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Shouting, he dropped flat on his face—his left foot glued to the floor. His furious glare hit Alisdair right in the face.
“Where are your parents, boy?” Alisdair asked.
For a spell, I thought he wouldn’t answer. “Dead,” he finally snapped. “Brother, too. It’s just me now.”
“I see.” He looked to Foalan. “Cut off his hands.”
“What!”
The boy burst into tears as Foalan stepped off the dais.
“Foalan, don’t move,” I barked, shooting up. “You’re not cutting off anything. You’re not putting hand or magic on that boy!” I whirled on Alisdair. “What is wrong with you! Are you insane?”
Alisdair picked at something under his claw. “Being an orphan doesn’t excuse thievery, little bird. Destroying a man’s livelihood must be punished. The law is unforgiving, but it is the law.”
“What law!”
He looked me straight in the eyes. “Me.”
I clamped down hard on my jaw, penning in a string of obscenities that would’ve made half the room faint.
“No,” I forced out, “being orphaned doesn’t excuse thievery, but it does explain it. He’s alone in the world and he needs our help. We’ll help you,” I said, turning on the little boy. “And, Sir Jotham, we’ll pay you what you would’ve made for the jam.”
I clapped. “Bradach, Aeris, will you see to it that Jotham gets his payment, and that this boy—”
“Sentence denied,” Alisdair sliced in. “Foalan, continue.”
Foalan converged on him, ratcheting the boy’s screams louder.
“I told you not to fucking move!” I jumped between them, and tore Foalan’s sword from its sheath. I leveled it directly against his heart. “Why would you reject my solution?” I demanded of Alisdair, but stayed fixed on Foalan. Commander of Lumenfell’s army, I knew I only disarmed him because he let me. When he made a move to get his sword back, I had to be ready.
“There’s no reason for you to say no.”
“There’s every reason. This isn’t an orphanage or a charity. Once word gets out that you’re throwing coin at every merchant with a down-on-their-luck story, and taking in every weepy beggar child, we’ll be inundated with pleas—and then despised by everyone rejected.”
My eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t give me that horseshit. When the bird faeriken were stealing, coin and housing are exactly what you gave them!”
“In exchange for work,” he bellowed back, slamming his fist on the chair arm. “They couldn’t fight their instincts. This boy has no such excuse. Foalan!”
I growled at Foalan when he dared to twitch. “I’ll shove this sword so far through your heart, it’ll come out your ass!” Little arms threw around my waist, hugging me in a death grip. “You’re not hurting this child, Alisdair. You think it’s some kind of problem if other orphans find out I helped him, and come with their hands out?
“I say nothing would make me happier, not even if Meya parted the clouds and struck you down dead. Me and all the forgotten children of Lumenfell will toast your death with the golden goblets collecting dust in your front hall, while wearing the diamonds, necklaces, and crowns rusting in the hall above that one!”
“Diamonds don’t rust!”
“Argh!” Swinging my arms up, I lobbed the sword across the dais—flinging it directly at his head.
“Tiresome woman!” Magic stopped the tip an inch from his nose, and sent it soaring away.
Bradach cawed, jumping out of the way. The sword stuck in the wall, pinning his feather to the stone.
“Fine!” Alisdair broke the chair arm slamming his fist. It was made of pure bronze. “Since you’re so attached to the thieving little beggar, he shall receive your sentence.
“Aeris, send him to the slave marts!”
I backed away, keeping both Foalan and Aeris in my sights. The boy stumbled back with me. “That is not what I said.”
Alisdair’s grin was nasty. “You said he should be treated like the bird faeriken.”
