Page 71 of The Filigree Key

The red-haired Brother yanked open his shirt, and, even from where I watched through the crack in the side door, I could see his heart beating wildly in his chest.

With a sneer, the Stag Man stabbed him with a bolt of copper magic. The Brother howled as his Solomon knot was removed, steam and the stench of burning hair and grease lifting into the air.

In the fireplace, the blue flames leapt with hellish glee. The grizzly bear growled again but didn’t rise. His amber eyes remained watchful, fixed on the sight before him.

The Stag Man repeated the procedure until every Brother was left with a bare sternum and shaking from the ordeal. Carissa he’d made crawl across the floor using only her hands, arms, and willpower, her broken legs trailing out uselessly behind her.

Resuming his calm and ignoring Carissa’s sniveling, he inquired of Alec, “And the cats?”

The leader of the Brotherhood wet his lips and gave a single shake of his head.

“I see.”

A snap of his fingers released a final bolt of magic. Copper lightning skewered a brown-haired Brother through his gut—the leader of the second team sent after the cats. The crackling, writhing rope, still attached to the fae king’s hand, jerked the Brother into the air with a nonchalant flick of the Stag Man’s fingers.

The magic hunter screamed, pawing at his stomach. Each line of Faerish script leapt from his body, but not at his command. Face dispassionate, the fae king flicked his fingers again.

Each script condensed into a bluish-green serpent. There had to be over a dozen of them, some larger and longer than others. Despite their size, each snapped open their jaws in eerie unison, glowing fangs catching the moonlight before sinking into the Brother’s skin.

His scream of pain became a blood-curdling howl of terror.

The line of Brothers broke with horrified shouts, scattering out of the way. Tears streaming down her face, Carissa desperately dragged herself out from under the air where the magic hunter twisted on the copper rope like a worm on a hook.

No matter how hard he fought, the brown-haired Brother could not dislodge the serpents. They sucked greedily, the magic hunter weakening within seconds. Soon, he couldn’t scream at all. Then he couldn’t breathe, his flesh pale and emaciated and shrinking against his bones as the serpents literally sucked the life out of him.

With a snap, the husk of a man broke into dust, and the engorged snakes slopped against the ground with wet thuds.

The biggest snake slithered up the dais at the fae king’s command, and the Stag Man bent down to collect it. Then he bit its head off and let the Brother’s magic and life essence drain into the empty gemstones at his throat. What was leftover, he gave to Shane. Of course he’d power up my executioner.

“Better catch them before they slither off,” Ossian told the magic hunters dryly. “Don’t think there’s enough for all of you.”

The Brotherhood pounced. Forgetting the camaraderie inherent in their name, they fought each other for the chance at a snake, punching and tackling and even using their magic.

“Hurry, Carissa,” the Stag Man urged, his jewel-like eyes bright. “Catch one. Get a big one so it can heal your legs.”

Bile rising in my throat, I’d turned away and fled to the east wing to hurl up my dinner in the privacy of my own bathroom.

Now, as I paced to the great hall this morning, I wondered if the Brotherhood had been successful in catching every snake. What if there was a little one coiled up in the shadow of a chair leg? One that I could catch and use to give Auggie a boost with his rune-chewing? Then I could sneak off to the atrium to see Gwyn and—

I stopped short, the figure by the double doors stepping out of the archway’s gloom and into the gray slant of sunlight.

A new line of Faerish script crawled like ivy from shoulder to shoulder, drooping low down Alec’s chest like a necklace. His blue eyes had a mad gleam to them, but that dagger he’d tried to stab me with yesterday was nowhere in sight.

Half a dozen paces away, I thrust my hip out to the side, hand perching on the foraging bag balancing there. His eyes darted to the bag—he’d never had a good experience with it.

“If you think I haven’t learned from the last time you shoved me in there to face an unchained bear, then you’re not as smart as Ossian gives you credit for,” I told him. “I’ll wait here for him, thank you. You can go.”

Alec didn’t move from his spot, though a tremor had started in his shoulders that manifested as a twitch in his fingers. A clench. Like he was envisioning my eyes bulging as he collapsed my throat like a soda can.

Would he obey his oath to Ossian, or would he break it? The sooner I didn’t have to watch my back around him, the better, so I decided to give him a nudge.

I jerked my chin at his new line of Faerish script. “That’s a nice new tattoo. When’d you get that?”

“You have no idea what I had to do for this,” he whispered. “Graham was a good man.”

No magic hunter was a good man or woman. They stole magic, robbing lives and spreading terror in their wake.

I gave Alec a cool look. “Ossian is the King of Beasts. Did you think you could exist in his court without spilling a little blood?”