Page 88 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
“I won’t apologise, Zita.” Though the way his eyebrows pulled togetherlookedcontrite, and he deposited the astrolabe on the table like he couldn’t stand touching it. “I didn’t know you then. My loyalty was to my friends. Little did I know how many of them wouldn’t be so loyal to me.”
At my confused expression, he grabbed the list he’d written, not caring that he crinkled the paper. “Most of these are still in Luminis. I haven’t seen some of them in ten years.” Nose wrinkling, he shook his head. “They still look ‘normal,’ so they can remain there, living their lives without comments aboutwhatthey are, rather thanwhothey are.” The muscles and tendons of his neck corded.
No wonder he’d sworn to kill me. I’d robbed him of that.
Where once it had been a matter of pride, now it scraped over my nerves.
I swallowed, then said something I never thought I’d say to him: “I’m sorry.”
The skin around his eyes twitched tight. “Don’t be. You thought I’d killed her, and… I suppose you were right to leap to that conclusion. You did what you thought you should. It probably served me right for taking the evidence. No, just like I won’t apologise to you for doing what I thought was right at the time, you shouldn’t apologise to me. They are the ones who owe me. They were meant to be my friends.”
I looked at the names. “Roark?” I raised my eyebrows. “How was he able to wander around the city looking like that?”
Sepher grinned. “We smuggled him in. Nightfall might leave Dusk Court in charge, but it does bring the benefit of darkness, and darkness can hide a multitude of sins.”
Like Roark’s horns and grey skin.
He’d made no secret of his desire to have and hurt me. Was that what he’d done to Zinnia? My heart lurched, and I rubbed my chest like that would help contain it.
“Zita?”
“Do you think he did it?”
Sepher blinked. “No. But then again, I don’t think any of my friends would, yet we know one of them did. So perhaps this is one of those vanishingly rare occasions where I’m wrong.” The corner of his mouth twitched, but I couldn’t summon an answering smirk even if it was at his expense.
Another question bubbled in my gut. “That night… At the performance or after… or ever, really… Did you and Zinnia…?”
I must’ve fucked people who’d fucked her. After all, we played the same circuit of Albion and Elfhame year after year. We looked so alike that someone who’d paid to have private time with her would undoubtedly have requested me, too.
That wasn’t what made me queasy. It was the idea ofSepherwith her. The thought that the things he’d done with me were an echo of what he’d done with her. That I was a dim reflection of what he truly wanted.
“Me and…?” His eyes widened. “No. I didn’t do anything with your sister. She performed for us. She touched us over our clothes as she danced, but nothing more than that. Not with me.” He raised his eyebrows. “To be clear, no kissing. No sex. I’m not hiding a lie between my words to keep anything from you, like my kind enjoy doing.”
My breath out was shaky, soothing the tightness in my stomach. “Good.” I kept the word clipped, like this was just business.
“So…” I finally picked up the astrolabe. The cool metal bit through me with the knowledge that it had once belonged to the killer. “We just have to work out who this belongs to and then we know who did it.”
I turned it over. No engraved initials. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. But there was the small stamped shape of a bird. I peered closer. A gull, perhaps?
Sepher’s huge hand wrapped around my shoulder. “That’s the maker’s mark. They make dozens of these every year and have done for centuries. It’s a dead end, I’m afraid.”
I frowned up at him, jaw clenched. “Then why bother showing me?”
He squeezed, claws fully sheathed, so they didn’t prick my skin for a change. “The maker might not be able to point us to the guilty party, but it may still help us yet. Between that and the list, we have our killer cornered. Patience, little witch. Patience.”
37
Despite the fact Sepher let me walk, I scowled my way through the corridors. I wanted to continue going through the love letter I’d found with Zinnia’s belongings, as well as my old sketchbooks and the scrawled notes and drawings inside. There had to be something I’d overlooked, some little clue. Maybe I’d seen the astrolabe on the killer that night and hadn’t realised its relevance.
But, no, a week into our plotting and Sepher had arranged, of all fucking things, aparty.
“You can glare at me all you like.” He placed a hand on the small of my back, bringing me a little closer to his side. “But you’re not going to want to miss this.”
I gritted my teeth to keep from replying.
Roark. Loy. Celestine. Mayrie. Cadan. Tavin. Thurl…
The list went on and I recited it like a prayer. One of those names belonged to my sister’s killer. One of them was the person whose blood I’d thirsted for all these years.
