Laughter echoed and then faded.
A blue butterfly followed me into the rifts that stole me from the encroaching civilians with a soft violence I’d never felt from materializing before. That all-consuming and swirling darkness encompassed, an iced and gentle caress.
And it set me upon the dusty floor of an uninhabited apartment.
The wood floor blurred.
In the sudden quiet, my heart was a drum beating in my ears. Survival a song now screaming through my veins.
Move.
Everything ached as though it were as fresh as the moment I’d been branded, but I had to move. I couldn’t stay in this apartment. Not when every faerie who wished me ill would begin the search for me here.
A brief glance around showed no sign of breaking and entering. No sign of new residents or that Madam Morin had been here at all. Everything was still just as I’d left it. Just as Rolina had wanted it.
I had no time to be puzzled over that.
I opened the door and hurried to the stairs. Too fast—I stumbled and winced, slapping a bloodstained hand to the wall. Drawing a breath through my nose as pain spiraled up my back, I slowed my pace.
But there was no slowing the beat of my heart when I saw the familiar door in the wall. I shoved it hard. So hard I fell through in a bloodied, tangled pile that made Gane shriek like a crow.
“Mother of murderous skies, Flea.”
I blinked up at the mildew-dotted rafters in the ceiling, so relieved to see them again that more tears left my eyes.
Then I rolled to my side as Gane scuttled from his desk and came close to shouting, “You’re naked. Why are you…” His voice trailed into an odd-sounding gasp. “The mark.”
I couldn’t seem to say a word.
Now that I was here, safe—even if only for a short period until I figured out where to go next—every drop of adrenaline fled. The mess Molkan had made of my back flared with blistering heat.
I groaned, curling my legs into my stomach.
Gane was muttering. Whether it was to himself or me, I didn’t know. Something soft was soon draped over my lower body. Color leaked from the library, not even its comforting scent capable of keeping my eyes open.
I forced them wide and flinched when my hands were touched. I pulled them toward me.
After setting down a bundle of bandages and a knife, Gane raised his hairy hands. “I just want to check your injuries.” His eyes were damp. I’d never seen his eyes damp. “That’s all.”
The sight shocked me enough that he could turn my wrists carefully. “Iron burns,” he said softly, and then he pushed my blood-streaked hair from my face. I recoiled slightly, and a tear fell from his dark eye to his bushy cheek. “You should’ve listened to me, Flea.”
I just blinked, unable to argue when he was right and I was hurting too much to care.
His voice was hoarse. “I need to get better supplies, okay? I’ll be right back.”
I thought I might have nodded. I heard him walk away, and I stared at the kitchen knife he’d left lying next to the useless bandages in an effort to stay awake.
The temperature dropped.
A warmth of awareness brushed at my nape.
Gane hadn’t returned from his private quarters, yet I sensed I wasn’t alone in the library. I scrambled to pull the blanket around my body and sit up, my hand slipping. I looked down at the wooden floor. Blood.
More blood.
A snow flurry floated toward it like a moth to a flame.
The haze filming my mind cleared as the invading presence slid along my skin like the threat of a new blade.
Booted steps neared. Measured and unhurried. I’d recognize the sound of them anywhere. I’d know the touch of his energy—that cold heat—lifetimes from now.
The aching agony ceased to throb with the paused beat of my heart as I looked down the aisle of books.
Snow flurries drifted in his wake, a dagger in one hand and a large sack in the other.
Though his features had been honed into indifference, menace rolled from him to flood the library in an acidic cloud that glossed at my skin in warning.
Adrenaline finally returned.
I slid over the blood, seizing the knife Gane had left.
Books tumbled to the floor as I used the shelves before me to rise on weak legs while clutching the weapon and blanket tight at my chest.
His hair was unbound and finger-swept. The near-black strands swayed over his shoulders with the winter breeze he’d brought with him.
The dagger glinted in the late afternoon sun when he twirled it in his hand and slowly came to a stop mere inches from me. “Do you wish to stab me, butterfly?” Florian’s iced features cracked with a cruel smirk. “Make it quick.”
I trembled, failing to draw breath as the tip of his blade whispered across my jawline and his gaze brightened.
Cold violence soaked his rasped words. “I’ve a wife to punish.”