Page 82 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
“He begged me, Tyghan. He begged. You know how we—I had loved him for years, and I knew he didn’t feel the same about me, but, right then, he needed me so much, and I hoped—” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I hoped, but he promised me that he’d leave with her immediately, and I believed him. It was a gift, I thought. I was giving him a gift, and he—I had no idea you would come along so soon. I’d left you a mile away on another trail. I never thought he would—”
She looked down, unable to say it.
“Stab me with Maire’s knife?”
She nodded.
Tyghan couldn’t think. He could find no words. He felt the sting of the blade going into his gut again. The shock. He stared at her and saw Kierus. She hadn’t even come to warn him, hiding from her decision instead. It was Dalagorn who scooped him up from the mud of the forest floor.
“I will resign my position,” she said.
He stared at her, that dark bloody day swimming in his head again, but the Choosing Ceremony was swimming there too. She was already an integral part of every step of their strategies. He rubbed his temple. “No,” he said. “You will not resign. It’s too close to the ceremony. You’ll fulfill your duties without error, and I’ll figure out later what to do about this.”
She nodded without meeting his eyes.
“What does all this have to do with Pengary?” he asked.
As she spoke, Tyghan’s blood went cold. She told him about the blackmail and trading the potion to release Kierus. “I gave Bristol the potion in return for her silence, but I think she got the wrong pillar and released Pengary instead.”
Pengary, the one who burned and ate his victims?Tyghan was on his feet.
“I’ll come with you,” Kasta said, but he was already nightjumping to Judge’s Walk.
“Bristol!” he called into the darkness as he ran down the walkway, but there was no reply and no sign of a disturbance. When he got to Pengary’s column, he searched the ground for blood or some other evidence, holding his hand up to amplify the light of the moon. There was nothing out of place but an empty wine bottle. He slammed his hand against the column and put his ear to it, listening for the faintest heartbeat, but there was only silence. He pressed his ear to the next column, which belonged to Kierus, but it was silent too.
CHAPTER 62
With Beltane now past, and many gentry and nobles off to their summer homes in the country, evening festivities had grown quieter. Only one group of musicians played a tune near the base of the grand staircase, and a few fae danced nearby.
A half-moon peeked over Bristol’s shoulder, illuminating the porcelain plate shivering in her hands. She viewed the delicacies that the Sun Court buffet tables offered.Food, she thought.I only need food. She still hadn’t eaten since that morning. Her stomach was eager, but her mind still wrestled with Pengary’s words.Our kind always stick together.
She swallowed, her stomach spinning uneasily. Details kept jabbing her like darts: her affinity with fire, Pengary’s golden scales, his claws that were blue at the root. And then another detail stabbed her—the drawing. Her lifelong obsession with da Vinci’s dragon. And then Cully’s words when Pengary tried to leap from the pillar:That hasn’t happened in years. He must have sniffed new blood passing by. Her blood. Heat flashed across her face.
Circumstantial, she told herself, forcing a shallow breath.Everyone is six degrees from something. Her stomach wobbled as much as the plate in her hand. She heaped a large spoonful of hot thyme potatoes onto it. And then salmon puffs drizzled with dill béarnaise. She breathed in the rich, warm aroma, her cheeks swelling with anticipation. It was a welcome and needed distraction. Of course she was rattled. She had just released her father from a fucking slab of marble. She was being bombarded with too many emotions.Food—that’s what I need to concentrate on. She moved down the line, piling her plate with more, both sweet and savory, downing a palm-size vanilla tart as she went.
But Kasta’s words haunted her.If anyone spots him, he’s a dead man. No one would find him, she assured herself. Not Logan Keats, the wonder of Danu—
But they had found him once, or he wouldn’t have been imprisoned. He wasn’t impervious. He was a man.
She held her plate steady in one hand and poured herself a glass of wine with the other. And then she felt a presence close at her back, hot and angry. She didn’t turn around.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Tyghan said.
Her spine stiffened, her back becoming a wall. “The only thing I want to hear out of your mouth is if you knew what she did. Did you know he was in the pillar?”
“I knew.”
His answer, quick and unrepentant, jolted her, but she steadied herself. And then the same demanding voice. “Where is he?”
She felt his scowl, and the sharp edge of his words. He had no idea what anger was, but she remembered what her friends said:With you two at war, the other war looked grimmer. She still intended to win this war, and all the battles between, including the one at hand.
“Smile, Your Majesty. In case you hadn’t noticed, every eye in Sun Court is on us.”
He pressed closer, his heat radiating onto her. He whispered quietly against her neck. “I don’t give a fuck who’s watching us.”
She set her plate down and turned to face him, and flinched at the burn of his eyes. “You should care,” she said. “Because the two of us happily working together inspires faith and trust in a victory to those watching. Appearances matter. Of course, you know how to make quite a show of that already, don’t you? Wasn’t that the whole purpose of your grand gesture last week, when you held my hand over our heads for your troops?” She drew out her next words, coating them with sugary sarcasm. “And what are we withoutfaithandtrust?”
“Exactly,” he replied, still set on getting what he wanted. “How long have you known that it was Kasta who found your father first?”
