Page 29 of The Dragon and the Dove

She stilled, her ire dissolving. ‘You’re playing dirty.’

He stepped in close, tipping her chin up. ‘I’m going to kill him, Seraphine.’ Deadly words feathered her lips, as soft as a kiss. ‘When Andreas sets foot in this city, he’ll meet the end of my dagger. I’ll gut him, burn him and scatter the ashes in the sewers of this kingdom. And then it will be over. No war. No suffering.’

He looked her over. ‘I’ll get you your peace, spitfire. No matter who I have to kill for it. Then you can rest.’

He made it sound so simple, but that voice in her soul was impossible to ignore. Even now, it prodded at her.

There is more to do, Maker.

The truth was, she had only just begun.

Her magic had no interest in rest.

It was not an argument worth having. The designs of fate were beyond them. They were only players in this game, slaves to the tides of their magic. Not each other. Not even love.

‘All right,’ she surrendered.

‘All right.’

‘Can I…?’ She gestured around her. ‘I just need a minute.’

‘Right. Of course.’ He pulled back. ‘I’ll go and check on Val.’

She locked the door after him, turning the key just as the coughing fit seized her. She barely made it to the sink, collapsing over the rim and retching until the taste of copper filled her mouth.

Forehead pressed against the cold basin, she endured the violent shifting inside herself. The feeling that a strip was being torn from the very fabric of her soul.

When she finally lifted her head, the face in the mirror was a haunted mask.

And the sink was stained blood red.

Chapter 7 Theo

Theodore Branch, of the Versini line, was having a bad hair day, which meant things were pretty fucking dire. The entire kingdom was going to shit and now he had to grapple with the bird’s nest on his head. It must be the sweat. The constant raking and tugging.

Stress was a beast, and it had its claws in his back.

You’re working yourself to the bone.

As he stood at the cloakroom mirror, combing his hair into submission, his mother’s voice echoed from a dusty room in his head. He pictured her standing in the doorway of their cottage back in Halbracht, chastising his father as he bent double over his workbench, eyeglasses fogging as he tinkered with some madcap new invention he swore would make them rich.

Come to bed, Piers. Your genius won’t desert you in your sleep.

Bed was the right idea. But Theo couldn’t sleep. Not while the city trembled in wait for the Silver-tongue Saint, and their weapon was not yet made. Not while that thing inside him writhed, growing restless, insistent…

Not while he was lying to everyone he cared about.

Bad Versini.

He glowered at his reflection, the dark circles under his eyes. At this rate, he looked as bad as Hale. And he didn’t have the creepy shadows to pull it off. Ugh. Flinging his comb, he abandoned his fight and reached for a cloak instead. It was vanity that made him don it on his way out of House Armand.

A grave mistake.

The second the Shade-imbued cloth brushed his skin, the magic inside him perked up.

The one he had been trying really hard to ignore.

Power rapped on the door of his soul, hissing: