met at Aska, remember? I’m Vi.”
May takes a step to the side, almost letting go of Theron as she whispers, “You’renotmy mother?”
