Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
“Do you think Squeaker is all right?” I ask, worried. “Do you think the nestmaid fed her? Changed her litter? Petted her?”
“I’m positive,” Hawk reassures me, pulling on his clothes. “Magpie might be self-serving but no one’s going to take their revenge on a cat.”
I hope he’s right. That Gwenna is back—or aware of the situation—and she’ll look after Squeaker for me. My poor cat. No one’s been there to pet her and snuggle her for days. She must be feeling so abandoned. I hate that aspect of guild life—staying away from home for days on end. My cat won’t understand.
Then again, I’m probably going to be booted from the guild, so what does it matter?
I fasten my blouse, wincing at how the buttons have been ripped out by Hawk’s rampaging hands. He was in such a rush—and I was so full of my own plans—that we forgot the most basic need: birth control. There’s no sense in stressing over it now, though. What’s done is done, and if I have a Taurian’s child, I suppose my father won’t oppose my marriage nearly as strongly, will he?
As if he can sense the despairing turn my thoughts are taking, Hawk moves to my side. He takes my hand in his and kisses my knuckles. “Aspeth. I can hear you thinking.”
I sigh.
“Whatever comes next, we do it together. Remember?” He kisses my knuckles again. “I love you, little bird.”
I blink up at him in wonder. It’s the first time he’s told me that he cares for me. “I love you, too, Hawk. My husband.”
He smiles down at me, my hand tucked against his muzzle, and for a moment, I’m truly content.
But then it’s time to go. We gather our things and tidy up the crypt. I should be repulsed that we’ve spent the last several days amidst the dead, but it feels like they were watching out for us. That somewhere in the Underworld, the lady with the unpronounceable name and her husband know that I want to keep their rings together, and that if it were up to me, their crypt would remain otherwise untouched. But the guild is the guild, and if there’s a hint of magic to be found, it’ll be torn apart.
At its core, the Royal Artifactual Guild is a guild of tomb robbers. And I don’t know if I have the heart for it. Maybe I never have.
Maybe I was never meant to be Sparrow after all.
FORTY-SEVEN
ASPETH
The moment we step out of the Everbelow, I’m immediately arrested. Even Hawk’s protests can’t save me, and I’m politely but firmly dragged to the guild jail.
I didn’t even know the guild had a jail. But apparently there’s a tower with small, uncomfortable rooms that are guarded by more guild employees—repeaters. Mine has a small window that looks out upon the city, far too high up for me to jump out and try to escape. There’s a narrow cot along the wall and a small stool and a bucket to serve as a chamber pot.
Not unexpected.
I crawl into bed and sleep for what feels like days. When I wake up, there are three trays of food, untouched, sitting by the door. I’m ravenous and eat everything, and then collapse back into bed again. I wake up when someone brings me more food and water, but this time I use the water to clean up. Once I’m reasonably tidy—as reasonably as one can be in a jail cell—I sit on the stool and look out the window.
They’ve confiscated my rings, the rings I fought so hard for in order to save my father’s keep.
I knew they would, but the realization still depresses me. All of that work, all of the striving, and I still have nothing to show for it. Barnabus could be conquering my father’s keep even now. Hawk had mentioned he turned both Barnabus and Magpie over to the guild, but the fact that I’m imprisoned tells me whose side they’ve taken.
So I stare out the window and mope.
There’s nothing else to do, after all. Worrying about my cat, or my Five, or my husband or my father or my people or my own neck won’t help things, so I admire the clouds and watch people scuttle along the streets below and imagine stories for them.
Someone brings me food and water twice a day. I ask for a book to read—even if it’s just guild pamphlets about the proper binding of documentation, just something—and they ignore me. I sleep a lot, too, because when it’s dark outside, even the window provides no entertainment.
I wonder if Hawk is relieved that I’m gone, now that his rut is over. I wonder if he still feels the same.
I wonder if they’re sending him into the tunnels even now to pick clean the crypt we spent so much time in.