City of Shadows by Pippa DaCosta

Author:Pippa DaCosta
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

As soon as I set foot back inside Under’s tunnels for the general’s request, it was clear something big and nasty had ripped its way through every room, every tunnel, and gone to great lengths to destroy anything it found. It couldn’t be the lytch, at least not that I knew, those things were shadows. A shadow didn’t rake four distinct claws through one of the three tapestries hanging in the lounge.

I stood in front of those tapestries, a sense of hollow emptiness inside at the sight of the shredded scenes. Reign had told me the queen had woven them before she’d become a half-spider lunatic. The fact the fae had brought the tapestries from Faerie meant they were important. Whatever had done this had no regard for fae history, or a race of people who were slowly, bit by bit, year by year, losing their identity. Something else was loose below London’s streets.

“Kael’s gonna be pissed,” I mumbled.

“Alina.” Shay stood in the doorway, an overflowing box cradled in her arms. Her silvery eyes widened at the sight of me. “Oh my.”

I’d forgotten the sight of my leathers might alarm her. “Oh, this. I’m not going to arrest you. I’m undercover. Sort of.” I think.

I smiled, despite the fear in her eyes, and the wrenching in my gut when I remembered the last time I’d seen her, writhing beneath Reign’s touch. My fake smiles seemed to come easier now.

“You appear … much changed.” She drifted farther into the room, her white lace and silk dress as glamorous as a wedding gown. She probably considered it casual. She couldn’t have looked causal in sweats. Her hair fell in a waterfall of curves down her back. She’d even braided it in some elaborate pattern. She always looked like she could have stepped out of one of the tapestries. Modern London, Starbucks lattes, Converse pumps, and cell phones were not meant for the likes of Shay.

“What happened here?” I asked, willing the unwanted memory of her and Reign deep, deep down where it couldn’t reach me.

She set the box down on a table and started to rifle through various possessions. “You don’t know?”

“No, I’ve been … distracted.” I worked my way around the broken bits of furniture and stopped beside her. She picked up a London Bridge snow globe—the type of tacky tourist item you could buy for eight bucks—and turned it over. The snow tumbled. Tears glistened in her eyes.

“Shay? What is it?”

“Reign.”

The hollowness I’d been feeling intensified. “What about Reign?”

She blinked, tossed the snow globe into her box of trinkets, and wiped a tear off her cheek. “I’d hoped it would get better. I wanted him to control it. I thought, with you, he had a chance.”

I leaned closer, so she had no choice but to look at me. Tears wet her smooth cheeks and brightened her beautiful eyes. She looked deep into her box.

“Shay, did Reign do this?”

Her bottom lip quivered.

What if Kael was right? Could Reign be behind the lytch’s escape?

“You were supposed to help him.

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