Page 127 of A Touch of Poison
I missed a step. Bastian had tied his magic to his vow. I’d felt power on my skin but hadn’t realised it wasthat.
Suddenly my eyes burned. Because that wrongness wasn’t just gone, it was…
It wasright.
The last crack sealed. The last seed sprouted. The last bit of distance between us closed.
My heart kicked to life like it had been dead until now, filling me with warmth.
I wanted Bastian. Not just to kiss him or fuck him—not the temptation we’d battled since I’d woken in Elfhame—but something bigger.
“I need to find him.” He was due to meet us later—the Serpent might work most of the Solstice but even he was allowed a little time to celebrate. But I couldn’t wait until then. “I’m going to the palace.”
“Yes, you are!Memento mori, my friend.” Ella clasped her hands and gave the widest smile I’d ever seen. “Go get that idiotic Shadow.”
Rose and Ari shooed me away, and Perry and Asher shot me curious glances.
Pulse leaping, I dived into the crowd.
As I wound towards a wider street leading to the city centre, I tried to think of what to say when words seemed pathetic and small compared to how I felt.
That was when the screams began.
47
Kat
Distant at first, I thought the screams were part of a performance. Folk continued milling along the roads, but then they grew louder, closer, more numerous, and the crowd responded. Tension thrummed as people lifted their heads, frowning, listening, turning towards the sounds coming from the city walls.
I craned and tiptoed, trying to spot something,anything, but all I could see were the backs of fae much taller than me.
Unsafe.
My rushing blood knew it a split second before the crowd turned.
Like a tidal wave, they surged.
They carried me along, faster and faster, a frightened buzz of questions and warnings swallowing me up.
“Did you see?”
“My boy! Where’s my boy?”
I pulled my coat tight around myself and checked my sleeves overlapped with my gloves as I fought to keep up. Looking back, I couldn’t spot anything, but their panicked eyes and the screams that came ever closer told me enough to know thatawaywas the right direction.
“What is it?” I tried to ask, but people pressed in from all sides. I used my elbows to keep enough space around myself to breathe in the hot, stuffy air and keep one foot in front of the other.
A terrible stench rose over the smell of sweat and fear and forgotten spiced buns. It blocked my throat, and as the crowd surged, I lost my footing, lifted in the swell of bodies.
I wasn’t touching the floor anymore. There was no space to breathe. My bow dug into my spine—if it had been a human-crafted weapon, it would’ve snapped by now.
Panting, I lifted my head and tried to keep my face above the smother of coats and backs and away from grasping hands. I stretched my feet down. I needed control. Solid ground.
If I fell, I’d be crushed.
Elbows jabbed my ribs, pushing out the little air I managed to suck in. Magic hummed around me, aggressive and dangerous. I didn’t need to see my hands to know they were fully stained. I couldfeelthe poisonous haze threatening to break through my skin.
No. Not here. Not now.
