Read Online A Tree of Bones by Gemma Files - Free Book Online Page B

love won’t help, as I’ve lived long enough to know, Miss Clo.” Her voice roughened. “Think on why ‘mages don’t meddle,’ an’ you’ll find the truth right quick. Without the Oath, we’re all of us naked to our own hunger, just meat served up for judgement. Myself, I’ll do whatever best be done, to keep
that
day from my door . . . and y
ou — will — too.
”
    Such eyes that old woman had! Rook found himself fair melting under their regard, worn away like soap, reduced to a seat-shifting boy. Knew the others must feel much the same, considering how their own gazes fell, guiltily, to the tabletop. Soon enough, however, the spell was broken by a voice he’d frankly never hoped to hear within these precincts — soft yet horribly present, as though it sprang full-blown from the brainpan of every hex there.
    “Well put, my dark daughter. Your wisdom is admirable — your loyalty, also.”
    And in stepped the one woman-shaped thing none of ’em would have ever conjured on their own, given the option: Rainbow Lady Ixchel, the Suicide Moon herself, who came melting through the wall like all the chinks between bricks were one door split in a thousand pieces, each opening only to her command. Then hung there by Rook’s side with the exposed bones of her feet barely scraping against the floor, while her dragonfly cloak swarmed in to meet her — wrapping her close ’til nothing remained of that half-flayed corpse-face but a shimmering veil disclosing just her eyes, her too high brow and an inexplicable glimpse of purplish-dark lips strained back over teeth rendered wolf-long by her gums’ retreat.
    Catching a view of Marizol cowering in the corner, half-hid behind Berta’s skirts, she smiled; Marizol sketched a sort of answering grimace back at her, then scurried over, head hung low, when Ixchel snapped her claw-tipped fingers, and re-took her kneeling place at that dread queen’s side.
    “
Señora . . . mi reina
,” she brought out, tight and high, as though stomach-punched. “
Yo te saludo
.” While Ixchel just grinned all the wider, carding those too-sharp implements carefully through the girl’s hair.
    “I have missed you, pet; you did ill to flee me so soon, without any word where you might have gone.” Adding, to Rook, with a creepish airiness: “And you too, of course, little husband. How seldom we see each other, these days, you and I!”
    “Business of the War, ma’am,” Rook replied, deadpan. “But I do s’pose as how it’s necessary, much though I might feel the lack myself.”
    “The War, yes. Whose direction I have thus far left to you and yours — Mister Fennig, or whatever others you might accord similar trust — since, as my brother Lightning Serpent proves, this is a matter men excel at.”
    “And I’m grateful for the opportunity, that goes without saying. Was there something you wanted, wife?”
    A bit too off-hand for her liking, perhaps; Rook certainly heard almost everyone else present suck in a gasp, soft as they tried to keep it. But thankfully Marizol, already deft at trying to draw her attention away, chose this very moment to volunteer — “Apologies,
señora
. . . it was remiss of me, I know.
Lo siento mucho, mi dama celestial.
”
    Ixchel chucked her beneath the chin, drawing blood. “Ah, child! You are so young. I understand — you meant no disrespect. How could you possibly know how very much you mean to me, and why?”
    How indeed
, Rook thought, seeing Marizol shake under the Lady’s touch, a discreet tear streaking from one eye.
Goddamn yet one more time this bed I made, let alone the filthy butcher-shop diablerie I have to practise, daily, in order to stay here!
    This was just what came of being a hypocrite, though, he guessed — a faithless preacher, sworn to false idols.
Chess
never would’ve stood for it, in any of his forms, for though ass-kissing was an art he’d excelled at (literally, at least), the mere grinding repetition of paying Ixchel