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Page 230 of The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash 3)

I had the blade in my hand, and she still hadn’t appeared. I was tired of playing with her. “This shit is making me late, Rodina.”

“Then get in your vehicle and drive away,” she said in that bouncing echo of a voice so that I had no idea where it was coming from, but even through the theatrics she sounded pleased with herself. I was suddenly almost sure where she was hiding.

“Get out from under my car, Rodina.”

“You’re only guessing.”

“Let me make this simpler, I command you to come out of hiding right now.”

“You don’t know where I am.”

“I gave you a direct order,” I said.

“I’m coming,” she said, no echoes this time, just a sigh. I don’t know if she rolled or scooted out, but she was suddenly on the other side of my SUV. She was as slender and as five foot six as when I first saw her in Ireland. Her blond hair had grown out a little, just enough to let me know it might have waves if she let it get closer to her shoulders. The temporary dyes that she’d been trying on her naturally yellow hair were gone, leaving it silvery as she stood just out of the direct light from the tall pole above my car. I always parked in the light if I could, a holdover from when I wasn’t one of the things that went bump in the night. Rodina used the shadows and her all-black clothing to hide, except her hair gave her away. Maybe she read my thought, because she pulled a hood up from her sweatshirt and it was just the pale slightly long oval of her face ruining the look.

“I miss my mask,” she said, because she could read my thoughts, I just couldn’t read hers. The idea was that Dracula’s Brides needed to know his thoughts and feelings so they could serve him perfectly, andDrac didn’t need to know anything about them because it was all about him. But I didn’t want Rodina to be all about me, so I was left staring at her across the hood of my car wondering what she was thinking, feeling, and having no idea as if we weren’t bound together by magic for all eternity or until one of us died.

“I’m sorry you miss the mask,” I said finally, because I was sorry that she missed being one of the masked and robed Harlequin, who had hidden their identities so completely that they never took the masks off in public and covered the rest of themselves in all black like she was doing now. If she’d had one of those blank-colored masks on, then depending on the color I’d know if she’d come to kill me (black), to hurt me (red), or just to talk (white).

“I didn’t at first, I reveled in not being forced to hide. I thought I would find myself.” She made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh but was so bitter I wanted a new word for it.

“I’m sorry that you don’t like your new life,” I said.

“I was one of the most feared assassins in the world, and one of the best interrogators among us, and now I’m a glorified babysitter who isn’t allowed to hurt the reporters or the civilians with their phones taking pictures and video and posting them everywhere. No one needs spies anymore because the ordinary people have given everyone eyes and ears.”

“I am sorry that you are this unhappy, Rodina.”

“But you’re also angry with me for being unhappy, I can feel it, hear it. Your thoughts and feelings invade me in a way that being my old master’s leopard to call never did.”

“I’m done apologizing.”

“Good, I don’t want apologies, my queen, I want purpose.”

“You’re stuck like everyone else trying to figure out your purpose for yourself.”

“Well, it sucks. To use one of your favorite phrases.”

“Yeah, existential dread and the search for identity is a bummer.” My voice was casual, but I knew the look on my face and my posturewasn’t. I still had the knife out, because even for Rodina she was being weird. I’d seen her in training with the other bodyguards, I knew what she was capable of.

“You have no idea what I am capable of, my white queen.”My white queenwas her newest nickname for me, I guess it beatmy dark queenormy evil queen, which she’d used for most of the time I’d known her.

“Nicky can’t read my thoughts as well as you can, he just gets my emotions mostly; why is that?”

“I have had eons to practice my mystical skills and he has not yet seen a century pass.”

“You know that’s not an answer, right?”

“It is an answer, my queen; it’s not my fault if you’re even younger than Nicky and understand even less.”

“Why are you skulking around in the parking lot, Rodina?”

“I was making certain that no one ambushed you.”

“Good, you can go back to the car, and you can all follow me to my next destination.”

“I am ordered to ride in the car with you just in case someone tries to separate you from the security in the other car.”

“Whose orders?”


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