Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“Scales, the day has been so long that I almost forgot.” She looked to the sky and saw the moon was almost full. She was to meet with Cleora at the full moon for her first official training.
Are you certain that I can’t come with you? My mastery of the spirit is substantial, he argued.
She hadn’t told him about Cleora’s backward views on dragons as mere monsters and not sentient beings. She doubted very much that Cleora would understand having a dragon with her.
“I’ll run it by Cleora, and if she agrees, you can come next time.”
He sighed. Fine. Don’t die.
After the day she’d had, she needed the laugh.
“I’ll do my best.”
8
THE OFFER
ARBOR
It had taken days to arrange this meeting. She was not going to mess this up. Not even if her brother was being ornery about the whole thing.
“Shut up, Prescott,” she ground out. “There might be someone watching.”
“Who would be watching us, Arbor dearest?” he purred.
The last couple weeks had been a trial. After Fordham had rescued them from Lethbridge and ordered them to disappear, she had come up with a plan—find the people who had sold magical artifacts to the House of Shadows and ingratiate herself into their inner circle.
But after a horrible trek through unfamiliar forest to make it into Kinkadia, they had gotten the runaround. Tonight would be the night they finally met the leader of the Red Masks.
She had watched from the sidelines as the Father stripped the magic out of that half-Fae man and left him for dead. Despite her choice of allies, she had felt pity for the man. She didn’t want to see the end of half-Fae and humans. She just wanted to be on the winning side. To have her life of comfort and plenty returned to her. To use her ambition to get everything she deserved.
The Father could provide that.
He was maybe the only person in the city who could provide that now that the Society had shunned everyone from the House of Shadows. That idiot Queen Viviana had given everything away in surrender. Her puppet princess, Wynter, was missing. Fordham was missing. This was Arbor’s only chance. And she would not waste it.
“What is this about?” the Father asked in his faintly distorted voice.
She held herself firm and refused to cringe away even though everything about him repelled her. She hated that mask. What sort of man hid behind a mask when doing his dirty work?
“Father,” she said, curtsying deeply.
Prescott fell into a bow beside her. At least they had years of courtly manners to fall back on.
The Father gestured blithely with his hand, and Arbor rose to her feet again.
“I am Arbor—”
“I know who you are,” he interrupted. “You are the House of Shadows girl who has been skulking around like a gutter rat.”
Arbor’s face flushed red, but she held his gaze steady. “Yes. I escaped Lethbridge with my brother. We wish to be of service to your cause.”
“And what service could two refugees possibly provide me? You have no friends or family, no money, no alliances.”
That wasn’t precisely true. They had all of that back home in the House of Shadows. But if they went back there, they would be trapped again, and she refused to be in isolation for another minute.
“That is a fair assessment. However, we have something that you want dearly.”
His gaze slid away from her to a slip of a girl who had let them into the room. “V, check on Isa.”
She bowed deeply. “Yes, Father.” Then, the girl was gone.
The Father gestured impatiently. “Out with it. I have no time for games.”
Games were Arbor’s greatest pastime. Everything that had worked to get Wynter to do her bidding would not work with this male. She had not seen power that radiated off of someone like this before. She had been in the presence of the recently deceased King Samael of the House of Shadows for many years and found him wanting. Perhaps this Father was worth serving.
Though she would still rather be the one in charge. The one holding the strings.
“I am acquainted with Kerrigan Argon.”
“You’re wasting my time. Leave,” he said, standing and turning his back on them.
“She trusts me,” she argued. “I could get close to her. I could learn her weaknesses.”
Then, he laughed. He actually laughed. “You amuse me, Arbor of the House of Shadows. Do you think I do not already have agents who are close to her, who have her trust?”
Arbor gulped. “I thought she’d be dead already if that was true.”
“You know nothing.”
He waved his hand in a dismissal, and she saw all of her chances dropping away. Prescott squeezed her hand. He was about to say something that would ruin everything. She loved her brother more than life itself, but he was not a diplomat. He was a jester and an idealist. He would not help them in this situation.