Tears blurred his face in front of her. “You shouldn’t have been able to cross the threshold,” he said very carefully. “You’re going to tell me who you are, or I’m going to skin you alive.”
Her blade was on the other side of the room. She hadn’t brought any of her daggers or throwing stars with her. The man’s shadows were creeping toward her again, across the floor.
She remembered what Grim had said—go for the nose—and head-butted him in the face with her forehead.
He staggered back and called her an awful word, but Isla didn’t look to see if she had broken his nose.
She pulled her starstick from her leg holster and drew the puddle of stars. It formed.
Just before she could dive through, the man dragged her away by her hair. She cried out. He ripped her portaling device from her hand and shoved her against the back wall.
The puddle sat there, rippling, in the center of the room. A few of the other Nightshades inched closer to it, murmuring.
“It’s . . . a portal,” one of them said in awe. More of them rushed to get closer.
The man frowned. Blood got into his mouth. She had broken his nose. “Go see where she was running off to,” he ordered.
One of the Nightshades fell through her puddle. It closed after him.
Her only escape, gone.
The only relief was that she hadn’t been trying to portal back to the Wildling newland. No . . . she had been trying to portal somewhere else entirely.
“The rest of you,” the man yelled, “get out your blades. Let’s see how quickly we can skin her. Make sure she stays alive. I want her to feel every inch of this.”
She tried to run, but the shadows behind her became restraints around her legs and ankles. One tied around her mouth, muting her screams.
Some of the Nightshades laughed at the sight of her struggling. She heard the scrape of metal as they took their daggers out of their holsters. Some were caked in rust. Others in dried blood.
The man in front of her plucked even more shadows from the room. They inched up her neck, then sharpened into knives.
“Let’s start with your face, shall we?” he asked.
Isla winced. Braced herself for the first strike of pain.
His shadows fell away.
The man frowned. He tried his shadows again, but they didn’t cooperate. The Nightshades went suddenly quiet.
They slowly turned around. Isla looked through the gaps between them.
Grim stood there, holding the Nightshade who had gone through her puddle by the neck, high above the ground. Her portal had led to Grim’s room. There was a crack, and he released him. The man fell in a heap at his feet, dead.
He looked murderous.
In front of her, the man’s trousers turned dark, dripping down his leg.
Grim wore his crown and armor. He looked like a demon come to life, spikes on his metal-covered shoulders. Shadows leaked from his very form, snaking through the room. Some of the Nightshades scrambled to kneel. Others tried to flee.
At once, they all jerked high into the air, feet dangling, clawing at their throats.
Grim’s eyes never left hers as he stalked over to her. He scanned her body. The cuts across her chest. Her ripped-open cheek. The long marks across her shoulders. Her hands covered in glass.
Grim’s voice was lethally calm as he said, “Which one?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her eyes darted around the room. With them all floating at this angle, she couldn’t see their faces clearly. Which body was he? Tears blurred her vision.
“Isla,” he said carefully, like he was trying very hard to keep all of himself reined in. He had used her first name. “Which one did this to you?”
She didn’t know what he would do, or if she wanted to be the one responsible—
“Fine,” he said. “All of them, then.”
There was a chorus of cracks as all their necks were broken in tandem. They all fell to the floor. Grim opened his hand, and her starstick flew into his grip.
“You idiot,” he said before reaching down and taking her into his arms.
He was furious. He had portaled them into his room. He set her down on a couch and growled, “I’ll be back,” before vanishing.
Her head fell against the back of the chaise, and she groaned. She had truly believed she could find the sword herself. How wrong she had been.
He reappeared, holding about a dozen different types of bandages and a bowl. He motioned for her to lie down, then went to work, placing the gauze over her shoulders, where she had been injured. They were cold as ice. At their contact, she bucked, cursing.
Grim kept her down with a firm hand on her lower stomach that made her feel shockingly feverish.
“These are Moonling,” he said. “They’re good at healing cuts.”
She was right. Cleo was helping him. Or, at the very least, he was stealing from the Moonlings. “Do you . . . trade with them?”
Grim didn’t answer.
His brows were drawn in focus as he plucked pieces of glass from her chest. She closed her eyes tightly against the pricks of pain.
“Let me see your hands.”
They were a wreck. She didn’t even want to look at the damage. She held still.
He snatched one himself and cursed under his breath. “This will take a while,” he said. She imagined there were dozens of pieces buried deep beneath her palm and fingers.
Without warning, he lifted her in his arms again. And set her on his lap.
Isla tensed. She was still in her far-too-revealing Nightshade dress. “What are you doing?”
“You need to keep still,” he said. “Or the glass is going to move while I’m working and make removing all of it almost impossible. I can make you pass out if you prefer.”
Isla balked. “I most certainly do not prefer that.”
He looked down at her, waiting for approval to continue. She gritted her teeth and said, “Fine.”
“So charming,” he said coolly. Then he snaked his arms around her, pinning her in place, while he gently opened her fingers.
She wasn’t breathing. She was engulfed by him. He was cold as bone. She shivered.
He plucked the first piece of glass from her hand, and she bucked again. This time, though, his arms were around her, hard as iron, keeping her in place. She breathed too quickly, pain shooting up her arm. She watched him expertly remove piece after piece.
She gasped at an especially deep incision. He was tall enough that he rested his chin against the top of her head, and said, “There are about a dozen more on this hand alone, so I would find a way around the pain.”
She peered up at him. He glanced down at her for half a second before focusing back on her hand.
“Where were you?” she demanded.
A muscle feathered in his jaw. It had been a month since she had seen him. “I was preoccupied,” he finally said.
“With what?”
He said nothing.
She scoffed. Unbelievable. “What could be more important than finding the sword?”
“Not more important, simply more . . . pressing.” He had hinted at trouble in his realm. Was that what he was referring to?
“You could have told me. You could have visited at least once . . . allowed me to tell you what I had learned.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Miss me, Hearteater?”