Chapter 218: A little birdie told me...

BRADLEY

I read it once, then again.

A cold sensation crept up the back of my neck, settling at the base of my skull.

The monster we sealed.

There was no mistaking his meaning.

Lycaon.

I pressed the call button.

The phone rang five times before the call diverted to voicemail. As I listened to the ringing, I pictured Lysander somewhere in the old manor, his phone buzzing against a table while he attended to whatever had demanded his attention. I imagined him reaching for it at the last moment, only to find that I’d given up and hung up.

The voicemail tone sounded.

I cleared my throat.

"I will do as you have asked, Your Majesty. But do call me when you’re less occupied."

My voice sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet office. I paused, listening to the faint crackle of the recording, and glanced back at the open drawer.

The red vial sat among its companions, its contents dark and still.

For one uncomfortable moment, I had the distinct impression that something was watching me.

Not from the window, nor from the doorway, nor from any of the shadowed corners of the office. The sensation was more primitive than that, a prickle beneath the skin that made me conscious of my own breathing. I held still until it passed, then returned my attention to the phone.

"I also think reaching out to the Shelters will be difficult. We haven’t told them what happened to their daughter." I hesitated, searching for a way to make the words sound less cruel than they were. "Perhaps it’s time we did. There may be some among them who are too overcome by grief to listen, who will lash out regardless of how carefully we explain the circumstances. I can’t blame them for that. Whatever we do, it will hurt."

I rubbed my thumb against the edge of the phone.

"But it must be done. And I’m sure there will be at least one among them who can look past their grief long enough to help us."

I fell silent.

My thumb hovered over the screen, poised above the button that would send the message on its way. There was still something I hadn’t said, something that had been pressing against the back of my mind since I’d heard Lysander’s request.

Tell him.

The thought came without warning, clear enough that I nearly looked around to see who had spoken.

Tell him about the order. About the voicemail. Tell him what Cornelius asked of you.

My grip tightened around the phone.

He isn’t his uncle. He might surprise you. This is who your allegiance should be to now anyway. Shouldn’t he be priorty?

I stared at the screen, the words forming in my mind with an insistence I found difficult to ignore. I had spent so long measuring Lysander against the man who had come before him that I had almost forgotten they were not the same person. Cornelius had made his wishes clear, and I’d given my word. But Lysander was King now, and whatever reservations I had about trusting him, I could no longer pretend that keeping him ignorant was the same as protecting him.

I drew a breath.

"Also," I began, more slowly this time, "I shouldn’t tell you this on a recording, but I received..."

A sound cut across the room.

"Caw."

I whirled around.

The blinds were halfway closed, and beyond the slats, perched on the outer windowsill, was a shape.

I didn’t stop to think. My thumb struck the screen, sending the message before I could reconsider, and I stood there with my heart hammering against my ribs, the phone hanging forgotten at my side.

Then I crossed the office, one measured step at a time.

The blind’s cord felt slick in my palm. I pulled it, and the slats rolled upward with a dry rattle, revealing a raven perched on the stone sill.

It was the wrong size. That was the first thing I noticed. A raven ought to have been roughly the size of a loaf of bread, but this one was considerably larger, its body nearly the length of my forearm from breast to tail. Its chest was broad, its frame unnaturally heavy, as though something had been packed beneath its feathers that had no business being there.

And its feathers were wrong.

Not merely black, but a black that seemed to drink the daylight around it. The plumage lay in unnervingly precise rows along its wings, each feather aligned with the next like the overlapping plates of some armoured beast. Its eyes were rimmed in red, wet and glistening, with no discernible pupils. Only two bright pits reflecting the pale sky beyond the window.

It didn’t blink.

More unsettling still, it didn’t appear to breathe. I watched its breast for the slightest rise and fall, but nothing moved.

"Go on," I muttered. "Get the fuck out of my sight."

The raven tilted its head.

Slowly, its beak parted. I braced for a shriek, but what emerged was a low, dry clicking, like a joint cracking somewhere deep inside a body.

I reached for the cord again, intending to shut the blind and leave the thing to whatever business it had outside my window.

The raven twisted its neck.

Its head turned all the way around, rotating until its beak pointed backward over its own spine. The vertebrae crackled, each sharp pop carrying through the sudden silence of the office, until the movement stopped at an angle no living bird could have survived.

For one frozen second, it stared at me from that impossible position.

Then it released its grip on the sill and dropped.

It plunged out of sight without so much as a flap of its wings. A moment later, something struck the stone below with a wet, heavy slap.

"What the fuck," I whispered.

"My apologies for the gore."

The voice came from behind me, light and amused, yet unmistakably female.

"But if I were to show up here in this form," she continued, "some sacrifices had to be made."