Page 111 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
“I know. I heard it all. That’s the only reason I let him leave.” His hands closed around my shoulders. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
I frowned up at him. “I thought you didn’t apologise.”
“This…” He sighed, eyebrows pulling together like my pain was his. “This and you are the exception. To a lot of things.” The corner of his mouth tugged, but everything about his expression was edged with sadness and frustration.
“This whole night… all this planning… for nothing.” The astrolabe’s edges bit into my fingers.
He stroked the hair from my face with just the tips of his claws. “We’ll make a new plan. I’ll extend their invitation. Or we’ll outright ask each of them in turn. Screw subtlety. I’ll make them tell us. They won’t be able to lie.”
So patient. So rational. But I wasn’t in a rational place. I was drowning in disappointment and hurt and anger, and my lingering grief was a distant tidal wave closing in, ready to finish the job.
Much as I’d accepted death as an inevitable outcome of my vengeance, I wasn’t ready to let anything drag me under until I’d taken the one who’d taken her.
Shaking my head, I twisted away. “I need…” I tossed the astrolabe on the table, but my fingers wouldn’t give up the dagger. “I need some time.”
He stood back, hands fisted at his sides. “We can go back to our—”
“Time alone.” It came out far harsher than I’d intended, but he didn’t flinch.
After everything we’d done to each other, of course he didn’t.
“Zinnia and I”—I softened my voice—“we would go up on the catwalks to chat. It’s hard to get privacy in a performance troupe, but we found it there. It’s where I do my best thinking.”
For a moment, he stood there, stiff and frowning. At last he exhaled. “Fine. But keep that on you.” He nodded at the dagger. “I want you armed. Just in case.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t arm me when you left me to walk back to our room from the dining room, your come on my belly.” I couldn’t let him get away with that.
“You really think I left you to walk through the halls in tattered clothes stinking of sex?” He shook his head, the furrow in his brow deepening. “I followed at a distance. I watched you the whole way back.”
Through my haze of disappointment, it hit me. Even amongst the hurt, there had been care. After I’d nearly died in the snow, his punishments had shifted to things that didn’t truly endanger me. There had been no more hunts where his friends might get hold of me. There had been no hounds. It had all beendifferentafter that.
I rubbed my head, not able to process this alongside Cadan’s revelation about Zinnia.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” Sepher murmured, “find a way that doesn’t involve you killing them all.” The sardonic twist of his mouth lit the smallest flame of happiness inside me.
I nodded and headed backstage. Before I ducked behind the curtains to the steep staircase leading up to the catwalks, I paused and watched him stalk away along the theatre’s aisle. His squared shoulders spelled out his tension. My pushing him away had hurt him, but he’d still given me space.
Yet hurting him hurt me.
“Sepher.” I said it softly, but even before he stopped and turned, I knew his shapechanger hearing would pick it up. “It’s Marigold.”
With a small frown, he cocked his head in question.
“My name. It’s Marigold.”
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t mock or tease me about how sweet a name it was. He simply stood there a long while before giving a soft smile and nodding like it made sense.
Then he was gone.
I climbed to the old theatre’s jumbled catwalks and circled right around to the central walkway. From here, I could see the entire stage. The astrolabe. The empty glasses. The discarded chairs. It was like seeing the whole table in poker, along with every hand.
But right now, I only knew what Sepher and Cadan held. And the game was about to end.
My eyes blurred again at the unfairness of it all. Zinnia deserved better than this. I’d worked so hard, and I was so sure it would lure the killer out. It had been enough to bring Cadan to me, hadn’t it? Why not—?
The scuff of a shoe on wood snagged my thoughts.
At the end of the walkway, silhouetted against the dim light, stood a figure.
